Interview with Gianna Marino, author/illustrator of Night Animals

Gianna Marino, author and illustrator of many well-loved picture books, is at The Hiding Spot today to celebrate the release of her newest release, Night Animals. You don't want to miss this smart, funny book about an unusual group of animals and things that go bump in the night!

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Can you share the story of your inspiration for Night Animals?  

I originally wrote Night Animals as our yearly assignment for my writer's group. We have been together for 18 years and each year we come up with random words or phrases to inspire an end-of-year story. Long-time member Yuyi Morales was moving back to Mexico that year and leaving our group, so I wrote a story called Six Unlikely Friends. This original story was about 6 animals (each animal representing one member of our group) lost in the woods at night. These very unlikely friends (fawn, fox, wolf, bear, elk and raven) bonded together during one scary night. When the first draft was done, I loved the idea of animals, who might normally eat each other, helping one another instead. I loved the idea that the biggest and scariest of them all might be the biggest chicken. I loved the idea that, really, we are all afraid of the same things! And so began Night Animals. 
 
As Night Animals evolved, I thought more about darkness and fear. I remembered being so afraid of the dark as a child. Afraid of that little black crack in the closet and the darkness under my bed. Fast forward many years to camping in the woods and the question everyone in a tent will ask at some point in their life.... "Did you hear something?" How could I NOT incorporate that into a story of nocturnal animals who are afraid of the dark!!?? 

Tell a bit about your writing and illustrating process. Do you begin with the text, a general idea, specific scenes...?  

Each book is different when I start. Some begin with the text, some an idea and scribbles. In both cases, there is a lot of back and forth between the words and pictures. I love trying to get rid of as many words as possible to let the pictures do the talking. Since Night Animals is mostly told with pictures, I worked on sketches and then changed the text bubbles until they gave the right feeling on each page and helped move the reader through the story. 

My blog is dedicated to my personal hiding spot, books. Name a notable book that has provided you with a hiding spot.  

Home, by Carson Ellis 

We all live in such different homes and those houses or shoes or nests or shells make each one of us unique!! 

What can your readers look forward to next? 

I am working on a few books now. One of them, inspired by a recent trip to Mongolia, is about a narcissistic mouse and his three little friends, called I Am the Mountain Mouse. The little friends love the Mountain Mouse, because he is oh-so-much-fun..... but he is not the best friend!

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About the Author

Gianna Marino was born in San Francisco and spent her early years galloping horses through Golden Gate Park. Her explorations expanded after graduating from high school and in order to afford her many journeys, Gianna had several jobs at once: apprenticing a muralist, a jewelry designer, a product designer and driving horse carriages through the park. Gianna explored many corners of the world, from Africa and Asia, to the South Pacific and Europe, to crewing on sailboats in the high seas. At work and school, she became known as “Boomerang”.

Gianna finally landed a full-time freelance gig designing toys for children, but after several years in a corporate box with no windows, she left for good and began painting, illustrating and writing books.
Gianna has written and illustrated numerous articles for travel and leisure magazines. Her children's books include Zoopa: An Animal Alphabet (Chronicle Books 2005), One Too Many (Chronicle Books 2010), Meet Me at the Moon (Viking 2012), Too Tall Houses (Viking 2012) and Following Papa's Song (Viking 2014).

Though she still wanders the world, Gianna now lives in Northern California and works full-time writing and illustrating. http://www.giannamarino.com/

Cover Reveals - Young Adult - XXXVII

The Land of 10,000 Madonnas by Kate Hattemer

Goodreads

Three teen cousins embark on a backpacking trip to Europe at the mysterious behest of their fourth cousin, who recently passed away.

Up From the Sea by Leza Lowitz

Goodreads

A powerful novel-in-verse about how one teen boy survives the March 2011 tsunami that devastates his coastal Japanese village.
On that fateful day, Kai loses nearly everyone and everything he cares about in the storm. When he’s offered a trip to New York to meet kids whose lives were changed by 9/11, Kai realizes he also has a chance to look for his estranged American father. Visiting Ground Zero on its tenth anniversary, Kai learns that the only way to make something good come out of the disaster back home is to return there and help rebuild his town.

Heartrending yet hopeful, Up from the Sea is a story about loss, survival, and starting anew.

Fans of Jame Richards’s Three Rivers Rising and teens who read Karen Hesse’s Out of the Dust as middle graders will embrace this moving story. An author’s note includes numerous sources detailing actual events portrayed in the story.

Running through my ruined town,
pack flapping like wings
against my back.
Plowing through blocks
strewn with heaps of
refrigeratorsblackboardsbicyclestaxis
bustedpianosshelvesdesksstairs
allmixedtogether
in a marshland
grave.

Where Futures End by Parker Peevyhouse

Goodreads

Perfect for fans of innovative storytelling, like Marcus Sedgwick's The Ghosts of Heaven and David Mitchell's The Bone Clocks, Where Futures End is a collection of five time-spanning, interconnected novellas that weave a subtly science-fictional web stretching out from the present into the future, presenting eerily plausible possibilities for social media, corporate sponsorship, and humanity, as our world collides with a mysterious alternate universe.

Five teens, five futures. Dylan develops a sixth sense that allows him to glimpse another world. Brixney must escape a debtor colony by finding a way to increase the number of hits on her social media feed so she’ll attract corporate sponsorship. Epony goes “High Concept” and poses as an otherworldly being to recapture her boyfriend’s attention. Reef struggles to survive in a city turned virtual gameboard. And Quinn uncovers the alarming secret that links them all.

These are stories about a world that is destroying  itself, and about the alternate world that might be its savior.  Unless it’s just the opposite.

Rebel Bully Geek Pariah by Erin Jade Lange

Goodreads

Sam Cherie doesn't need friends. All she needs is to keep her mama sober long enough to skip out on her small Midwestern town and start a new life. But she's leaving town sooner than planned and in the company of the last three people she ever imagined.

What happens when a rebel, a bully, a geek, and a social pariah are forced to go on the run... is one part thrill ride and two parts Breakfast Club on wheels.

From the author of Butter comes a heart-stopping story of four very different teens and the night that changes their lives forever.

The Last Boy and Girl in the World by Siobhan Vivian
Goodreads

Aberdeen is drowning.

Keeley Hewitt always has a joke to crack. Except there is nothing funny about her life right now. Her hometown of Aberdeen has always been known for flooding, but after one last terrible storm, the entire town has been told they must evacuate by the end of the summer for good.

How will she say goodbye to everything and everyone she has ever known?

Most of the Aberdeen residents happily take the generous payout and look forward to starting over someplace new. But Keeley's dad isn't swayed by the overtures of officials or the sheriff's threats. He refuses to evacuate their family, and Keeley goes from being the funny girl in school, to the last girl in Aberdeen.

As the town empties out, two boys compete for her heart. One is a boy she's had a crush on forever, and the other is one she thinks she could fall in love with. But the water is rising higher and higher, and Keeley is faced with losing everything she's ever known, and the promise of things she's only ever wished for.

The Mystery of Hollow Places by Rebecca Podos
Goodreads

All Imogene Scott knows of her mother is the bedtime story her father told her as a child. It's the story of how her parents met: he, a forensic pathologist, she, a mysterious woman who came to identify a body. A woman who left Imogene and her father when she was a baby, a woman who was always possessed by a powerful loneliness, a woman who many referred to as troubled waters.

When Imogene is seventeen, her father, now a famous author of medical mysteries, strikes out in the middle of the night and doesn't come back. Neither Imogene's stepmother nor the police know where he could've gone, but Imogene is convinced he's looking for her mother. She decides to put to use the skills she's gleaned from a lifetime of her father's books to track down a woman she's never known, in order to find him and, perhaps, the answer to the question she's carried with her for her entire life.

Rebecca Podos' debut is a powerful, affecting story of the pieces of ourselves that remain mysteries even to us - the desperate search through empty spaces for something to hold on to.

The Memory Jar by Elissa Janine Hoole

Goodreads

In which a girl faces secrets, guilt and terrible choices about her pregnancy after a snowmobile accident leaves her boyfriend with a brain injury.

The Way to Game the Walk of Shame by Jenn P. Nguyen

Goodreads

Taylor Simmons is screwed.

Things were hard enough when her single-minded dedication to her studies earned her the reputation of being an Ice Queen, but after getting drunk at a party and waking up next to bad boy surfer Evan McKinley, the entire school seems intent on tearing Taylor down with mockery and gossip.

Desperate to salvage her reputation, Taylor persuades Evan to pretend they’re in a serious romantic relationship. After all, it’s better to be the girl who tames the wild surfer than just another notch on his surfboard.

The Smell of Other People's Houses by Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock
Goodreads

In Alaska, 1970, being a teenager here isn’t like being a teenager anywhere else. This deeply moving and authentic debut is for fans of Rainbow Rowell, Louise Erdrich, Sherman Alexie, and Benjamin Alire Saenz. Intertwining stories of love, tragedy, wild luck, and salvation on the edge of America’s Last Frontier introduce a writer of rare talent.

Ruth has a secret that she can’t hide forever. Dora wonders if she can ever truly escape where she comes from, even when good luck strikes. Alyce is trying to reconcile her desire to dance, with the life she’s always known on her family’s fishing boat. Hank and his brothers decide it’s safer to run away than to stay home—until one of them ends up in terrible danger.

Four very different lives are about to become entangled. This unforgettable book is about people who try to save each other—and how sometimes, when they least expect it, they succeed.

Which new covers are your favorite?  Let me know in the comments!

Storytime: New and Notable Picture Books (18)

This week's Storytime features a wordless rainy day adventure, a late bloomer, a lost whale, a bunny with ninja skills, and a scaredy cat or two.

Float

Written & Illustrated by Daniel Miyares
Ages 4-8

Buy It 
Goodreads

A boy's small paper boat and his large imagination fill the pages of this wordless picture book, a modern-day classic from the creator of Pardon Me! that includes endpaper instructions for building a boat of your own.

A little boy takes a boat made of newspaper out for a rainy-day adventure. The boy and his boat dance in the downpour and play in the puddles, but when the boy sends his boat floating down a gutter stream, it quickly gets away from him.

So of course the little boy goes on the hunt for his beloved boat and when the rain lets up, he finds himself on a new adventure altogether.

If you're intimidated by wordless picture books, but want to give one a try, be sure to pick up Daniel Miyares' Float! This gorgeously illustrated story follows a boy as he searches for his lost paper boat. Lots of action and detailed illustrations will quickly engage readers and provide plenty to explore.

And Nick
Written by Emily Gore; Illustrated by Leonid Gore
Ages 4-8

 Buy It
Goodreads

There are four mice brothers: Rick, Mick, Vick and Nick!

Nick is the youngest, and while his brothers each know exactly what they want, Nick is never quite sure. Which color shirt is the nicest? What does Nick want to eat? Which flower will be best to pick from the meadow? Nick doesn't know! But... He might just be waiting for the right moment to bloom.

I loved this story about Nick, a late bloomer who is always trailing behind his brothers. The theme and quiet illustrations of this one reminded me of Leo the Late Bloomer, which was one of my favorites growing up!
 

To the Sea
Written & Illustrated by Cale Atkinson
Ages 2-5

Buy It

Goodreads

Sometimes Tim feels invisible at school-until one day, when Tim meets Sam. But Sam isn't just any new friend: he's a blue whale, and he can't find his way home! Returning Sam to the sea is hard work, but Tim is determined to help. After all, it's not every day you meet a new friend!

This picture book about the power of friendship by new talent Cale Atkinson is brought to life by charming, dynamic illustrations.

Cale Atkinson is one of my new favorite author/illustrators! The color choices paired with this heartwarming story of a boy who befriends a lost whale have lodged themselves in my mind (and heart!).

Ninja Bunny
Written & Illustrated by Jennifer Gray Olson
Ages 3-7

Buy It
Goodreads

A fresh, funny, and hip picture book about a little bunny who wants to be…a ninja!

How to be a SUPER AWESOME NINJA:
· Rule #1. You must always work alone.
· Rule #2. You must be super sneaky, especially in the most dangerous of situations.
· Rule #3. A super awesome ninja must: possess incredible strength, achieve invisibility, master the skill of climbing, gain the ability to fly….

Our little bunny is ready to embark on his path to becoming a ninja. But is he cut out for the ninja life? Especially if it means leaving his friends behind?

In Ninja Bunny, one little bunny is willing to do whatever it takes to become a super awesome ninja, even if that means going solo. But, after coming up against a big enemy, Ninja Bunny realizes that sometimes you need a little help from your friends - and that's okay too! Ninja Bunny is a perfect reminder that asking for help and needing your friends doesn't mean you're not super awesome.
 

Miss Hazeltine's Home for Shy and Fearful Cats
Written by Alicia Potter; Illustrated by Birgitta Sif
Ages 5-8

Buy It
Goodreads

A tale with many tails, perfect for cat lovers everywhere!

Miss Hazeltine is opening a very special school for shy and fearful cats. They come from all over, and Miss Hazeltine gives them lessons in everything, from “Bird Basics” to “How Not to Fear the Broom.”

The most timid of all is Crumb. He cowers in a corner. Miss Hazeltine doesn’t mind. But when she gets in trouble and only Crumb knows where she is, will he find his inner courage and lead a daring rescue?

Filled with adorable illustrations and ideal for fans of Disappearing Desmond and The Invisible Boy, Miss Hazeltine’s Home for Shy and Fearful Cats is a story that’s perfect for shy and fearful children as it both helps them face scary situations and accepts them just as they are.

At Miss Hazeltine's Home for Shy and Fearful Cats even the most timid cats are welcome. Here, cats will learn how to brave scary noises and brooms, as well as how to climb up (and down too)! Little Crumb struggles to overcome his fears but, when Miss Hazeltine goes missing, he might be the only one who can save her. Bolstered by love, Crumb leads the troupe of shy and fearful cats out into the dark, where they work together to bring Miss Hazeltine home. A fantastic story about overcoming your fears and believing in yourself, this read aloud is sure to make readers smile.

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Love any of the books featured this week? Let me know in the comments!

Review: The Six by Mark Alpert

Goodreads

Title: The Six
Author: Mark Alpert
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Pub. Date: July 7, 2015
Genre: Young Adult
Rec. Age Level: 12+
Pages: 268
More by this author: Various adult titles
Description:

To save humanity, they must give up their own.

Adam's muscular dystrophy has stolen his mobility, his friends, and in a few short years, it will take his life. Virtual reality games are Adam's only escape from his wheelchair. In his alternate world, he can defeat anyone. Running, jumping, scoring touchdowns: Adam is always the hero.

Then an artificial intelligence program, Sigma, hacks into Adam's game. Created by Adam's computer-genius father, Sigma has gone rogue, threatening Adam's life-and world domination. Their one chance to stop Sigma is using technology Adam's dad developed to digitally preserve the mind of his dying son.

Along with a select group of other terminally ill teens, Adam becomes one of the Six who have forfeited their bodies to inhabit weaponized robots. But with time running short, the Six must learn to manipulate their new mechanical forms and work together to train for epic combat...before Sigma destroys humanity.

Finally - finally - I've found a YA scifi novel with plenty of boy appeal that's really well written with well-developed characters! I've picked up quite a few of this year's releases that looked promising, then failed to hold my interest or had ridiculous dialogue, descriptions, etc. Mark Alpert's The Six is exactly what I've been searching for!
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I found the premise of The Six unique and engaging. The government has created an artificial intelligence that is extremely smart and adaptive. Underestimating the AI's intelligence and abilities, it is able to escape its cage. Now out in the real world, the AI, Sigma, is wreaking havoc - taking over entire countries and killing without mercy. The main character, Adam, is the son of the AI's main engineer. Adam and his father are quite close, as Adam's father is his main caretaker... Adam has muscular dystrophy; while is mind is incredibly sharp, his body is a prison. His future is rather bleak until the government offers him an unimaginable alternative: become a robot. So Adam and a group of five other teens with debilitating diseases undergo a risky new procedure that transfers their consciousnesses into the shells of weaponized robots. Their task? Defeat Sigma.


There are so many interesting ideas at play within The Six. One of the strongest is the question of what it means to be human. Adam's mother begs him not to undergo the procedure, arguing that he will no longer be human - will no longer be her son - if he is no longer connected to his body. Adam disagrees, believing that it is his thoughts and beliefs that make him who he is and that he won't be losing those things. After Adam undergoes the procedure, things become much more complicated when unforeseen consequences join the mix.


The villain, Sigma, is also interesting. After all, Sigma is an AI, created by humans and programmed to continually evolve. Sigma is doing exactly what it was created to do, but with consequences that hadn't been considered. Sigma sometimes feels incredibly evil, but can a computer truly be evil? Truly want to harm and hurt?


In addition to presenting readers with a number of engaging questions and ideas, The Six has plenty of action, engaging friendships, burgeoning romance, and dangerous rivalries. Alpert's YA offering hits all the right notes.


Highly recommended.

Cover Reveals - Middle Grade - XXXVI

The Treasure Map of Way Down Deep by Ruth White

Goodreads

When Ruby Jolene Hurley sees the shadow of her dead pet goat Jethro dancing on his grave, that's the first hint that something strange is going on in Way Down Deep. Then, on Halloween night, Miss Arbutus senses an evil wind blowing into town, and bad things start to happen. The coal mine shuts down, one hundred men lose their jobs, and all of Way Down feels the pinch. Ruby thinks the answer to their problems is the treasure that Archibald Ward, the town's founder, supposedly buried more than two hundred years ago. Most people say the treasure is just a myth, but Ruby is determined to prove the naysayers wrong and save the day.

Maybe a Fox by Kathi Appelt; Alison McGhee

Goodreads

Sylvie and Jules, Jules and Sylvie. Better than just sisters, better than best friends, they’d be identical twins if only they’d been born in the same year. And if only Sylvie wasn’t such a fast—faster than fast—runner. But Sylvie is too fast, and when she runs to the river they’re not supposed to go anywhere near to throw a wish rock just before the school bus comes on a snowy morning, she runs so fast that no one sees what happens…and no one ever sees her again. Jules is devastated, but she refuses to believe what all the others believe, that—like their mother—her sister is gone forever.

At the very same time, in the shadow world, a shadow fox is born—half of the spirit world, half of the animal world. She too is fast—faster than fast—and she senses danger. She’s too young to know exactly what she senses, but she knows something is very wrong. And when Jules believes one last wish rock for Sylvie needs to be thrown into the river, the human and shadow worlds collide.

Writing in alternate voices—one Jules’s, the other the fox’s—Kathi Appelt and Alison McGhee tell the searingly beautiful tale of one small family’s moment of heartbreak, a moment that unfolds into one that is epic, mythic, shimmering, and most of all, hopeful.

Donny's Inferno by P.W. Catanese

Goodreads

Twelve-year-old Donny Taylor was rescued from certain death in a burning building. His savior, a mysterious girl named Angela Obscura, seems to be able to walk right out of the flames. Although she appears to be a teenager, Angela is actually a millenniums-old dignitary from the underworld who needs the help of a mortal. And she’s chosen Donny.

Hades, a bizarre, cavernous world that was once filled with pitchforks, fiery pits, and dismemberments, has recently become a kinder, gentler place where people can contemplate their transgressions rather than face eternal punishment. Now known as Sulfur, the underworld went through a period of reformation punctuated by a violent revolution that left the vicious Old Guard defeated and imprisoned.

But it soon becomes apparent that the Old Guard is plotting a comeback. If they succeed, they will reignite the long-extinguished Pits of Fire with a billion souls inside. And reformers like Angela and Donny will face Annihilation: the utter destruction of the consciousness and the soul, a nothingness more final than death itself.

With everything on the line and billions of souls to protect, Donny—a mortal and outsider—becomes the key to the underworld’s salvation and the only one who can save Sulfur.

Sara Lost and Found by Virginia Castleman

Goodreads

Sisters Anna and Sara must rely on each other for strength as they face being separated by the foster care system in this heartwrenching tale of sisterhood, family, and survival.
Sara and Anna Olsen face an uncertain world. Their mother left home and may—or may not—be coming back. Their father is a drummer in a band and comes home long after the girls go to sleep—if he comes home at all. Too often, ten-year-old Sara and twelve-year-old Anna are left to fend for themselves. Then one night, three loud knocks at the door change everything: their father is in jail and social services has come to take the girls away. Rather than risk being split up, Sara and Anna decide their only option is to run away.
But the girls don’t get very far, and when the authorities catch up with them, Sara and Anna are forced back into the foster care system. Along the way, the girls encounter good people who want to help them but they also meet people who have no patience for mistakes or accidents. As Anna begins to act out or withdraw completely, Sara knows that it’s up to her to take care of her older sister. But what if she can’t anymore? What if she finds a forever home that may not include Anna? Will Sara keep the promise she made to her mother to stay with her sister or will she find the courage to do what’s best for herself?
Inspired by true events, this heartrending and hopeful novel of survival, friendship, and sisterhood, tells the tale of two sisters who must find the strength to face anything that life may throw their way.

Withering-by-Sea by Judith Rossell
Goodreads

A stalwart orphan sets out on a spine-tingling adventure in this wildly imaginative and darkly funny Victorian middle grade novel.
High on a cliff above the gloomy Victorian town of Withering-by-Sea stands the Hotel Majestic. Inside the walls of the damp, dull hotel, eleven-year-old orphan Stella Montgomery leads a miserable life with her three dreadful aunts. Stella dreams of adventuring on the Amazon—or anyplace, really, as long as it isn’t this dreary town where nothing ever happens.
Then one night Stella sees something she shouldn’t have. Soon she finds herself on the run from terrifying Professor Stark and his gang of thugs. But how can one young girl outwit an evil magician, much less rescue his poor, mistreated assistant?
With the help of a mysterious maestro, his musical cats, and a lively girl named Gert, Stella Montgomery sets out to do just that.

Valkyrie by Kate O'Hearn

Valkyrie: Norse Goddess. Reaper of Souls. Defender of the Weak. Not someone you want to mess with…
Freya is dreading her upcoming birthday when she’ll officially have to take up her duties as a Valkyrie. She doesn’t want to follow in the footsteps of the legends before her—legends including her mother and sisters. And she certainly doesn’t want anything to do with humans!
Freya thinks humans are cruel, hate-filled creatures, but as she observes their world, she begins to wonder what it would be like to make friends with the girls or laugh with the boys she sees. And what would it be like to live without the fear that she could cause someone’s death with a single touch?
Then when she’s sent on her first mission, she reaps the soul of a fallen soldier with unfinished business…business that sends her on an epic quest to the mortal world. Will Freya find the true meaning of being a human, or will she finally accept the legend she is destined to become?

The Adventures of Lettie Peppercorn by Sam Gayton

Goodreads

Lettie Peppercorn cannot go outside. Ma told her so right before Ma disappeared forever. So Lettie’s house is on stilts, and she is stuck with only the wind and a pigeon for a friend. Nothing exciting has ever happened to her—until the night a strange merchant appears.
He claims to be an alchemist—the greatest that ever lived—and he is here to sell Lettie his newest invention. It’s an invention that could change Lettie’s life—and the world forever. An invention called “snow.”
But snow is not the only secret he holds. The alchemist knows where Lettie’s Ma is. And Lettie will do anything to get Ma back—even if it means risking her own life.
Join the brilliant and resourceful Lettie Peppercorn as she sails across the world to reunite her family and discover the truth about herself.

The Inn Between by Marina Cohen

Goodreads

The Shining meets "Hotel California" in this supremely creepy middle grade novel about the bizarre things that happen to two girls stranded at a desert inn.
Eleven-year-old Quinn has had some bad experiences lately. She was caught cheating in school, and then one day, her little sister Emma disappeared while walking home from school. She never returned.
When Quinn's best friend Kara has to move away, she goes on one last trip with Kara and her family. They stop over at the first hotel they see, a Victorian inn that instantly gives Quinn the creeps, and she begins to notice strange things happening around them. When Kara's parents and then brother disappear without a trace, the girls are stranded in a hotel full of strange guests, hallways that twist back in on themselves, and a particularly nasty surprise lurking beneath the floorboards. Will the girls be able to solve the mystery of what happened to Kara's family before it's too late?

Behind the Canvas by Alexander Vance
Goodreads

A girl discovers she has the ability to inhabit the world of famous paintings, and tries to help a boy trapped behind the canvas.
There is a world behind the canvas. Past the paint of the canvas is a realm where art lives, breathes, creates, destroys.
Claudia Miravista loves art but only sees what is on the surface, until the Dutch boy Pim appears in her painting. Pim has been trapped in the world behind the canvas for centuries by a power-hungry witch, and now believes that Claudia is his only hope for escape. Fueled by the help of an ancient artist and some microwaveable magic, Claudia enters the wondrous and terrifying world, intent on destroying the witch's most cherished possession and setting Pim free. But in that world nothing is quite as it appears on the surface. Not even friendship.

Which new covers are your favorite?  Let me know in the comments!

Storytime: New & Notable Picture Books (17)

This week's Storytime features terrifying night animals, a bear on a (wobbly) bike, a dad anxious about the first day of school, tongue-twisters with a yak and a gnu, and a well-deserved star!

Night Animals

Written & Illustrated by Gianna Marino
Ages 3-5, Available 7/14/2015

Buy It 
Goodreads

Something’s out there in the dark!

First Possum hears it. Then Skunk. Then Wolf comes running.“What could it possibly be?” asks Bat.

“Night Animals!” the animals declare.

“But you are night animals,” Bat informs this not-so-smart crew.


Children will love the oh-so-funny animals in this twist on a cozy bedtime book.

It's really odd, but people ask me for recommendations of book featuring possums all the time - now I have a new one to recommend! This newest book from Gianna Marino follows a variety of silly characters who are terrified of the animals lurking in the dark.

Bike On, Bear
Written by Cynthea Liu; Illustrated by Kristyna Litten
Ages 4-7

 Buy It
Goodreads

Bear can do everything, except ride a bike. Discover how he overcomes his two-wheeled challenge in this irresistibly adorable picture book!

Bear can do almost anything. His one-paw pawstand is perfection. He can solve the trickiest of equations. He can even out-build a brigade of beavers. But the one thing Bear can't do? Ride a bike.

Bear tries everything to help him learn: library books, training wheels and super-cheers from his fellow animal friends. But all of those fail to get poor Bear on two wheels.The situation is looking unbearable, but an unexpected mishap might be just the thing that propels Bear to bike on!

This adorable book about perseverance and practice follows a bear that has many talents, but who struggles to ride a bike. Of course, this is a great book to share with little ones about to take off those training wheels, but it's also a fantastic choice to explore the value of hard work and determination.
 

Dad's First Day
Written & Illustrated by Mike Wohnoutka
Ages 2-5, Available 7/7/15

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Goodreads

All summer Oliver and his dad played together, laughed together, sang together, and read together.

Now it's time for Oliver to start school!

On the first day, Oliver's dad isn't quite ready. . . . Suddenly he feels nervous. His tummy hurts, and he would rather stay home.

But Oliver isn't convinced. What if the first day is really fun? What if it's the start of an exciting year?

In this charming story of first-day jitters, acclaimed author and illustrator Mike Wohnoutka perfectly captures the mixed emotions felt by kids and their parents when big changes are afoot.

Just look at that cover! This is an absolutely wonderful read aloud for kids and parents embarking on their first year of school.

Yak & Gnu
Written by Juliette MacIver; Illustrated by Cat Chapman
Ages 3-7

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Goodreads

Lively good humor is afloat—along with an armada of adventurous animals—in this silly seafaring tale.

A romp in the river with Yak in his kayak and Gnu in his canoe leads to a safari full of unusual nautical discoveries. A goat in a boat? A calf on a raft? A whole flotilla of whales and gorillas? No matter how many other strange sailors they come across, Yak and Gnu are certain there is no other beast quite like either of them. Climb aboard for a nonsensical voyage featuring an eclectic collection of embarked animals, awash in rhyme and tongue twisters perfect for reading aloud.

I loved the rhyme and clever word play in Yak & Gnu. It reminded me a bit of Seuss.
 

I Will Never Get a Star on Mrs. Benson's Blackboard
Written & Illustrated by Jennifer K. Mann
Ages 5-8

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Goodreads

Rose’s teacher gives stars for spelling and neatness and giving the right answer, but Rose can’t manage to do any of those things right. Will she ever get a star from Mrs. Benson?

Rose is a distracted and creative soul. She does her best at school, but sometimes her mind wanders, and she answers the wrong question. Her reading voice is quiet, not strong and loud. And her desk—well, keeping her desk neat is a challenge. When it’s time to make thank-you cards for a class visitor, Rose’s art supplies turn her workspace—and her—into a colorful mess. But her artistic skills shine through in the gorgeous oversize card she creates. Could she possibly get a star after all? A cheerful and empowering picture book for the child whose talents lie in unconventional areas, and those still searching for their strengths.

This a fantastic book about creative personalities! In the classroom, neatness and following the rules is often rewarded, but that doesn't mean that creativity and less conventional ways of learning and expressing oneself can't shouldn't be celebrated!

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Love any of the books featured this week? Let me know in the comments!