A Little More About Becky

Becky here.  I'm going to give you a little better picture of who I am and how it will affect my posts.  I started off hoping to get into publishing, but quickly found that the schmoozing aspect was a big turn off.  I wanted to work somewhere where I could be myself, be near books, and talk about them honestly.  Libraries seemed like the obvious answer.

It wasn't until I began tutoring for Americorps in a gap year after my undergraduate degree that I realized I loved working with kids and the literature aimed at them.  It was incredibly moving to share a good book with the K-3rd graders or listen to them read to me.  That's kind of when it hit me.

Now I'm playing a bit of catch-up as far as the literature goes.  I've been focusing mostly on teen and adult books since fifth grade, and I need to expand my book-base fast.  You'll see a lot of picture book reviews from me and comments about how to use them in storytimes.  I also cannot resist a good teen horror or dystopia.

Randi and I will probably evolve our reviews as we get into the swing of things, but I'll start off with Two of the picture books I discovered at my internship while planning storytimes.

How to Catch a Star by Oliver Jeffers 

Oliver Jeffers is an author/illustrator to watch.  I know he has at least 11 works, but these are the first two I've come across. I was captivated by the whimsy of his illustrations.  they are both casual and decadent.  The bright, primary colors and simplistic pictures with lots of empty space make for a great storytime read.  They tend to be on the larger side as well.  

"How to Catch a Star" is about a little boy who dreams of finding a star to be his friend.  He struggles to pull one from the water where he sees it shining, tries to climb a tree to reach it, and even tries to lasso it down.  In the end, he finds a star on the sand (starfish).  This is a really soft, emotional tale with pictures that added a lot of meaning to the words.

                                                                            

Stuck by Oliver Jeffers

"Stuck" is about a boy named Floyd who gets his Kite stuck in a  tree.  Instead of climbing the tree or going for help, he throws up his shoe to knock it down, and it doesn't stop there.  he ends up throwing all kinds of crazy things, and even useful stuff like a ladder and a saw.  Kids will laugh at how ridiculous he is and it's fun to ask them what they would do or what they think he will do.  The ending is a great cliffhanger and my storytime kids kept asking me what happened next.  In contrast to the other book, this one is much lighter in tone but retains a similar style.  I'd love to do a storytime on all Jeffers books.

These books are best suited to Grades K-2.  

Possible storytimes include stars, space, author, trees, mischievous kids.  

FTC Disclaimer

All reviews are solely the opinions of Becky and/or Randi. We are not paid in any way for our reviews, and all opinions are 100% honest