More August Picture Books, My favorites

Horsefly and Honeybee by Randy Cecil

Another hit! When Horsefly and Honeybee have a fight over who can take a nap in a flower, they both lose a wing. Ultimately, they figure out they can still fly by holding on to each other and using the two wings they have left. Good for teaching cooperation and survival skills. Illustrations are wonderful! 

A Home for Bird by Philip C. Stead

Vernon is a frog who finds a wooden bird. No matter what Vernon says or does, Bird will not speak. Finally, Vernon finds a broken cuckoo clock and puts Bird inside. A few repairs and Bird is happily springing out saying, “Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo!” A delightful story with many points of interest to engage young readers in discussion. What a great friend Vernon is!

Plant a Little Seed by Bonnie Christensen

I loved this book, although it took me a while since it is written in a very rhythmic fashion, without the rhyming endings. It tells the story of a garden from seed to eating and illustrations show a white girl and a black boy working happily together in this garden. The end notes give some fun facts, including why some plants we eat are called fruits and why some are vegetables. If you don’t know why tomatoes and zucchinis are fruits and not vegetables, you should read this book!

The Hero of Little Street by Gregory Rogers

A small boy is running, ever running, away from bigger boys, away from the dog-catcher, away from a woman after he breaks the dishes she was carrying. His companion is a small dog who has jumped out of an imitation of Vermeer’s Piano Player. Told all in pictures, this is an excellent wordless picture book with a touch of fantasy. Maybe I have to read it again, as I could not tell how the child in the book was a hero.

I read 12 picture books today, these are the best of the lot. I was looking at gender today, because I began noticing that many of these had a boy main character. The final count: 9 main character male, 1 main character female, and 2 have both male and female main characters. To be fair, yesterday, there were 2 with main character female, only one with a male and three that were mixed. Overall, the percentages are: male: 55%, female: 17% and both male and female: 28%. The authors are evenly split, male and female, so now we have to encourage women to write about girls.