REVIEW: My Family Four Floors Up

This book follows a father, daughter, and their little puppy through their day in a big city. They have breakfast, they go to the park, they get rained out of the park, they come home and they have bath time, supper time, story time, and bedtime. An ordinary and uneventful day.

REVIEW: Natsumi’s Song of Summer

Natsumi’s Song of SummerAuthor: Robert Paul WestonIllustrator: Misa SaburiAges: 3-7Tundra Books There is nothing quite like being young in the summertime. The endless possibilities, the

Review: The Bear and the Moon

Our hero is a sweet little bear, who one day chances to come across a red balloon. (Why are they always red? If you don’t have “99 Luftballons” in your head, you are not as old as I am.) The bear is enchanted by the simple pleasures of playing with a balloon, and proceeds to show his new playmate his home.

Review: The Runaway shirt

Now that my kids are six, I can look back at their toddlerhood with a nostalgia born of the security of time and distance. This book was a little bit of an unexpected gut punch.

Review: The Mighty Silent E

Little e is a cute little letter who knows he is a hero; after all, he comes from a long line of distinguished Es.

Now if only he can prove it. He has his cape at home and dreams of being a hero, but at school no one pays him any attention. Probably because he doesn’t have much to say.

REVIEW: Violet Shrink

Violet Shrink, by Christine Baldacchino, and illustrated by Carmen Mok, is really a parents’ how-to manual masquerading as a children’s picture book, but not to worry, kids will appreciate it too.

REVIEW:The Homesick Club

Mónica and Hannah have a new teacher, Miss Shelby, and they have more in common with her than they think. Mónica is from Bolivia, and misses her grandmother, and the hummingbirds they fed together in the backyard. Hanna is from Israel, and misses the way the wind whooshes through the desert, and the tortoise that lived in the sand dunes outside her house. Together, Mónica and Hannah form the Homesick Club

Review: There Must Be More Than That!

This book is a fantastic leap into the mind of a young child burdened with her older sibling’s doom-and-gloom predictions for the future. Upset, they go to grandma who assuages their fears and shows them that beyond all the predictions of bad things lies the possibilities of good things.

Review: Bedtime for Sweet Creatures

Another book in the bedtime-for-little-kids genre! Another good book I should add. A very patient and imaginative mother (why is it always a mom?) [Editor’s Note: Because books about fathers are rarely published.] goads her fiercely independent daughter to bed. The scene is familiar to anyone who has tried to coax an unwilling child of their own to bed.

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