7 kids books about pumpkins!

I love pumpkins!  The plant nursery down the road from me sells all manner of seasonal squash from itty-bitty baby orange pumpkins to the whopper that I bought this year - a 40 pound giant white pumpkin.  Every year when the nursery man starts stacking up corn stalks and hay bales, I know that it is almost pumpkin time!  

Have you carved your jack-o-lantern yet?  It stays pretty warm and humid here in October, so we don't carve ours until the week of Halloween so that it doesn't get all moldy before the big night.  Do you go all out with a carving kit and fancy designs or keep it simple?  We usually keep it simple with the traditional triangle eyes and snaggle-tooth grin.  Here are seven of our favorite pumpkin books.

The Roll-Away Pumpkin

By Junia Wonders

Buy on Amazon

Pumpkin Soup

By Helen Cooper

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The Pumpkin Book

By Gail Gibbons

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The Ugly Pumpkin

By Dave Horowitz

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Big Pumpkin

By Erica Silverman, S.D. Schindler

Buy on Amazon

It's Pumpkin Day, Mouse! (If You Give...)

By Laura Numeroff

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Pumpkin Town! Or, Nothing Is Better and Worse Than Pumpkins

By Katie McKy

Buy on Amazon

9 kids books about trick or treating!

What costumes are your kids picking for trick-or-treating this year?  My fourth grader is Pokemon obsessed, and his grandmother found him a comically large Pikachu costume.  When I say "comically large" picture the kind of costume big enough to require its own airline seat.  Yeah.  My preschooler is really into Ancient Egypt, and I found him a Pharaoh costume on sale.  Score!  Do you dress up right along with your kids?  I never pass up a chance to dress in costume, and my poor husband is usually a good sport about whatever couples costume I make him wear.  This year we are going as George and Martha Washington complete with colonial style wigs.  

Whatever your kids choose to be this year, here is the perfect pre-trick-or-treating reading list! 

Five Little Monkeys Trick-or-Treat (A Five Little Monkeys Story)

By Eileen Christelow

Buy on Amazon

The Berenstain Bears Trick or Treat (First Time Books)

By Stan Berenstain, Jan Berenstain

Buy on Amazon

Trick Arr Treat (Av2 Fiction Readalong 2017)

By Leslie Kimmelman

Buy on Amazon

Halloween ABC (Little Golden Book)

By Sarah Albee

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A Scratch & Sniff Halloween

By Elizabeth Spurr

Buy on Amazon

Llama Llama Trick or Treat

By Anna Dewdney

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Trick or Treat?

By Bill Martin Jr., Michael Sampson

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Trick-or-Treat: A Happy Haunter's Halloween

By Debbie Leppanen

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Trick or Treat

By Leo Landry

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teacher- created and classic easy readers

In the 1960s, Dorothy Z. Seymour was teaching first grade when she started writing easy readers to use as part of her reading curriculum.  

"I didn't realize that they would also become classics, beloved by children who cherished them, carried them around constantly, hugged them in bed, and reread them until their families could recite them by heart." - Dorothy Z. Seymour 

I was over at a friend's house when I saw her copy of one of her favorite books from childhood, Ann Likes Red, on the book shelf.  It caught my eye not only because the cover is just adorable but also because it looked so familiar to me. I realized one of my favorite books as a child is by the same author, Dorothy Z. Seymour.  Like my friend, first-grade-me carried one of Seymour's books around everywhere, read it over and over again, and loved to look at the simple yet perfect illustrations. Seymour's books have been so beloved by the first generation of readers that her work is now being published again for a new generation!  The simple stories are time-tested and true winners.  They encourage literacy confidence in a way that is fun. 

Ann Likes Red is the story of a little girl who loves the color red! (I can relate!)  Ann goes shopping with her mother.  Does Ann want a blue dress? Green shoes?  Purple socks?  Nope.  I mean, didn't you read the title?  Ann wants a red dress, red shoes, red everything!  

My favorite as a little girl was Ballerina Bess.  With a story as simple and sweet as Ann Likes Red and pictures that engage little readers, this is still one of my favorites.  Bess wants to learn to dance, so her parents take her to a ballet school. 

Seymour said that The Sandwich was one of her favorite stories to write.  In it, two kids are building one crazy sandwich with layer after layer of every ingredient imaginable! 

I am pretty sure that five years ago Seymour's books would have been hard to locate for purchase, and I haven't seen Ballerina Bess on a store or library shelf for quite some time.  I had no problem finding these titles online, and I highly recommend them for your beginner readers! 

8 kids books about owls!

We live next to an old growth forest that is home to wild flowers and tall poplar trees, snakes, insects, a coyote or two, and all manner of birds including owls.  I have been lucky enough to stand in our forest all alone with an owl in a tree just over my head.  Just me and the owl, me looking up at him, he looking down at me.  It is magical.  The owl is such a beautiful bird, and when you get a chance to look into their knowing, round eyes, you understand why the owl is a symbol of wisdom.  Here is a list of owl themed books for all the owl lovers out there!  

Owl Babies

By Martin Waddell

Buy on Amazon

Little Owl's Night

By Divya Srinivasan

Buy on Amazon

National Geographic Readers: Owls

By Laura Marsh

Buy on Amazon

Little Owl's Day

By Divya Srinivasan

Buy on Amazon

Little Owl: Finger Puppet Book (Little Finger Puppet Board Books)

By ImageBooks

Buy on Amazon

Sam and the Firefly

By P.D. Eastman

Buy on Amazon

The Christmas Owl

By Angela Muse

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Owl Moon

By Jane Yolen

Buy on Amazon

there's a bear on my chair by ross collins

Hi there Booktomato family!  How is your week going?  We are in full lunch box packing-homework writing-teacher meeting-it's a school night so you need to get in bed now mode over here.  What about you?  

Today's book, There's a Bear on My Chair, is written by super-talented and super-prolific children's author, Ross Collins.  A full list of his works would be way too long for this post, so if you want to read more of his books (and there are some really, really good ones!) check out his website here. 

So what is a mouse to do when a bear comes and sits in his chair and he just will not move?  He begs.  He pleads.  He bribes, but the bear will not budge.  The solution?  Go get in the bear's bed!  This story is so cute, and my three year old loved it.  It has the simplicity and humor that I feel so many of the classic picture books have.  Also, any book that says the word "underwear"  is the height of comedy for my kids.  This is sure to be a classic!

look at the moon by may garelick and leonard weisgard

Hi there!  The moon is one of the most romanticized subjects in the world.  The man in the moon.  When the moon hits your eye.  I see the moon and the moon sees me.  So many classic songs, books, and movies are about the moon, and for good reason.  Nothing is more enchanting than a glowing orange October harvest moon on a clear night.

Look At The Moon by May Garelick with pictures by Leonard Weisgard is a poetic look at the moon and everything is shines upon.  The moon shines on the countryside with its wildlife and forests.  The moon shines on the big city with its sky scrapers and traffic filled streets.  It takes turns shining on the Western hemisphere and the Eastern hemisphere.  I loved the picture of the sleepy koala about to tuck in for the night in his eucalyptus tree!  

The illustrations are these black, white, and blue sketches that are really nice, and the language is written in poetic stanzas.  We really enjoyed this.  

recommended age: 3-6

Story Time Conversations:

• What are the different shapes the moon can take?  
• What does the moon shine on in our neighborhood?
• Did you know that people used to think that the moon was made out of cheese?  What is the moon really made out of?

five things i didn't know about madeline by ludwig bemelmans

Madeline has always been a character I have held in my heart.  She is feisty, adventurous, and kind.  The oil painting pictures of twelve little girls in two straight lines tromping through perfectly Parisian scenes are forever etched in my mind.  Here are five things about Madeline and author Ludwig Bemelmans that I didn't know until now. 

1. Bemelmans was a renaissance man with a rocky start.   A father that left his mother for their nanny, several grade school expulsions, getting                  deported to America because he may or may not have shot a man - old Ludwig had a rough go. His first attempts at writing were rejected by magazines and publishers until Madeline was picked up for publication in 1939.  He would go on to rise in the art world to be equally successful as a painter and a writer.

2. Madeline broke the gender mold for her time.  Even today, so many people will say the old adage, "boys will be boys!"  In other words, when boys are spunky and a tad mischievous, it is just a socially acceptable part of their nature.  When girls act the same way, some might not see it as a positive, especially in the 1940s.  Madeline is unique for her adventurous and strong personality.  She is opinionated, strong willed, and unlike most of the literary females in picture books of the time.  She walks across that stone bridge wall, scaring Miss Clavel, and breaking all the rules society placed on her gender. 

3. Aristotle Onassis (Mr. Jackie O) commissioned Bemelmans to paint 15 Madeline murals for the playroom of his yacht, and in 1999, the murals sold for almost a million dollars.  

4. It was very important to Bemelmans to show respect to his young audience and never write down to them.  He is quoted, "We are writing for children, but not for idiots."

5. The last lines of every Madeline story spoken by Miss Clavel were taken from actress Ethel Barrymore.  Drew Barrymore's great aunt was famous for ending her shows with the lines, "That's all there is.  There isn't anymore."

I love reading the stories behind the stories, especially when I find that children's books that I have loved for so long have a fascinating history!  What do you think?  What other beloved kids books have a colorful heritage?  

teaching our kids to fail: 11 experiments that failed by jenny offill and nancy carpenter

Are you like me?  Do you have a hard time letting your kids fail?  Let me tell you what I mean. 

When my fourth grader was younger, like in preschool, I never felt anxiety about letting him fail because the failures were so small. Giving him a regular drinking glass instead of a spill-proof sippy cup meant that he spilled his juice more often but he learned how to not spill faster because of it.  
Natural consequences became the lessons that his failures taught him, and these lessons were much more effective than anything I could have done.  But as he gets older, the natural consequences of his mistakes are much bigger than just getting the a kitchen rag to mop up the spilled juice. Like the other moring when he walked out of the house without his school bag and didn't realize it until we were already in the drop off line at his school.  I could have/should have let him fail.  I could have/should have said, "Oh, well.  You forgot your school bag, and now the natural consequence is that you don't have your work.  Your teachers will not be happy with you."  Instead, I raced home, got the bag, and drove all the way back to bring it to him.  It felt good.  I was able to make my kid happy.  I justified it by telling myself things like "He's still just a kid", "If he makes bad grades today, it will make us both look bad", and "His teachers will think I'm a bad mom if I don't do this".  I had a nagging little thought in the back of my brain though, and it said, You've got to be okay with failure.  Failing at something makes us stronger, smarter, and gives us that growth mindset that so many teachers and researchers are now saying is way more valuable in a student than smarts.  I want to get better at this, and to start, I'm going to read 11 Experiments That Failed by Jenny Offill and Nancy Carpenter.

In this picture book, you will not find famous scientists or explorers conducting epic experiments.  11 Experiments that Failed is about everyday kids activating their curiosity to explore their world.  I love that about this book.  It shows kids that we are all scientists who can test a hypothesis.  The experiments include: can a person survive eating only ketchup and snow? (spoiler: no they can't), can I send a message in a bottle to the ocean by flushing it down my toilet?, and will a slice of bologna fly like a Frisbee?  Like the title says, each experiment failed.  You can't survive on ketchup, that message in the bottle will only clog your loo, and bologna will just splat on the floor when thrown.  I love the way each experiment is approached with wild abandon and a spirit that shakes off the fear of being wrong.  I also love that the parents of these young scientists didn't stop them from failure.  Obviously, the mom and dad knew people can't survive on ketchup, but instead of lecturing their kid about nutrition, they just stepped back and let them find out for themselves.  I really need to start doing that! 

What do you think?  Should we be there to solve our kids' problems, or should we give them the space to figure it out on their own?

the madeline legacy continues!

Did you grow up reading about the twelve little girls in two straight lines, and that old house that they lived in, covered with vines?  I treasured my Madeline books, so I was curious when I saw that Madeline author, Ludwig Bemelmans, had a grandson who was taking up the Madeline torch and continuing the stories. 

You never know when a remake is going to be great or going to be something you wish never happened as to not tarnish the image of the original in your mind. (I'm looking at you, sequel to To Kill A Mockingbird.)  I love the originals so much that reading a new Madeline story had me a bit nervous.  But, rejoice!  I liked them, and my preschooler found them just as entertaining as the originals.

John Bemelmans Marciano is the grandson of the original author, and he has written three new Madeline stories: Madeline in Rome, Madeline at the White House, and this one, Madeline and the Old House in Paris.

In this story, Lord Cucuface, that meddlesome, snooty-tooty, sometimes mean Head of School, pays the girls a visit.  While he is inspecting the place, he discovers a beautiful, old telescope and decides to take it home. 

With the telescope gone,  the girls start to hear strange, ghastly noises coming from the attic.  They investigate to find that the ghost of a scientist haunts their house, and he wants his telescope back!  Fortunately, he is a friendly ghost, and Madeline and Pepito (the bad hatted boy next door) hatch a plan to get that telescope back!

I found the writing style with its bouncy fun rhymes to be just like the originals, maybe even, dare I say it, a little better because it was a tad more on the modern side.  It used the type of language we use today, so my preschooler understood the rhymes better.  The illustrations aren't quite as detailed as the originals, but they still bring us into that Madeline, Parisian world.  We really enjoyed it.

friends forever by roald kaldestad and bjorn rune lie

When you were a kid, did you ever have a best friend move away?  I was six when my family moved to a new city six hours away from where we were living and six hours away from my best friend who lived next door.  I was devastated.  Big life changes are just as hard for kids as they are for adults, maybe sometimes even harder.  Kids are still learning to process and make sense of their emotions, and losing a best friend can be difficult. 

I like to use age-appropriate books to help my kids handle big life lessons.  Reading about a character that is going through the same thing my kid is going through really helps in so many ways.  They get to see how the character deals with the same problem. They are comforted by the fact that they aren't the only person in the world dealing with the issue.  Reading about life lessons gets the ball rolling between me and my kid, and we have more meaningful conversations after reading.  With this in mind, I was so excited when Berlin-based children's book publisher offered to send me a copy of one of their latest books, Friends Forever.

This Norwegian-translated picture book by Roald Kaldestad and Bjorn Rune Lie is a perfect choice for kid dealing with losing a friend. 

A boy misses his best friend every time it rains. Since she moved away, he feels lonely and isolated from everyone around him, even his classmates and family.  One day, the mailman brings him a surprise letter from her with a chocolate bar inside.  The treat makes him feel a little better, but a chocolate bar isn't the same as having his friend back.  In the end, a new girl moves into the house next door, and the boy opens himself up to making new friends. 

The emotional mood in this picture book is very strong, and the illustrations by Bjorn Rune Lie create scenes on the page that use the boy's outer world to reflect his inner world.  Gloomy, rainy, overcast, and with swirling winds blowing everything up in the air are the best ways to describe his outer view and also his inner view.

I like that this story didn't try to solve the boy's problem right away.  So many times, when my kids are struggling with something, I tend to rush in and try to make things better.  Even though the story ends on a hopeful note for the boy, this book doesn't try to rush him through his emotions.  He is allowed to be sad and mad about losing his best friend.  That notion that every one grieves on their own time is a lesson that I found very valuable in this story. The publisher labelled this as a book best suited for ages 6-9, and that sounds about right.  

Thank you to Little Gestalten for sending me a copy of Friends Forever! If you haven't checked out the book publisher that the New York Times Style section says "marries thoughtful storytelling with supercool visuals", go to the Little Gestalten website to browse from their amazing selection.  On the front page of their web shop, they quote George Bernard Shaw, "Make it a rule never to give a child a book you would not read yourself."  I couldn't agree more!

the thing about vintage picture books

I love vintage picture books!  Love them so much, but an experience with an out-dated story book taught me something. Let me tell you about the time that I learned something about story books of old.  

I wanted (and still want) my sons to read from the canon of children's literature.  There are so many classics that I wanted to be in my sons' wheel house, from picture books like Madeline and anything by Maurice Sendak to chapter books like the Anne of Green Gables series and many others.  I purchased a copy of Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories.  It looked very kid-friendly with beautiful water color illustrations and short little stories teaching lessons like fables with animal characters.  No red flags anywhere until we started reading together.  The first story about a naughty elephant was rife with details that frankly I just wasn't cool with.  The elephant gets spanked excessively throughout the story, and there were a lot of colonial-mindset derogatory descriptions about people from India.  Not the experience I was expecting. 

What I learned that day was the importance of pre-screening older books before I give them to my kids.  Now I'm not saying that I ban books with anything controversial inside.  A lot of times books with material that I find doesn't jive with what we want to teach our kids act as a good conversation starter and teachable moment.  For example, an 1950s Little Golden Book that shows a mom and a dad acting out staunch gender roles is a moment to talk about how men and women can do whatever they want today.  Dads can stay home.  Moms can work.  Reading a Little House book where they sing a song about "blackies" (cringe) is a moment to talk about diversity and discrimination.

But wait, didn't you just say you love vintage picture books?  What's to love?  So much!  The window into the past is such a valuable teaching tool for parents and kids.  Our modern world is fascinating but complicated.  I love the nostalgic simplicity of a vintage Little Golden Book or an old easy reader.  Every time I read a vintage picture book, I am reminded to bring some of that same simplicity back into my home.  

What do you think?  Have you had the same experience with older kid's books?

You Tube Tuesday are back for 2017!

You Tube Tuesday return for the new year, and we are sharing what books we most want to take from our TBR (to be read) pile in 2017.  Included in the list are picture books Josephine, Preaching To The Chickens, The Princess and the Warrior, and The Polar Bear.  What's on your TBR pile? 

books we are excited about in 2017!

Hi y'all!  We hope your holiday was pure magic, and that the first days of the new year find you content, peaceful, and ready to kick 2017's booty.  We took a small break from the blog to be with family for the holiday, and we're excited to be back to bask in the book world for 2017.  

Let's dive into the list of what books we are most looking forward to in the new year. BTW - this post contains affiliated links which means if you buy one of the books listed here, I get a small fee, but I choose books completely based on my own opinion.  Thanks! 

Hogwarts Library

By J.K. Rowling

Buy on Amazon

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: The Original Screenplay

By J.K. Rowling

Buy on Amazon

Two biggies for Harry Potter fans coming out in the next couple months: The Hogwarts Library and the screenplay to the new movie Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them.  The library is a box set featuring all of the new material published after the last Harry Potter novel, so it includes Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (the novel not the screenplay), Tales from Beedle the Bard, and something described as "extensive commentary from Albus Dumbledore". Plus twenty percent of the sales go to J.K. Rowling's charity, Lumos, which helps end institutionalization in children.  Fantastic Beasts was such a great movie, and I would love a copy of the screen play with new illustrations that I've never seen.

Mighty, Mighty Construction Site

By Sherri Duskey Rinker

Buy on Amazon

I don't know about you, but when Rinker's first construction site book came out - Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site, my younger child was a toddler, and he was OBSESSED with that book.  If you have a child who makes you read that book over and over again, wait until February when you can add this book and a little variety to your story time collection. 

I am Jim Henson (Ordinary People Change the World)

By Brad Meltzer

Buy on Amazon

My husband and I heard this author, Brad Meltzer, on a podcast one time, and he was awesome.  I love his idea to write children's books about real people who changed our world for the better.  There are many, many of these "I am" books, and they are great.  This month, I am Jim Henson will be hitting stores.  From Sesame Street to The Muppets, Jim Henson has touched so many lives.  This is someone I want my kids to know about and learn from for sure. 

Pete the Cat: Five Little Ducks

By James Dean

Who doesn't need another Pete the Cat book?  Preschoolers just love these books, and for good reason!  They are funny and unique.  We will definitely add this one to our Pete the Cat library. 

What books are you looking forward to in the new year?  I'm sure my list only starts with these here and will continue to grow and grow! 

the queen's knickers by nicholas allen

CONFESSION: I know everything  there is to know about the British Royal family.  Go ahead, ask me what Kate Middleton wore to the Christmas day church services, what bright, monochromatic matching skirt suit and hat the Queen wore on her last royal public outing, I know the answer. Okay, maybe I'm just a Royal family fashion expert.  Speaking of royal fashion. . . . .

I found a picture book all about the Queen of England's underwear!  I didn't know I needed a picture book about the Queen's undies until I read a picture book about the Queen's undies.  It's glorious.   

The Queen's Knickers by Nicholas Allen is a hilarious tale of how much the Queen loves her fashionable undies.  She has a different pair for every occasion - including a corgi print pair for hanging around the royal apartment, a plaid woolen pair for when she travels to her Scottish home Balmoral, and a Union Jack print pair for visits with foreign dignitaries.  #personalgoalsfor2017

One day, the Queen went on a trip, and her undies trunk got mixed up with a picnic basket, and the picnickers found underwear in their lunchbox instead of food!  This book was fun for everyone - I loved the playful take on the Queen's fashion sense, and my kids are still at an age where saying the word "underwear" out loud is hilarious.  

For a no-prep art project inspired by the story, let's use markers and crayons on white paper to design our own funny underwear!  What crazy designs can your kids come up with?  

meet wavey n snotts!

Do you have kid that love to do art projects?  I try to keep a box of random bits and bobs along with markers, glue, scissors, the usual crafty supplies.  My husband thinks I'm crazy for keeping things like egg cartons and toilet paper cardboard tubes, but I think these things are treasures!  They can be turned into anything, and they provide that open-ended quality to craft time.  Well, if your kids love to cut and paste and turn those egg cartons and old shoe boxes into art, tell them to keep it up!  They might end up creating something as totally awesome as the collage art work in this brand new book, Cloud Cuckoo Land, by authors Sam Davies and Andy Watts, AKA Wavey n Snotts.  

Cloud Cuckoo Land takes the reader on one crazy journey through an artsy collage world filled with unusual and imaginative creatures like Snoobly-Snarks and Hofflemabots that glow in the dark along with a blue rabbit that walks on stilts!  Each character is wildly creative and based on the author's idea of using animal idioms to tell a story.  The story-style is very much in the family of Dr. Seuss - wacky and fun and a little nonsensical but in the best way.  Kids will love it! 

We look forward to reading more from Wavey n Snotts as they produce more adventures! 

recommended age:  3-6

good night, baddies by deborah underwood and juli kangas

At the end of each story, the prince rides off on his fair white steed.  The princess polishes her tiara.  The hero puts his or her trophy on the mantle.  But what about the bad guys, huh?  Where does the evil witch or the Big Bad Wolf go at the end of a long, unsuccessful day?  Baddies are people too, you see, and in their evenings off, they need a relaxing place to call home.

Good Night, Baddies by Deborah Underwood and Juli Kangas is one of my new favorites.  The story is written in bouncy, funny rhymes and the illustrations by Juli Kangas show where baddies like the giant from the beanstalk and the troll under the billy goats' bridge call home.  All of the bad guys from all of your favorite fairy tales live together in a castle where they eat dinner together, talk about their work days, and read books by the fire.  

This is such a cute story!  We loved all of the pictures of bad guys in their pajamas and bunny slippers.  recommended age: 3-6

Thanks for stopping by today!  Do you have a book that you would like to share?  I love hearing your recommendations! 

books we read over and over again: the whisper by pamela zagarenski

Do you ever have this problem?  You buy a new book for your kid to read because it looks cute or was displayed in your local book shop, or maybe it won a lot of awards and has a lot of buzz.  You take it home, read it once, and your kid never asks to read it again.  Isn't that frustrating?  Picture books aren't cheap! We want to invest in books that our kids will come back to again and again not ones that look good but aren't fun to read.  

I think The Whisper by Pamela Zagarenski is one of those books that looks good but also has a story that kids will love.  We have owned our copy for over a year, and we still return to it and enjoy it.  

The Whisper is a new release from artist Pamela Zagarenski, winner of two Caldecott honors, and it is beautiful.  A young girl loves to read and loves getting lost in her books.  She borrows a very special book from her school teacher, and when she gets home she is disappointed.  The book has no words, only pictures.  She has nothing to read.  Just as she is about to put the book back on the shelf to read something else, she hears a whisper.  It is coming from the book!  The whisper tells her that she has the ability to create her own stories, to imagine them herself with the pictures as inspiration.  She makes up story after story from the book's illustrations.  The stories become so real that she feels that she herself is inside the story.  

I liked the way this story promotes interaction and engagement with art.  I didn't learn to really enjoy art on canvas until I was an adult, and it really is a skill.  Because the girl has to create stories from the picture she sees, she learns to observe a piece of art and appreciate details.  This would be great to read and then go to our local art museum.  We could practice imagining our own stories from the paintings we see.  I recommend this book for upper elementary school kids.  The pictures would interest any age, but the story is very lengthy and uses a vocabulary on the level of third graders and up.  Younger readers might not be ready to engage with this story.  

Have you read The Whisper?  Do you have any books that look good but also have stories that you can read over and over again?  Any experiences where a book you thought would be good didn't deliver?  Let me know!   

language and literacy boosting kids book! one thousand things by anna kovecses

Your little ones will really enjoy this language boosting beauty by Anna K.  The illustrations are retro cute and colorful, and I love the idea of collecting the first one thousand words in a child's world. This book was helpful when my younger son was learning to talk, and now that he is older, this is a great source for working on sight words. The pages are divided into sections organized as seen below, and each section is filled with eye-catching scenes that will engage young readers.  

I sometimes read product reviews on Amazon before I buy the book, and one of the reviews of this book pointed out that this the pictures in this are too stylized to be recognized by little kids, for example, the picture of books on a shelf looks like a bunch of mid-century modern rectangles and kids couldn't see that they were books.  Well, I can see what the reviewer means, and there are definitely picture books that I read and think that they were designed for adults to find them pretty instead of kids connecting with the story.  However, my three year old didn't have trouble with the pictures, and I liked that the book does cover the common words that we see in most of these word books - ball, cat, cup - and it also covers more unique terms like leek and eggplant.  Have a great day all! 

my brand new youtube channel!

I've started a new You Tube channel for Booktomato!  Every week I hope to add a new video. I hope to do more of these picture book history videos and also commentary on new kids books.  What would you like to see in my videos? Take a look! 

the weekend round up!

What does your weekend look like?  The air is cool and crisp here in Memphis, and I wore my fuzzy house slippers for the first time since the spring!  We have nothing big planned this weekend, just puttering around town.  My son has a math tutoring session.  We might go eat Israeli food for lunch.  We are laying low this weekend in preparation for our big plans next week.  We are headed to Orlando, Florida and Walt Disney World for a blogging conference.  I'm so excited to meet new blogging friends and say hello again to old blogging friends.  

Here are some of the best in book posts from around the web.  Have a happy weekend!

Pragmatic Mom shares a list of books about dogs and cats that are sure to get laughs here and a robotic STEM toy review here. 

What Do We Do All Day has some great free and printable coloring pages with a Halloween theme here. 

Kids Book Review reviews a new picture book, A Dog Called Bear here. 

Kids Books Without Borders shares a fascinating and in depth interview with author, Jean Little, here. 

A Kids Book A Day shares a historical biography picture book about the childhood of Louis Braille (the inventor of Braille writing for the blind) here.