Taking a Bath with the Dog
Scott Menchin
If you appreciate the little things that bring joy to your life, you’ll relate to this list of happiness bringers: riding a bike, slurping spaghetti, staying up late, blowing bubbles, singing, baking cookies with faces, etc. A little girl, who is feeling a little blue, surveys people in her life to find out what makes them happy. A joyful list ensues that would make a great spring board for a class book.
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The OK Book
Amy Krouse Rosenthal 
With the pressure kids seem to feel to be the best at everything...this book is a lovely reminder that it is alright to be ok at a lot of things. “I’m an OK skipper. I’m an OK climber. I’m an OK marshmallow roaster. I’m an OK tightrope walker....One day, I’ll grow up to be really excellent at something. I don’t know what it is yet...but I sure am having fun figuring it out.” How much do you love that message? We do! In fact, we will probably write our own “I’m OK” books with our students as we get to know each other, establishing our learning community as the new school year begins.
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They Wore What?! The Weird History of Fashion and Beauty
Richard Platt
Wow! It is all in here. From miniskirts to beehive hairdo’s, wild and wacky hats to perfumed wigs, corsets to piercings, false teeth to poisonous cosmetics and everything in between. It was a fascinating read!
The message is “Fashion may seem like fun, but as you’ve seen, it can be ridiculous and harmful, too. Looking just the same as everyone else may be reassuring, but it is also expensive and wasteful. Why should this summer’s colors, fabrics, and styles be different from last summer’s? Don’t be afraid to escape from the herd. Be yourself, and wear something completely different!” It’s time for back to school shopping. Don’t we want our children to hear that message loud and clear?
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Artful Reading
Bob Raczka
Through a variety of era’s and artistic styles we are introduced to places and reasons for reading. Simple text accompanies each work of art: “Read by yourself; Read with each other; Read one good book; Then read another; Read to discover what something means; Read to escape to a place you can dream.” One line per page perfectly accompanies the selected work of art. In small print underneath are Artist, title, year and where it is hung. More interesting tidbits can be found in the very back next to a thumbnail of each piece, for example, Paul Cezanne (1839-1906) French.
Because Paul Cezanne’s father was a banker, he read a newspaper that was popular with businessmen. But as a little joke, Cezanne painted him reading L’Evenement, the newspaper preferred by French artists and writers.
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Chickens May Not Cross The Road and Other Crazy (But True_ Laws
Kathy Linz
This is a fun and quirky little romp through cartoonish illustrations and a line of colorful text stating a true and crazy law that either is, or has been, on the books somewhere. Interspersed between them are single pages of text describing: Why some crazy laws exist; Why laws are necessary; The oldest laws; and how our branches of government function to create laws. A couple of our favorites are
- It is against the law to carry an ice cream cone in a pocket. (Lexington, Kentucky)
- No one may take a lion to a movie theater. (Baltimore, Maryland)
- It is forbidden to fish for whales (Oklahoma state law)
- Policemen are allowed to bite a dog if they think it will calm the dog down. (Paulding, Ohio)
- Trout Fishing is Against the Law if you are sitting on a Giraffe’s Back. (Idaho State Law)
- Riding an Ugly Horse is Illegal in Wilbur, Washington
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An Egg is Quiet
Dianna Aston and Sylvia Long
This is one of those books that will make you say “Wow!” The main text is simple and visually artistic. “An egg is quiet. It sits there, under its mother’s feathers...on top of its father’s feet...buried beneath the sand. Warm. Cozy. An egg is colorful. An egg is shapely. An egg is clever… ” There is a phrase per page with watercolor illustrations that are absolutely exquisite! Even the endpapers made us stop and browse for a few minutes each, trying to match the diverse eggs on the front to their hatchlings in the back. Smaller text blurbs accompany the illustrations, providing interesting facts about everything from bugs to birds. You and your kids will want to pour over it more than once!
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Frogs
Nic Bishop
This book has fabulous photographs and not too much text. It is filled with fascinating facts that girls, and especially boys, will revel in. For example: “Frogs like to look after their special skin. To do this, they shed it every so often. They wriggle and arch their backs to split the old skin and roll it off. Then they usually eat it!” Oh, what could be better than the gross factor when considering non- fiction! Did you know that a toad can eat up to 5000 insects in one summer? You can’t help but think they are wonderful creatures after reading this!
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Great Estimations
Bruce Goldstone
Ok, so we’ve never won any contest which required us to correctly guess the number of jelly beans, buttons or anything else in a jar….but after this book, we just might have a chance. Bruce Goldstone helps you train your eye by looking at various objects in groups, and as a result, you can’t help but hone your estimation skills! The photographs are colorful and fun, kind of I Spy style.
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Read Anything Good Lately? 
Susan Allen and Jane Lindaman
One of the things we try to teach children is the importance of reading a variety of materials for a variety of purposes. This ABC book does a beautiful job of illustrating how all kinds of reading fill the nooks and crannies of our lives. The main character reads an atlas at the airport, a dictionary at her desk, fairy tales by the fireplace, and tall tales in her tree house, just to name a few. We loved that her little brother is often close by and will inevitably become a reader because of her example. The illustrations are full of detail and a portion of each book she is reading is magnified in her thought bubble, so we can see it too.
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 Emma-Jean Lazarus Fell Out of a Tree
by Lauren Tarshis
Emma Jean is a social middle-school misfit. She mostly stays on the periphery, observing the lives of emotional peers she can’t possibly understand because of her highly logical nature. Everything changes when she meets one of her peers crying in the bathroom because, “Some people...aren’t nice.” How true...and for those of you who remember middle school or have children in middle school right now, it is still about who is popular, cool, and who is not. Emma Jean resolves to help any way she can. She has no idea that her seemingly helpful solution will have consequences with far reaching rippling effects. She learns about other people and herself while working her way out of the mire. The ending is satisfying without being too tidy.
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 Samuel Blink and the Forbidden Forest
Matt Haig
This imaginative fantasy is filled with suspense and comedy....two of our favorite things. We knew we were in for something fun when we read about the human and non-human characters in the book’s preface. If you tend to skip those, don’t do it in this book. The story opens with Samuel being completely annoyed in the confines of the car by his younger sister who won’t stop singing. A horrific accident, which Samuel unsuccessfully tries to thwart, turns the two into orphans and they are sent to live with their strange aunt in Norway. The house is boring, the food is weird, and all the rules make life there even worse. The most important rule is NEVER GO INTO THE FOREST (with good reason!). That, of course, is the rule that gets broken and is where the real adventure begins. There is plenty of good versus evil, surprises and adventure. It would be a great read aloud in intermediate classrooms and a good independent read for kids who loved Lemony Snicket and don’t know what to read next. (Only one complaint...and it is a small one that won’t bother very many of you... the author uses the word “flenking” fairly often, as in “stupid flenking idiot”. Skip it if it bothers you.).
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 SuperHero ABC
Bob McLoed
Sometimes we need to check a book out with an authentic audience before we decide if it is a keeper or not. “Will it bother kids that these aren’t real superhero’s?” crossed our minds as we read it. Well, we wonder no more. 22 of 24 first graders in our test classroom gave it 5 out of 5 stars. They loved Bubble-Man who blows big bubbles at bullies (plus he wears boots and is bald!). They wished they were Sky-Boy, a seven-year-old who soars through the sky after school! They were thrilled by The Volcano who vomits on villains (he’s vile....it’s very gross!). Every letter is accounted for with engaging cartoonish characters that are sure to please both boys and girls. It may set some of your writer’s off to create their own superhero creations.
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