Parents and teachers interested in finding read aloud books for young children will want to check out these reviews of picture and board books appropriate for very young children and toddlers.
How Do Dinosaurs Love Their Cats?/ How Do Dinosaurs Love Their Dogs?
How do dinosaurs take care of their cats and dogs? Do they forget to feed them, never clean their litter boxes, and fail to take them out for walks? Nope! Like all good pet owners, dinosaurs feed, bathe, and play with their dogs and cats like responsible dinosaurs.
The latest in a long list of Jane Yolen and Mark Teague’s popular dinosaur books, How Do Dinosaurs Love Their Cats? and How Do Dinosaurs Love Their Dogs? follows the series’ cute approach to using dinosaurs as substitutes for kids – allowing T-Rexes, Iguanadons, and Ceratosaurs to model both good and bad pet care behaviors. Yolen’s rhyming text remains catchy and easy-to-read while Teague’s enormous dinosaurs are cute and wacky as they play fetch, stroke, and bathe their normal-sized cats and dogs.
Dinosaur enthusiasts will also appreciate that Teague includes the names of each dinosaur in his illustrations, letting more curious kids learn to pronounce dinosaur names like “Tsintausaurus” or “Segnosaurus.”
Unlike most of the other How Do Dinosaurs…? picture books which are big enough to be shared in group readings, How Do Dinosaurs Love Their Cats? and How Do Dinosaurs Love Their Dogs? are smaller board books. As a result, these books are better suited to more one-on-one reading sessions between parents and their children. Great for preschool age kids (although older dinosaur enthusiasts might want to sneak a peek too).
Good Night, Little Bunny
Jane Yolen returns along with illustrator Sam Williams in this “Touch-and-Feel Bedtime Story” that follows the nightly activities of Little Bunny as he puts on his PJs, brushes his teeth (and ears), and listens to his mother tell a bedtime story.
Each page has a special “touch-and-feel” cut-out section filled with a different fabric or material that lets readers feel Little Bunny’s blanket, pajamas, and even the bristles on his toothbrush. It’s a fun gimmick, but some parents may find the book’s 10-page story a bit short, even for kids with limited attention spans.
Yolen’s rhyming text is also sparser here than in her How Do Dinosaurs…? picture books and the story, while extremely cute, is not as innovative as some of her other stories for younger children.
Even so, for parents with kids who love their stuffed animals, Good Night Little Bunny provides the sort of precious cuteness that very young children (and their parents) will enjoy.
Kitten’s Spring
Mixed media artist Eugenie Fernandes creates an engaging picture book that follows a curious kitten as he (she?) spends the day exploring a farm and the surrounding wilderness to watch other animals and their babies – from a duck and her newly-hatched duckling, to a sheep encouraging her young lamb to stand.
Fernandes’ simple rhyming text provides a competent narrative, but it’s her artwork that really steals the show. As a mixed media artist, Fernandes uses many materials – from fabrics to clay to paint – to create the pigs, cows, frogs, dragonflies, and raccoons that fill the pages. The result is a beautiful and unique work that makes Kitten’s Spring stand out from the usual animal picture books. Great for very young children – as well as art students and teachers.
Like animal picture books? Read more reviews of them at Funny Animal Picture Books and Child Picture Books with Fun Illustrations.
Fernandes, Eugenie. Kitten’s Spring. Toronto: Kids Can Press, 2010. ISBN: 978-1-55453-340-4
Yolen, Jane and Sam Williams. Good Night, Little Bunny. New York: Little Simon/Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division. 2002. ISBN: 978-1-4169-8301-9
Yolen, Jane and Mark Teague. How Do Dinosaurs Love Their Dogs? New York: The Blue Sky Press. 2010. ISBN: 978-0-545-15352-2
Yolen, Jane and Mark Teague. How Do Dinosaurs Love Their Cats? New York: The Blue Sky Press. 2010. ISBN: 978-0-545-15354-6
Michael Jung - Michael Jung is a professional writer, children’s literature specialist, and online book dealer whose articles, reviews, interviews, ...
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