Saturday, February 28, 2009

Read Your Way Through... My New Favorites

I know I promised a different topic for my next installment of Read Your Way Through, but I haven't had much planning time lately. So, here's a look at some new children's books that have made their way into my favorites on Goodreads.

(Also, this post is dedicated to Cheryl who is abroad with limited access to beloved new picture books! ;))
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Antoinette Portis crafts a wonderful story of curiosity in A Penguin Story. These penguins only know the white ice, the black night and the blue sea, but Edna can just feel that there is something more. She's not deterred when her friends and family aren't interested in joining in on her quest, and how rewarding it ends up being!



Not All Animals Are Blue by Beatrice Boutignon immediately captured my interest with its unique presentation. Text on the left corresponds with illustrations on the right, as readers are encouraged to linger on the artwork, noting similarities and differences between the animals pictured. Sort of a "one of these things is not like the other" concept, yet done in a way that more inclines the reader to imagine a story behind each animal.




Birds by Kevin Henkes is funny, poetic, imaginative and so vividly illustrated. A wonderful new accomplishment from the husband-wife/author-illustrator team of Kevin Henkes and Laura Dronzek.




How Many Baby Pandas? by Sandra Markle

Part counting tale, part juvenile non-fiction, this book is full of adorable photographs of pandas as well as interesting facts. It documents a panda baby boom at the Wolong Giant Panda Breeding Center, where, in 2005, giant pandas gave birth to 16 cubs, including two sets of twins!


The nice thing about this book is that it can be read as a simple counting story for younger children, but would also be quite useful and interesting for older kids learning about pandas.



The next installment of Read Your Way Through will actually be a "Click" Your Way Through, as I showcase a cute new title available on Lookybook! Happy reading!

4 comments:

Cheryl said...

Hey Katie! Thanks for this :) And the mention! You have to know that I somehow missed this post or I would have otherwised commented earlier. Cool. I appreciate you keeping me in the loop. One of the first things I am going to do when I land down in Cincy is head to the library and max out all our cards with books! For real.

Amanda said...

I saw the Baby Panda book and just loved it..for the same reasons you mention...plus, I am a total sucker for cute animal pictures!

Jessi said...

We have sooo many books at our house, and need no more and yet you've prompted me to stroll over to Amazon and add a couple new titles to my cart. Love animal books right now!

L is diving into non-fiction already, but I keep trying to pull him back to picture books.

katie said...

@Jessi

I was surprised to recently realize that J is WAY into non-fiction too. I expected that more at age 3 or 4.

One of our other current favorites that I forgot to include in this post is Frogs by Nic Bishop. The photography is amazing!