More Picture Books

 

Building our House by Jonathan Bean

The story of how a young family moves to the country and builds their own house. I couldn’t stop thinking of our cousins in Sweden who built their house just a few short years ago. The author states at the end that he based the story on memories and pictures of when his parents built the family home. Who will tell the story of Gunnar and Ann-Helene’s house in Nykvarn? We’ll have to wait and see.

 

The Bear in the Book by Kate Banks, pictures by Georg Hallensleben

Can you say postmodern? While the pictures are inviting and the story is sweetly told, I found this just a little bit weird. A young boy and his mother sit down for a good night story. The mother picks his favorite book, one about a bear, and as she opens the pages, the reader sees the story along with the boy and his mother. On each page, the story progresses and the boy and his mother talk. Some pages show the illustrations from the story book and some show the boy and his mother looking at the book. The bear hibernates and the boy sleeps. The end.

 

Leave Your Sleep, a Collection of Classic Children’s Poetry with music by Natalie Merchant and pictures by Barbara McClintock

(Click on the picture of Merchant to visit her website and see the poems and listen to some of her songs. You'll love them!)

These poems are delightful and the music is enticing. Some poems are familiar, like The Land of Nod by Robert Louis Stevenson, and some are less so like The Sleepy Giant by Charles Edward Carryl, about an old giant who used to eat little boys and now regrets it. The poets are all white and almost all male, so perhaps Merchant can be encouraged to find more poems by women or people of color as she certainly will want to do a sequel to this delightful collection!