Fingers creeping, creeping or snowflakes falling delight young children – especially when told in rhyme and dramatized with a caring adult. Familiar and less familiar ditties with directions for hand movement are presented in engaging illustration as well as rhymes.
Hand Rhymes
George Ancona’s colorful photographs capture the spirit, movement, and form of basic finger spelling used by the deaf and often learned by hearing children as well.
Handtalk: An ABC of Finger Spelling and Sign Language
Exuberant language and jaunty illustrations seem to jump off the pages to celebrate “girlpie” hair, soft and billowy. With encouraging individuality, these girls love and accept themselves just the way they are.
Happy to Be Nappy
Readers learn of Mexican migrant workers’ difficult lives in this photo-documentary. Despite backbreaking labor in poor conditions, the workers take pride in what they do and struggle to help their families get ahead.
Harvest
A little boy travels around the world to find his missing cat. As he encounters other felines, he exclaims, “This is not my cat!” That is, until his very own is located.
Have You Seen My Cat?
A head by itself can’t do much – until he meets arms, body, and legs. Together they discover how delicious life can be. Bold colors and broad forms help create the humor in this engaging creation story from the author’s Dan tribe of Liberia.
Head, Body, Legs: A Story from Liberia
Hoptoad
Short rhyming text contrasts with illustrations of huge dinosaurs who are ailing with sniffles and coughs. Of course, the dinosaurs (with their names tucked into each page) are being helped by a caring but seemingly small adult in this companion to How Do Dinosaurs Say Good Night?
How Do Dinosaurs Get Well Soon?
Ten sleepy dinosaurs get ready for bed in this celebration of funny, endearing, and naughty bedtime behavior. Young children will laugh out loud as they recognize themselves in this larger than life silliness.
How Do Dinosaurs Say Good Night?
After the soldiers come, Papa tells his family that they must leave everything behind and set sail for America. The journey across the Caribbean is dangerous and long, and our narrator and his little sister keep asking — just how many days is it to America? Prolific children’s author Eve Bunting, herself an immigrant from Ireland, shares the story of a new generation of pilgrims who are willing to risk their lives to look for freedom in America.
How Many Days to America? A Thanksgiving Story
How I Spent My Summer Vacation
While everyone has a nose, toes, and hair, no one has them just alike — and so a girl with bouncy red ponytails celebrates her uniqueness, the “incredible me!” Engaging child-like drawings romp across the pages with rhythmic, rhyming text.
Incredible Me!
Vulture is sick and tired of Jabuti’s trickery. He gets his revenge when he flies the tortoise high in the air, then drops him, breaking his shell. But Jabuti puts himself together and comes out on top — with the help of the birds of the rainforest. How those birds got their colorful plumage is vividly explained in this brilliantly colored and well-told tale.
Jabuti the Tortoise: A Trickster Tale from the Amazon
Dr. Seuss could have come up with the names of these lip-smacking delights! Frozen Bananoids, Soap Bubbles Supreme – the recipes may have peculiar names, but they are familiar to and enjoyed by children and adults alike.
Kids Cooking: A Very Slightly Messy Manual
Children will delight in Kitten’s mistake. They know that what she thinks is a bowl of milk is really the moon’s reflection. Mostly black and white (and shades of gray) illustration expressively depict Kitten. Children enjoy the visual and verbal patterns throughout. (2005 Caldecott Medal Winner)
Kitten’s First Full Moon
Arthur’s little sister, Dora Winifred (better known as D.W.) can hardly wait until she can write her entire name to get her very own library card. Once she does, however, D.W. worries so much about possibly damaging the book she borrowed that she cannot enjoy it. Arthur helps her understand that she can use and enjoy library books safely. Also available in Spanish.
D.W.’s Library Card
Little Rat really doesn’t want to start the lessons her parents have arranged; she’s afraid of sailing! But with the help of an amiable instructor, Little Rat overcomes her fear and learns not only to sail, but to enjoy it as well.
Little Rat Sets Sail
This collection of creative activities involve science, art, cooking, and more. Concocting these concoctions will provide hours of ooey, gooey fun.
Lotions, Potions, and Slime: Mudpies and More
Marvin’s Best Christmas Ever
Max is a determined three-year-old bunny, while his big sister, Ruby, is a smart, goal-oriented seven-year-old. Although the two siblings squabble as siblings often will, they usually manage to come to an agreement by the end of each of these satisfying stories.
Max Board Books
It’s election time, and both Max and Kelly are running for class president. They busily make campaign signs and buttons and develop their platform. There can only be one winner, though, so someone is bound to be disappointed. All ends well, though, in this satisfying and recognizable story.
Max for President!
Visit Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula to meet several generations of Mayan Indians, learn a bit about their history, culture, and contemporary life in this riveting portrait in pictures and words.
Mayeros: A Yucatec Maya Family
Mightier Than the Sword: World Folktales for Strong Boys
Ancona takes a look at Latino and Hispanic murals within the United States in this fascinating photo-essay. The photos vary between broad shots, close-ups that reveal details, and images of a variety of people either creating or viewing the paintings.