I've just been reading through some of our newer Halloween-themed books. Two of my favorites are Miss Smith and the Haunted Library by Michael Garland and Minerva Louise on Halloween by Janet Stoakes.

Miss Smith is an elementary teacher with spiky red hair, who has an Incredible Storybook where reading aloud brings characters out of the book. In this newest book, she takes children to a field trip to meet a spooky librarian, Virginia Creeper, who reads creatures like the Headless Horseman and the giant from Jack and the Beanstalk out of the books for a holiday party. There are two other fun books about Miss Smith and her Incredible Storybook, as well.

The second choice features one of my favorite children's book characters, Minerva Louise, a charming and loveable--if a bit confused--chicken. Like an Amelia Bedelia for the preschool crowd, Minerva Louise perceives the world in her own misguided way. There are several other Minerva Louise books, with a Christmas holiday title on order.

Look for the orange Halloween sticker on the spine of books on the picture book shelves for an easy way to find books about this holiday.

I so often tell students in upper elementary through high school that I don't think you ever outgrow picture books...so I wanted to list a couple of great newer funny picture books that I think anyone (who shares my sense of humor!) would enjoy:

• The hilariously illustrated Too Many Pears by Jackie French
• My Father the Dog by Elizabeth Bluemle which highlights the amazing similarities between the dog and the father in this household.
• A Birthday for Cow by Jan Thomas, with great comic-like illustrations, and a duck who is a little obsessed with turnips
• Fifteen Animals (a board book) by one of the authors that ALWAYS entertains both Teresa and I: Sandra Boynton. If you've never read a Sandra Boynton book...you're missing out! Two of my other favorites is Moo Baa, La, La, La and What's Wrong Little Pookie?
• And for all those fellow Scaredy Squirrel fans out there, a new book has just joined the group of stories about this very parnoid rodent: Scaredy Squirrel at Night. 

Children's author...and illustrator, Tasha Tudor died last week...in her early 90s. She is most well known, maybe, as an illustrator who always included Corgi dogs in all of her books.

I highly recommend...to people of all ages...the biographical video you can check out from the library called Take Joy: the magical world of Tasha Tudor, which shows Tudor at her English countryside home, with her own Corgis, in her gardens, cooking on the hearth, etc.

She (or maybe her daughters) talk about the fun things they did growing up, including her mother creating a tiny catalog that their dollhouse people could "order" from through Sparrow Press...and then tiny packages would actually come!

 

Teresa and I both enjoyed reading a new picture book by Daniel Kirk, Library Mouse. The story is about a mouse named Sam who lives in the library, and comes out at night to read and read, until one day he decides to try writing his own book. After he writes and illustrates his first book, Squeak! a Mouse's Life, he slides it on shelf, where kids find it and like it.

The librarians are surprised, and after Sam has written more books, the head librarian posts a note inviting him to a special "meet the author" event. But Sam is too shy, so he cleverly uses the event as an opportunity to encourage the kids to become authors themselves.

This would be a great book to read with students in library units, beginning units about different genres, or to kick-off creative writing projects....or just for fun!

Other favorite library-related titles of mine include Clarence the Copycat by Pat Lakin, The Library Lion by Michelle Knudsen, The Boy Who Was Raised by Librarians by Carla Morris, I Took My Frog to the Library by Eric Kimmel, The Library Dragon by Carmen Deedy, The Librarian from the Black Lagoon by Mike Thaler, and Goin' Someplace Special by Patricia McKissack.

The new magazine Wondertime (a Family Fun publication for parents of toddlers and preschoolers) has named the book Actual Size by Steven Jenkins as  "must have" on their recommended toy and book list. You can check this great book out from the library...it is a great way for kids (and adults!) to visualize the "actual size" and weights of a variety of animals as the unique collage-style artwork shows the animals (or just parts of them) at their real sizes. For example, giant squids can be up to 59 feet long (counting their tentacles) and the book shows just one giant eye (up to 12 inches across!) on the page.

If you like this title, you might also enjoy Prehistoric Actual Size (also  by Jenkins) and the books in the Life-Size series by Daniel Gilpin including Life-size sharks and other underwater creatures and Life-size killer creatures.

Gigantic!: How Big Were the Dinosaurs? by Patrick O'Brien is another favorite title that helps people (especially spatially challenged people like me!) understand the enormity of dinosaurs by comparing them to familiar objects, structures, or machines.

 

It's always one of our favorite times of the week when new boxes of books come...and Teresa and I enjoy looking through and finding good books to recommend. Our recent favorite from yesterday's box is a short picture book called Best Buds (from what we hope will be new series called The Adventures of Max and Pinky Best Buds is a really cute book about a little boy (who looks a lot like a younger version of Charlie Brown) and his best friend Pinky. While very brief and simple in storyline, it is one of those books that has a remarkable humor that the adults reading aloud will enjoy, too.

The story follows their daily activities which they do together, until a day when Max can't find Pinky...and is worried, until he thinks of the perfect place to look. I won't ruin the suspense, but let's just say marshmallows are involved.