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Title: Gilberto and the Wind Author & Illustrator: Mary Hall Ets Publisher: Puffin Books Age group: Preschool or 4-8 yrs Little Gilberto runs outside with a balloon hearing the wind call him you-ou-ou . But Wind snatches his balloon away and leaves it on top of a tree. Just like he takes away the clothes from the line or the umbrellas in the rain. Or sometimes Wind is so moody that he wouldn’t even help his kite go up high! But then we also read of all the good times, of how Gilberto and Wind play together with paper sailboats, bubbles and pinwheels. The book ends with a picture of Gilberto flat, with face to ground saying, Oh Wind! Where are you? Sh-sh-sh-sh , answers the Wind, and he stirs one dry leaf to show where he is. A small boy, a list of fun things, and the friendly breeze thrown in – what more to lift the spirits in a child? Sketches using just three colors, the illustrations more than “capture” the invisible friend for us. Personifying wind with all its tempe...

Title: A Tree is nice Author: Janice May Udry Illustration: Marc Simont Publisher: Scholastic Age Group: 4-8 Picture : Wikipedia A Tree is nice seems rather too plain for a title for children. Nothing fancy or funny. But its this quality that's held in all earnestness up until the end that also makes the book enjoyable, without laboring to interpret or analyze. The book is a Caldecott winner and this calls for dissecting the illustration. Color and black-and-whites alternate; ink drawings draped in gray, follow and precede beautiful watercolors. Especially the watercolors, they glorify the foliage in varying seasons with splurges of warm greens, sometimes with flaming reds and bright yellows in their midst. The book is 11x7 inches in size. This allows for generous detailing of the trunks and twisted branches in varying dimensions, in browns that remind us of barks of dark chocolate. Something about the book gives us that warmth - the thick dirty white paper with rawness resem...

Title: Back of the bus Author: Aaron Reynolds Illustrator: Floyd Cooper Publisher : Philomel Age group :4-8 Last year my daughter and I had read Woodson's "The other side" during the week of MLK Jr. day. It had served our intent very well, while ensuring that we stayed in the comfort of Subtlety, and the warmth of a story of two little girls in the countryside. I remember how the girls of different skin tones, afraid of crossing "boundaries", had rightfully chosen to sit on the fence together. I had immediately reviewed it here. This week we brought home a few books celebrating MLK Jr or what he stood for. Among them I found a gem. It was perfect for us, in that, it helped me inch forward in the right direction on the same subject. This, it did, in two solid ways. For one, we read about actually "crossing a boundary" this time around. Secondly, it was more than subtle. It carried a bit of history and eased me into introducing civil rights and the figh...

TITLE: Tacky and the winter games AUTHOR: Helen Lester ILLUSTRATOR: Lynn Munsinger AGE GROUP: 4-8 PUBLISHER: Sandpiper Picture: Amazon.com Penguins in training for the Olympics. Of course it has to be the winter Olympics! Add loads of wit. And we have an entertaining, educational and athletic package! Some of us are probably familiar with Tacky - Tacky the penguin . And this one belongs to the same series of books. It begins with Tacky's friends declaring T he winter games are coming, we must must must be in shape to win win win. And that's when the riot starts! The next few pages show fluffy creatures with sharp beaks jumping ropes in a row, lifting weights, and even doing sit-ups. But not Tacky. He is digging into his junk food and watching too much TV while his counterparts are loading up on 'training meals' and good sleep. Its soon time for the opening ceremony and the athletes walk in with their chests thrust out. The anthem is played (which by the way goes With o...

TITLE: Snowboard Twist AUTHOR: Jean Craigbead Geroge ILLUSTRATOR: Wendell Minor AGE GROUP: 4-8 yrs PUBLISHER: Katherine Tegen Books Picture: Author website. I picked up this book because, considering how books on sports and outdoor activities are relatively rare to find, one that involved snowboarding was hard to pass. The little one is taking lessons in ice skating and we do live just a few hours away from some generously snow covered ski slopes. These should qualify us I thought. I also succumbed to the seasonal temptation of a book sporting icy blues and whites, with evergreens all around. The more important rationale was to expose the little girl to adventure sports - to learn and enjoy the subtler details and experiences of such a sport while we safely resorted to accomplishing this through a picture book. At least for now:) Axel is on his way to Glory bowl in the Teton mountains with his dad Dag and his dog Grit. The place has just received heavy snowfall and it seems perfect to ...

Lullaby - Etymology From Middle English lullen, to lull + bye. First recorded circa 1560 , says an online resource. Some lullabies, I think, are intentionally devoid of logic. Some are intelligently crafted to educate. While some are soaked in love, some others are plain funny. But interestingly most lullabies carry meaningful particulars of the land and its culture. The books below are well enjoyed by my toddler and me, so much so that when read at times other than bedtime, he typically wants to at least lie down for a bit after our session. Title: Hush Little Baby Author & Illustrations: Sylvia Long Published by: Chronicle Books Disturbed by the materialistic attitude of the lyrics of the traditional American lullaby “Hush little baby” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hush,_Little_Baby), award-winning artist Sylvia Long has reworked it for a more nature-centric version. This one oozes warmth and lulls the listener and singer, in the same stillness of the night that Mama bunn...

Title: Baseball Saved Us Ages: 5+ Author: Ken Mochizuki; Illustrator: Dom Lee Published by: Lee & Low Books Baseball is an all American thing, the national sport and pastime. It is almost a cultural identity and its own epic is often burdened with American history in the background. Standing testimony to this is how a Japanese-American boy regains dignity and acceptance at the ballpark, post World War II. Written by Ken Mochizuki, whose parents were camp internees in Idaho during the world war, this book makes you cheer our little hero, while holding off that drop of tear that has already arrived. The voice is that of a Japanese boy, an American citizen who is pulled out of school one day by his mother. His family is sent with many more Japanese families to live in barracks in an internment camp established in the desert, in the middle of nowhere in 40s USA. A soldier with a gun stands on a tall tower at the camp monitoring the group every second, every day. With no basic ...

The multitude of books that carried the glossy sticker “Jazz collection” in the children’s section at the local library piqued my interest. I thought it might be interesting to read a couple of picture books about this musical form to my children. As we read them, we absorbed a distinct flavor, me more consciously than them. And soon I realized that this flavor was unfailingly delivered in every picture book that we later devoured. Title: Jazz Baby Ages: 0-2 Author: Carole Boston Weatherford; Illustrator: Laura Freeman Published by: Lee and Low Books Inc. It starts out with an assembly of ethnically diverse children ready to make music and dance. Some of them swing and sway, jiggle and wiggle, bounce and boogie while the rest are working the instruments. The verses are small and catchy. They mention the trumpet, drum, piano and bass – the simplest introductory presentation of the most important components of Jazz music. The last spread shows a tired group plopped on the fl...

Title: The Other Side Author: Jacqueline Woodson Illustrator: E.B.Lewis Publisher: G.P.Putnam's Sons, NY Picture Courtesy - Amazon.com "There is no school on Monday, no mail on Monday. And do you know why?", began the teacher. I was at my daughter's kinder room when it was my turn to help out, and I overheard the teacher beginning to read a book on Martin Luther King. I could not take my eyes off of the little ones' faces, curious to know how they would absorb it all. They listened with intent. Silence ensued. And then they dispersed. I felt cheated when I could not comprehend what went through their minds. That afternoon I walked back home wondering how I could talk to my daughter on what Martin Luther stood for and how I could present the historical significance that surrounds him. The customary discomfort that preceded talks (with her) on "unhappy" truths, was again telling me that I was soon going to be guilty of adulterating the innocent mind. Ev...

Title:Little Blue and Little Yellow Author: Leo Lionni Age group: 3-8 years Creative, imaginative, colorful and fun - all pressed out of a simple storyline. Imagine a parallel universe where colors are the human equivalents. Or rather, the characters in this book are all primary colors! Little Blue lives with papa Blue and mama Blue. This is illustrated by three blue blobs - small, medium and large. Extrapolate this for the entire story and you have a vibrantly colored book that will be hard for any child to resist. I guess I can safely conclude now that the illustrations are intuitive but still very uncommon. Moving on, Little Blue's good friend and playmate is little Yellow, who lives across the street with his papa and mama. They play with each other and with their other friends, blobs in a multitude of colors. One day little Blue, unable to find his buddy around, goes searching for him. Ecstatic on finding him a little later, they hug each other and blend into a blob of gree...

BABIES was published in 1963. The author is Gyo Fujikawa, who was raised in a Japanese household in California. This book is something that you and your baby can enjoy together. It can also help a toddler prepare for the arrival of another newborn in the house by walking him/her through the world of babies. I like the book because it exudes sweetness, it is warm and tender. Pictures of babies that make you smile, that make you appreciate how they make even the mundane things in life a pleasure. Inside, is a portrayal of everyday activities that babies do - crying, getting changed, eating, sleeping, drinking and the like. There are drawings of cheerful babies running around, naughty lilliputians preoccupied with mischief-making and the really cherubic ones busy with acts of goodness. There is neither a storyline nor a moral. However it succeeds in what, I think, it was intended to do - make babies relate to other babies and see their own world unravel before them. What the simple illus...

OWL BABIES By Martin Waddell , illustrated by Patrick Benson OWL BABIES is a picture book that deals with a very sensitive issue that every infant or toddler experiences early on. It is a book about the mental anguish that young ones undergo due to maternal separation and the constant reassurance they need - the belief and trust that every mother would unfailingly return to her young one. The book zooms into a simple yet critical incident in the lives of three owlets. The setting is a sober conversation among three siblings upon discovering their mommy's disappearance one night. Waiting is painful. They hope and pray that their mother is out, only to find food, that she is safe and that she would definitely come back to them. The mommy hooter returns. Her unexpected yet expected return makes the owlets ecstatic! I bought this book around the time my daughter started preschool (after staying at home for a good chunk of her early life) . I would always reassure her that I would pick ...

My first review being that of an Eric Carle work is no accident. I have been reading his books to my 2.5 year old since she was 10 months. The one that has impressed me the most is "The Very Hungry Caterpillar' (although my daughter might debate and settle for "Head to Toe"!). The Very Hungry Caterpillar is a picture board book. It can be read to a child as young as an year old. The author is also the illustrator. His art, although not the very common type, is interesting and colorful. The book is a simple story about the three weeks in the life of a mortal caterpillar, the three weeks between his conception from an egg to his culmination into a beautiful butterfly. The book begins with the caterpillar's entry into this world from a tiny egg on a Sunday morning. An apple does not seem to satisfy his hunger. He continues to eat many other fruits in increasing numbers on the following days of the week. Still hungry, the caterpillar chooses to climax his routine wit...