Wednesday, March 19, 2025

Obsessive About Octopuses

 We are fans of Owen Davey's artwork and these colorful, informative books from Flying Eye Books.  There's something Charlie Harper-ish about the pictures and designs that I just absolutely love.  So far we just have this one about octopuses (when you build up your library mostly at second hand shops it can take a long time and luck to find specific books!) but we want to add more!

Obsessive About Octopuses
Owen Davey 2020








Friday, March 14, 2025

Are You My Friend Today?

 I will never pass up a Fujikawa book, especially these large oversized ones depicting all kinds of adorable children.  (I even found one that looked like Charlotte when she was little!) 

Are You My Friend Today?
Gyo Fujikawa 1988

Beginning endpages



(The little girl with yellow hair sitting at the bottom reminded me of little Charlotte!)




I adore this poem and picture!


End endpages


Wednesday, March 12, 2025

The Buried Moon

 This morning's moon was large and luminous hiding behind the clouds before it set.  I always love moon books. 

The Buried Moon 
Joseph Jacobs
pictures by Susan Jeffers 1969

Susan Jeffers' drawings are dark and mysterious in this tale about how the moon gets caught and buried so that all the boggles and horrors of the darkness can have their way in the night.  This old story comes from Joseph Jacobs' More English Fairy Tales from 1893.








Friday, March 7, 2025

Rosie Revere, Engineer, Iggy Peck, Architect, and Ada Twist, Scientist

Iggy Peck Architect 
Andrea Beaty
illustrated by David Roberts 2007

Rosie Revere, Engineer 
Andrea Beaty 
illustrated by David Roberts 2013

Ada Twist, Scientist
Andrea Beaty
illustrated by David Roberts 2016

 These three books were a major score at the thrift store!  It all started with Iggy Peck, Architect, about a boy driven to build and design buildings.  He even makes a bridge that saves his class and wins his teacher over! From there Andrea Beaty imagines other classmates' stories including Rosie Revere who wants to be an engineer and has to learn the value in failing sometimes.  And finally Ada Twist who is alway asking the questions "why," while her parents learn to celebrate her endless curiosity.  The illustrations are what really set these books apart.  The patterns, the details, the mid century flair!  

















Tuesday, March 4, 2025

Alice and the Bird Lady


Alice and the Bird Lady
written and illustrated by Jane Grant Tentas 2002

Since Spring is around the corner we've been waking up to birdsongs and it's lovely!  There's only a couple birds I can identify by their sounds, but they all feel like familiar voices to me.  This little story was inspired by living on Block Island (off the coast of Rhode Island) and the real life character of Elizabeth Dickens who collected birds and taught the local children about them.  Her naturalist inspiration lives on through Tentas pictures and story.






Sunday, March 2, 2025

Shackleton's Journey

Shackleton's Journey
William Grill 2024

The story of Ernest Shackleton's expedition to the antarctic is amazing.  There's some great documentaries and movies out there about it.  What's most amazing is how all of  the crew survived, even when their ship The Endurance was crushed in the ice and they had to live on the ice for months and then eventually make their way in lifeboats on the open sea.  
We loved William Grill's treatment of the story, the illustrations are just great.

We loved reading about all the dogs brought on the trip! (Even if they sadly didn't make it in the end.)