Ball

It might seem odd that a picture book that repeats just one word is an Honor Book for this year's Geisel Award. Yet Ball offers beginning readers much more than the opportunity to really, really learn how to decode the word ball. It tells a fantastic story almost entirely in pictures. The long-snouted, rotund mutt--who could come straight from a New Yorker comic--is obsessed with his red ball. From the moment his redhead owner awakes he is after her to throw his toy, which she enthusiastically does--until it's time for her to leave for school. Dog then spends the agonizing hours until her return trying to get the other members of the household (a blissed-out yoga mom, a drooling infant, and the family cat) to play ball without success. Finally Dog stumbles into a restless sleep and dreams of--what else--chasing his ball. The dream sequence is sidesplittingly funny, especially the spread that leads him down a toilet and through a labyrinth of pipes. First-time author/illustrator does a bang-up job of creating a humorous homage to dogs and their love of balls.

Ball by Mary Sullivan
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 40 pages
Published: 2013

Urgency Emergency! Big Bad Wolf

Doctor Glenda has a tough case on her paws. A wolf has been rushed to the emergency room of City Hospital with something--or someone--stuck in his throat. And who is that little girl in the red coat looking for her grandmother? With the help of Nurse Percy--a chicken with a sensible fear of wolves--Doctor Glenda performs a successful Heimlich maneuver to extract Grandma from the wolf's gullet. Then Grandma and the red-coated girl go off together, none the worse for wear. The winner in the 2013 Cybils' Easy Reader category, this entertaining easy reader will have beginning readers chuckling as they recognize their old fairy tale friends in a new setting. And luckily for them, a companion book, Urgency Emergency!: Itsy Bitsy Spider, is available as well.

Favorite Line: "She was damp and a bit chewed around the edges, but otherwise OK."

Urgency Emergency!: Big Bad Wolf

By Dosh Archer

Albert Whitman

Published: 2013 

Cybils Winners Announced!

Happy Valentine's Day! For you lovers of children's books we have a special treat. The winners of the 2013 Cybils (Children's and Young Adult Bloggers' Literary Awards) were announced today, and there are sure to be books that escaped your radar on the list. As a second round judge for the Elementary and Middle-Grade Nonfiction category, I am, naturally, thrilled with our pick. It's Look Up!: Bird-watching in Your Own Backyard by Annette LeBlanc Cate. Here is the blurb we wrote to go with it:

Budding ornithologists won’t be the only ones to delight in this jam-packed introduction to the joys of bird-watching. Annette LeBlanc Cate's enthusiasm for her subject shines through her humorous yet informative text and in her inviting pen-and-ink illustrations of birds, birds, and more birds. Cate recommends that you begin by looking for birds in your own backyard because “you don’t have to go anywhere fancy to watch birds, nor do you need to know their fancy Latin names." A useful list of bird-watching dos and don’ts, should-haves and don’t-needs (binoculars!) introduces the text. In subsequent chapters, Cate explains how to identify birds by color, shape, behavior, and other characteristics. Along with charts, sidebars, and a bibliography, the book features an engaging cast of cartoon bird characters. Sassy and opinionated, they help to spread Cate’s message: “Bird-watching is fun!” Look Up! isn’t just a title—it’s an invitation to a new way of looking at the avian world.

By happy coincidence, this weekend is The Great Backyard Bird Count, and it starts today. It's not too late to sign up and be part of a worldwide attempt to "create an annual snapshot of the distribution and abundance" of the feathered creatures we share the planet with.

The Watermelon Seed

This year's winner of the Theodor Seuss Geisel Award for the most distinguished beginning reader is Greg Pizzoli's The Watermelon Seed. The book is Pizzoli's first and an impressive debut it is. A small crocodile whose favorite food is watermelon accidentally swallows a seed. This causes him undue anxiety as he imagines the seed growing inside him. He worries: "It's growing in my guts! Soon vines will come out of my ears!" Any child who's downed a wad of bubblegum or buzzing insect (it happens!) will relate to the little reptile's fears.

The book's brightly colored palette of pinks and greens reinforces the watermelon theme. Readers are sure to chuckle at the amusing ways Pizzoli portrays the crocodile's distress. My favorite illustration is the one where he imagines himself a watermelon morsel in a fruit salad. The text is simplicity itself, with just one or two simple sentences on most spreads. The story whizzes by to a hilarious conclusion that solves the crocodile's problem--though not for long. A definite win for the six and under set.

The Watermelon Seed
By Greg Pizzoli
Disney Hyperion Books
Published: 2013