Submitted by Catherine from Charlotte Hall!
How much trouble can a balloon cause? In You Can’t Take a Balloon Into the Metropolitan Museum, by Jacqueline Preiss Weitzman and Robin Preiss Weitzman, we find out that balloons can cause all sorts of mischief. In this beautiful wordless book, a little girl and her grandmother are off to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art for the first time, but the guard explains that balloons have no place in museums. Having no wish to be left out of the fun, the balloon makes a break for it, and leads the guard on a chase around New York City. While the little girl examines paintings and sculptures from all different eras and artists, the balloon leads the guard to places in New York City that reflect the art at the museum. Reproductions of famous pieces of art contrast nicely with the detailed, yet sparsely colored illustrations showing the antics of the little girl and her wayward balloon. Any child or adult with a love of art, or just a need for a funny story, will love this wordless masterpiece! See this book listed in our catalog
Classic
Guess How Much I Love You
Submitted by Jill from Leonardtown!
Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney. Little Nutbrown Hare is getting ready for bed, and Big Nutbrown Hare is waiting to tuck him in. But before bedtime, Little Nutbrown Hare has something very important to say to Big Nutbrown Hare: “Guess how much I love you? …This much,” he says, with arms stretched wide. But Little Nutbrown Hare’s arms are small, and the gesture is not nearly grand enough to show how very much he loves his daddy. And Big Nutbrown Hare loves his little son even more. What could possibly express the size of their love for each other? Is it as high as they can hop? As far as they can see? Read this tender, comforting story with your little hare at bedtime and you’ll both go to sleep feeling very loved indeed. See this book listed in our catalog
Actual Size
Submitted by Tess from Lexington Park!
Is your eye as big as a giant squid’s? Is your nose as big as a bear’s? Are your teeth as big a great white shark’s? Find out the answers to these questions and more within the pages of Actual Size an amazing work of nonfiction for the pre-school crowd by Steve Jenkins. Actual Size features illustrations of animals scaled to life, so you can compare your body parts with those of fantastic wild life. There are even flip out pages so you can see just how long a crocodile’s mouth is (23 feet), or how big a Goliath frog is (36 inches with legs extended)! You can measure your hand to that of a huge gorilla, or a tiny pygmy mouse lemur. You can even see what it’d be like to be face-to-face with a Siberian tiger, the biggest of the big cats! Actual Size is a hoot for kids of all ages! See this book listed in our catalog
The Seven Sneezes
Submitted by county youth coordinator Janis!
The Seven Sneezes by Olga Cabral. This is a reissue of a golden book and it is hilarious! The rag man sneezes, and his sneeze is so powerful that the bunny’s ears end up on the kitten, the kitten’s ears end up on the bunny, and the rooster’s tail feathers come out of his head! The animals are all topsy-turvy! This is a great book to share at story time. There can be countless conversations about the pictures, and the different things that are wrong in them. This is also a great book about which to ask comprehension questions. See this book listed in our catalog
The Other Side
Submitted by Tess from Lexington Park!
I love Jacqueline Woodson. I’ve had the privilege to see her speak several times and her classic The Other Side almost always comes up. She was inspired by a modern, urban setting, but the illustrator E.B. Lewis interpreted her words as referring to a time and place of segregation. It’s the story of two girls, one black and one white, Clover and Annie, who live on different sides of a fence that divides their town. After watching each other all summer, Clover feels brave enough one day to approach the fence to talk to Annie. They might not be able to go over the fence, but they can sit on top of it together. This is a heart-warming tale of a color-blind friendship, written in a style children can relate to, that I treasure and hope you will too. See this book listed in our catalog
The Lion and the Mouse
Submitted by Tess from Lexington Park!
Okay. I’m going to come right out and say it: The Lion and the Mouse by Jerry Pinkey is my favorite children’s picture book of 2009. This (mostly) wordless, beautifully illustrated, re-imagining of Aesop’s fable has a special place in my heart. A mouse dares hide from an owl in the mane of a jungle king. The lion spares the mouse’s life, and it scurries home to its large family. In the meantime, the majestic cat is trapped by hunters! When he ROARS for help, who shows up? His fated mouse friend, who chews him free, enabling him to return to his pride. It pays to be charitable, in the case of the lion, and corageous, in the case of the mouse. The art in this book is spectacular, and the lesson it provides will hopefully ring true with your child. It may also inspire you to learn more about the wildlife depicted in the story! I will gush no further, except to say I truly love this book and encourage you to check it out post haste! See this book listed in our catalog