Tedd Arnold Books

It's been awhile since I've done a children's book review, so I thought I'd jump in and get one done. Today I want to tell you about another of my favorite children's book author/illustrators, Tedd Arnold.

The first book we discovered in our house is the book Parts. It's hilarious and silly, and it rhymes throughout, so it's a really fun book to read to the kids.

It's about a little boy who thinks the glue that holds his parts together isn't holding him together anymore. In reality, there's a perfectly good explanation for the things he's discovering about his body. It reminds me a little of my Drama Llama, Zoe Bug.

Here's a small sampling:

I think it was three days ago
I first became aware--
That in my comb were caught a couple
Pieces of my hair.

I stared at them, amazed, and more
Than just a bit appalled
To think that I was only five
And starting to go bald!

I think the illustrations are every bit as good as the writing. Tedd Arnold favors pop-eyed people, and what kid doesn't love that?

Perhaps my favorite part of this book is at the end where his parents are trying to explain to him that he's not falling apart. The illustration shows them holding a book entitled Parenting for Beginners. It gives me a little chuckle because sometimes I feel like I need that book.

Our other favorite by Tedd Arnold is Catalina Magdalena Hoopensteiner Wallendiner Hogan Logan Bogan Was Her Name.

It's a mouthful, for sure, but that's part of the appeal. It's super fun to read. Catalina is a big-time dufus, which Arnold illustrates well. On just about every page you have to say her long name, so by the end you get really good at it and can do it all sing-songy like.

I really love the ending to this book because Catalina gets married and her new last name is hilarious in contrast to the rest of her name. The last page of the book, at her wedding, is . . .

Catalina Magdalena Hoopensteiner Wallendiner Hogan Logan Bogan SMITH was her name.

The Spider and the Fly

I bet when you saw that title you thought this was going to be another bitter post where I bring up my former boyfriend. Am I right?

Well, it's not. I shall try not to sink back into those depths again.

On account of Halloween being this week, I thought it would be a good time to recommend this book to you.

This book is The Spider and the Fly, retold and illustrated by Tony DiTerlizzi.  The illustrations are fabulous black and white pencil drawings with an incredible amount of detail. 

In fact, this book received a Caldecott Medal, which, in case you aren't familiar, is awarded annually by the Association for Library Service to Children, to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children published that year.

DiTerlizzi's book is based on the poem written by Mary Howitt in 1829. It was a warning to her own children about those who use sweet words to hide their not-so-sweet intentions. Kind of like the former boyfriend.

Oh sorry. I wasn't going to do that.

While I'm thinking about it though, I want to tell you about the creepy Vincent Price expressions the spider dons throughout the book.  It's really quite comical.  The spider is very proper and eloquent, while at the same time being dang creepy.

The fly is probably the cutest fly you'll ever see, as she is petite and pretty, dressed as a little flapper and carrying a parasol with three of her four dainty little arms. Since she is an insect, and we all know they have six appendages, you must know that the other two are shown as her dainty little legs with her pretty little feet in high heels.

To give you a small taste of the language in this book, here is the first page:

"Will you walk into my parlor?" said the Spider to the Fly.

"Tis the prettiest little parlor that ever you did spy;

The way into my parlor is up a winding stair,

And I have many curious things to show you when you are there."

Because of it's language and the poetry, it's a lot of fun to read aloud.

And if that's not enough, there are enough visuals to keep you entertained for days. For example, the spider has a copy of The Joy of Cooking Bugs, which I love because I happen to own my own copy of The Joy of Cooking.

The story goes on as the poem does, a little verbal dance between the spider and the fly.  He flatters the shallow fly and finally tricks her to get close enough to catch her. As he says, he always gets his bug.

At the end of the book, the dainty little fly is all wrapped up in the spider's web, with her four hands sticking out of the tight cocoon she's wrapped in, and one of those hands is holding fast to her little purse. Her feet are crossed and poking out the bottom and she is wrapped all the way up to her bugged out, surprised little eyeballs.

I promise, you will love this book.

Fortunately

Today I want to share a book with you that I learned about when I was in the Teaching Credential Program.  In this program, I had a professor who, like me, had a children's book fetish. This professor introduced me to lots of excellent books that, of course, I just had to have.  You could say that said professor enabled me to further rationalize my buying of children's books when a) I didn't have any kids yet, and b) I was planning on teaching middle school.

Here's a little peek at my bulging children's book collection.

I'm the first to admit that I have a problem.  However, we're not here to talk about that today, are we?  I want to tell you about this book, Fortunately by Remy Charlip.

Here's a little peek at what the book is like:

Fortunately

one day, Ned got a letter that said,

"Please Come to a Surprise Party."

But unfortunately

the party was in Florida

and he was in New York.

Fortunately

a friend loaned him an airplane.

Unfortunately

the motor exploded.

Fortunately

there was a parachute in the airplane.

Unfortunately

there was a hole in the parachute.

Fortunately

there was a haystack on the ground.

Unfortunately

there was a pitchfork in the haystack.

Fortunately

he missed the pitchfork.

Unfortunately

he missed the haystack.

Now that I've plagiarized half the book, I'm sure you get the idea.  

This is the kind of book that children can really get involved in, trying to anticipate what will happen next.  It also allows them to stretch their imaginations by coming up with more fortunately/unfortunately possibilities.

My favorite lesson to do with this book is for elementary age students.  You simply tell them that they're going to write and publish their own Fortunately book.  It's a model that's relatively easy for children to follow, while allowing endless variations.

It's fun for them to tell a story with the fortunately/unfortunately viewpoint each step along the way.  They can base their book on a story in their life that actually happened, with embellishments, of course.  Or, they could come up with an entirely fictional story only limited by their imaginations.  It's a fun activity to do with kids that results in an enjoying read for adults.

Another nifty idea that I love, I got off of the Barnes & Noble website.  It's to have kids use this model when writing book reports.  This would take some of the tedium out of the whole book report process, don't you think?  

David Catrow Illustrated Children's Books

It's been awhile since I've written about my children's book fetish, so I went searching through the bookcase to find some good ones.  Today I decided to focus on some books where I particularly like the illustrations.  David Catrow illustrations are some of my favorites. He makes caricatures of people that are just hilarious.

This first book, The Boy Who Looked Like Lincoln, is written by Mike Reiss, and it's about Benjy who is eight years old and looks like Lincoln.  As you can imagine, he gets teased about his looks.  He hears "Hey, Stinkin' Lincoln!" and "Split any rails lately?" Ha, ha, ha, right?

My personal favorite was always "Hey Jill, where's Jack?" to which my reply after awhile became "Gee, I haven't heard that one before."  Pretty snotty, I know.  I never made any friends with that one either.

Anyway, I'll try to focus here, Benjy's parents send him to a summer camp for kids who look like things.  There he meets all sorts of kids that make him feel better about himself.  The kicker is when his baby brother, Dickie, is born and looks like another famous president.  I won't tell you which one, but you can probably guess.

Stand Tall Molly Lou Melon by Patty Lovell is another of my favorites.  The plot is predictable, but the humor in this book is in the illustrations.  Molly Lou Melon looks a little goofy and she gets teased by Ronald Durkin who likes to call her Bucky-Tooth Beaver.  Molly Lou Melon doesn't let Ronald Durkin's bullying bother her, and instead she wins him over.  It reinforces the sticks and stones message in a good way.

Are You Quite Polite? by Alan Katz and David Catrow is a book of silly manner songs which are really pretty cute.  Here are a few titles for you to ponder: Jimmy Picks Boogers, Don't Talk with Beans in Your Mouth, and Peter the Sneezer.  Here's the first verse of the title song,  Are You Quite Polite? sung to the tune of "Do Your Ears Hang Low?"

Are you quite polite

Having dinner every night?

Do you stomp up to the table

And then chomp in monster bites?

Are you eating or just slurping?

And do you conclude by burping?

Are you quite polite?

On second thought, I might need to show this one to Peanut Head for a closer look.

This next book, We the Kids, is on my wish list.  It's about the Preamble to the Constitution.  I love books that are funny and teach kids something at the same time.  And if they add some over-the-kids'-heads humor in for the parents, even better.

I've posted about this book before, I Ain't Gonna Paint No More! and it's another great one illustrated by Mr. Catrow.

David Catrow has other books that I've not pictured here, but these are the ones that I'm familiar with and love.

I Wanna Iguana by Karen Kaufman is the last of his illustrated books that we have in our library.  This book is a series of notes written back and forth by Alex and his mother, with Alex listing all the reasons why he should have an Iguana for a pet and his mother's replies why he should not.  I think all of us can relate to this one, as most of us have begged our parents for a pet at one time or another.  

In fact, I'm currently on the other end of this argument as the girls have been begging us for a fish.  I am insistent that I don't want any caged animals (cleaning the cage grosses me out) and I really don't want something that swims in its own poop.  Eeeew!  Grody with a capital G.

Magic Treehouse Books & Activities

My good friend and fellow cropper, Renee, passed along an entire boxed set of Magic Tree House books, complete with the most amazing projects to accompany each of the books. 

She bought the set when her son, Marmaduke (as named by me because he's 7 feet tall and has ginormous puppy feet and tree like limbs that he has no control over at all), was in elementary school and reading the series. Well, Marmaduke is now 14, maybe 15, and has long since finished with this series.  So, what great luck for my girls, eh?

In the picture above, Thing 1 made two Sea Serpents out of clay and painted them.  This was the project that accompanied the Viking Ships at Sunrise book.  The kits include everything needed to complete the project.

This is the project for Lions at Lunchtime.  This particular one is a papier mache project, and can I just tell you how much Thing 1 has been loving these activities?

Here she is with her hands in the icky gluey mess.  Thing 2 could never handle this project as she can't stand messy things on her hands.  She eats finger foods with a napkin protecting her hands like a glove.  I'm sad to say that she gets a little bit of this from me, only she has magnified the little quirk ten fold.

We go through napkins in this house like nobody's business. It's a good thing that Thing 1 is going to do all these projects before that little stinker has the opportunity to read the books. We can't afford therapy right now.

I'd love to be able to link you to this great find, but I looked and I can't find the kits on the web. I'm guessing if they're anywhere, they'd be on eBay, buried and being sold by someone that bought them many years ago when Marmaduke was a little tyke.

Geesh, looking at him, I can't even imagine that he was ever a little tyke.  He even towers over his mom and she's not exactly a dainty little flower herself.  I call Renee the Renaissance Woman, but that's a story for another time.

I need to set aside some time for a Meet the Renaissance Woman post.  After my Smash Trash post.

This little guy is a giraffe.  It's hard to be elegant when you have a toilet paper tube body.

What? Is that a look of disgust that I see on her face?  OCD hangs out on a dang pushy gene.

UPDATE: Renaissance Woman informs me that she got the Magic Treehouse kits by joining the Magic Treehouse Club on a Scholastic Book order form.  I don't know if they still have this particular one, but it's definitely worth watching for.

I Ain't Gonna Paint No More!

This children's book, I Ain't Gonna Paint No More! is a hoot. It has everything kids love in it--lots of color, rhyming, mischevious fun and art supplies! It is written by Karen Beaumont and illustrated by one of my favorite children's book illustrators, David Catrow. Catrow draws caricatures of people that are just hilarious.

The story is about a child who has his art supplies confiscated by his mother because he painted pictures on the walls and everything else inside his house. His mom yells at him "YA AIN'T A-GONNA PAINT NO MORE!" at which point he launches into the sing songy rhyme "I ain't gonna paint no more, no more, I ain't gonna paint no more." Then he climbs up to the top of the closet where his mom put his art supplies, and he gets them back down.

Next, he proceeds to paint himself from head to toe. "So I take some red and I paint my . . . (next page) HEAD!" The book continues like this and kids cannot help themselves from finishing the rhymes. The ending is the best as he sings "But I'm such a nut, gonna paint my--WHAT?! Y'all don't faint . . . 'cause there ain't no paint! So I ain't gonna paint no more!"

It is a fun, fun book and you must go and get it now. Or at least check it out from your library.

Llama Llama, Oh the Drama

I hope none of y'all are getting tired of my children's books. Remember I told you that it was one of my fetishes. The Llama Llama series by Anna Dewdney has a special place in my heart. I've always called my own mom Mama Llama and my kids call her Grandma Mama Llama. I know, it's kind of bizarre, but I have a tendency to give people weird names. If you stick around, you'll get used to it.

Back to the books though, since that's why I'm here today. The first book pictured is Llama Llama Red Pajama. As you can imagine, this book has a lot of rhyming, which is great for pre-readers and new readers (or people with children's book fetishes).

Another aspect of this book that makes it so appealing to kids is that Llama Llama is immature and self-centered, as kids are naturally, so kids can relate and even see the humor in their own temper tantrums. Or not. Like maybe not when you're taking pictures of them while they're on the floor freaking out and you're maybe telling them to kick a little bit to make their tantrum more effective. Not that I would do that.

There's something in these books for the parents too, as we can relate to Mama Llama's exasperation. My favorite page in this book is when Mama Llama snaps and yells at Llama Llama, "Baby Llama, what a tizzy! Sometimes Mama's very busy. Please stop all this llama drama and be patient for your mama." Why just yesterday, I was telling Thing 1 that if she called me in to "help" her one more time, my head was going to pop off and fly around the room.

So I'm definitely relating to the Mama Llama. In fact, I was a little too excited when the next book in the series came out, Llama Llama Mad at Mama.

Isn't his little grumpy face so cute? This story is about going shopping with Mama Llama. Oh, the torture. Shopping is torture for kids. I remember the torture from my own childhood very clearly. Hanging on my Mama Llama in a dressing room, whining while she tried on clothes for what seemed like hours. Kids generally make shopping very unpleasant, that's been my experience, so now I have a little empathy for my mom. I'm just a little bit sorry too, for all my own llama drama. Sorry, Mama Llama.

Skippyjon Jones--I love, love, LOVE these books

I have a confession to make. I have a children's book fetish. It's true. I started collecting them at least ten years before I even had kids. The pretty pictures and the funny stories just make me smile.

The Skippyjon Jones series by Judy Schachner is one I've only recently stumbled upon, and I absolutely love them. Skippyjon is a Siamese cat, aka Kitty Boy, who wants to be a Chihuahua. He has a very vivid imagination that takes him on many adventures. Skippyjon's mom, Mama Junebug Jones, has cute little endearing names for him that remind me of some of the names my own mother gave me as a child. She calls him Kitten Britches, Mr. Fuzzy Pants, and Crumbcake to name just a few. Skippy Jon calls himself El Skipito and imagines that he is a great sword fighter who has friends he calls "Los Chimichangos."

My kids love Skippyjon's way of talking. The Kitty Boy thinks he's a Spanish speaking Chihuahua and he uses a Spanish accent and frequently adds "-ito" to the end of words to make them "Spanish", for example, "What the heckito?" He also freely uses Mexican food words as exclamations. "Holy Guacamole!" and "Holy Frijoles!" are just a couple. I frequently stop reading to decode what he is really saying and my girls just roll their eyes. I feel it is my duty though, as they believe they now know how to speak Spanish.

The best thing about these books is that they are just plain fun to read. The next time you're in your favorite bookstore, you must check them out.

I was reminded about these books today because Peanut Head and I got to go to Barnes & Noble without kids. Oh, the luxury. My Mother-in-Law is visiting so we have a built-in babysitter. I have to say it again. Oh, the luxury. I didn't have to walk through the store, darting my eyes around in an attempt to take in all the books and stay alert as to where my kids were while constantly scanning for kidnappers and child molestors (not that I could tell by looking, but you know). Remember, I told you I'm compulsive. Freakishly so. Whenever I'm in public I'm on high alert like this. Being a mama makes you crazy.