Review: If You’re a Drag Queen and You Know It.

De Dios’ illustrations are over the top, capture some incredible expressions are sure to invoke a giggle or two. As for the text, it’s your standard “If you’re happy and you know it” book, designed to get you out of your seat and moooooving! Read it to one, or better yet, to a classroom and prepare to have a great time!

Review: The Library Bus

Bahram Rahman tells the story of a woman and her daughter who travel around Afghanistan on a bus filled with books, not seats, to teach young girls English. They allow them to borrow books, and give them English lessons once per week. It is often not enough, but it is what they can do to make a difference in the lives of these girls.

Review: Anthony and the Gargoyle

This wordless picturebook lets you travel in time from generation to generation. Through illustrations done in a decidedly warm Parisian pallet Kastelic pushes thoughts to run free in a collection of images that propel Bogart’s narrative forward. Illustrated in graphic-novel style, each panel, gives the reader plenty to discuss. Discussion, essential, as it engages children in much needed analysis essential to developing reading and comprehension skills. This book is ripe for dialogic reading.

Review: HEADSTRONG HALLIE!

If you are looking for a story of adventure, determination, and perseverance consider picking up Headstrong Hallie. The story of Hallie Morse Daggett is a great example for young children because it shows that they can do anything they want, despite the impossible barriers that stand in the way of their dream.

Review: My Rainy Day Rocket Ship

This book follows an inquisitive, precocious little Black boy as he battles boredom and a rainy day with his imaginative pretend play. It starts, of course, with a cardboard box, and rolls on from there – dishrags, socks, goggles, swimming trunks – nothing is spared on this little boy’s quest to launch his rocket ship, all through the day right into B-E-D!

Review: El Increíble Barco del Capitán Marco (Spanish)

This book rings all the bells: an engaging story, a hands on activity, bold illustrations. Get ready to read this one again and again.

Review: Hugo No Puede Dormir (Spanish)

The illustrations are dark (it is nighttime after-all) and vivid. They practically jump off the page in bold colors. The dialogue is streamlined and engaging. A solid bedtime story.

Review: They’re So Flamboyant

In this engaging book, filled with artful, amusing, alliteration, Genhart weaves a tale of inclusion and exclusion using different birds to bring out assumptions about a group that is new to the neighborhood. Each bird type, begging to be read in a different voice/accent (you and the kid will have more fun that way), finds a different reason to exclude, fear, mistrust the flamboyance.

REVIEW: UNICORN DAY

This is a sweet, fun book that can help reinforce one of the earliest phonological skills: rhyming. Using a book with characters children love and being able to talk about words that rhyme is a win-win for everyone.

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