The Fierce Yellow Pumpkin

I haven't blogged much since school started. I've got a new assignment and between moving into a new classroom and pulling together materials for math intervention and ELA support for our Spanish Immersion students, I've been...busy.

But when I pulled out my Halloween books and saw this, I knew I had to share. Whenever I read this to children, I always ask if they have read Goodnight, Moon or Runaway Bunny. Most of the time, the answer is yes and we talk about what they like about those stories before I tell them that this book is written by the same author. That always gets them ready to hear something wonderful. The Fierce Yellow Pumpkin follows a tiny, green pumpkin as he grows into a big, orange pumpkin in a field he shares with a one-eyed scarecrow whose ferociousness he wishes to emulate.

As the field mice scamper around him in the big field, the little pumpkin watches the scarecrow chase away the blackbirds and he vows that someday he will scare the field mice away. His wish comes true when a trio of children choose him to be their jack-o-lantern, carve him up, set him out on the porch, light a candle inside him, and...the mice run away.

Margaret Wise Brown turns a typical tale about a pumpkin becoming a jack-o-lantern into an absorbing adventure filled with both rich and childlike language - zigzag, gallop, dreadful, ferocious, inky black, droopy.

Caldecot medalist Richard Egielski uses warm colors and shadows to evoke the mood of Brown's writing. The light on the children's faces as they gaze at their jack-o-lantern took me back to the years of carving pumpkins in our home.

Smithsonian Magazine article about Margaret Wise Brown

Richard Egielski website

Other Halloween books:
Halloween Rhythm and Rhyme (8 books  in 1 post)

National Geographic Kids: Halloween

Halloween Night: Twenty-One Spooktacular Poems

The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

 

Seattle Aquarium - Guess What I Bought in the Gift Shop?

I got to visit the Seattle Aquarium today with some friends from the ville.  If you are ever in Seattle, be sure to make this one of your destinations.  Very kid-friendly and, if you are interested in marine life, fascinating for adults as well.  Don't forget to eat lunch in the cafe and have some Ivar's clam chowder.

Our last stop during our visit was the gift shop.  My go-to purchase in overpriced touristy gift shops is a magnet to add to my growing collection.  But today as I was looking through the children's book section, I found several 50% off books and you know I had to get a couple!

The first title that attracted my attention was Santa is Coming to Washington.  It must be a thing now, because there are quite a few "Santa is Coming to" books on Amazon, so you might be able to find your home state or even city on the list.

This is definitely a niche book, banking on the excitement people feel over seeing places they call their own in print.  I admit, I felt a little thrill at seeing Bainbridge Island mentioned on one of the pages and my friends found their new hometown as well.  

Not a solid story, though, and with that being the case, I would have liked to have seen Santa enjoy more of Washington's famous places.  If you're going to target a specific audience, at least immerse them in all of the glory of their particular world. The Space Needle is shown and St. James Cathedral is mentioned along with the Pacific Science Center, Mount Rainier, and David Rogers Park.  A dozen cities are mentioned in passing as well.

The illustrations are quite good and I would have loved to have seen more of the sites the author mentioned come to life on the pages of this book and Pike Place Market is a notable omission.

The next book that grabbed my attention was the Fish with the Deep Sea Smile by Margaret Wise Brown.

This is a charming story of a father and his two children who go on a fishing trip to find the fish with the deep sea smile.  The illustrations by Henry Fisher are bright, fun and lively.  He perfectly captures the tone of Wise's rhythm and rhyme.

The story is exactly what we expect from Brown - delightful.  She is known for repetition, rhyme, rhythm, writing for children rather than to children, and throwing in a challenging word now and then to keep children wondering.  

This story is perfect for little readers who love the predictability of a familiar refrain with a new twist added on each page.

The Golden Egg Book

I found this oversized version of The Golden Egg Book on Amazon and I just had to have it.  This book was a favorite for my youngest son - we read it until he had it memorized and beyond.  If I could peek into his 3-year-old mind, I would guess that the illustrations were the big draw - if you click on the link, you can take a sneak peek at them and see what I mean.  I think he was especially intrigued by the illustrations where the bunny imagines what could be inside the egg.  Seriously - who wouldn't love the idea of an elephant inside a duck egg?

A bunny finds an egg and begins to poke and prod and roll it and try to figure out what kind of egg it is.  He imagines it might contain a boy, an elephant, a mouse or even another bunny.  He gets so tired from his musings and attempts to get the egg to open, that he lays down to take a nap.  As he sleeps, the egg hatches and a duckling emerges.

Margaret Wise Brown continues her renown use of repetition by having the newly-hatched duckling attempt to wake the bunny in all of the same ways in which the bunny attempted to get the egg open.  When the duckling emerges, they become fast friends, the perfect Easter pair!

Nostalgic Note:  When I was studying elementary education at Utah Valley State College (now known as Utah Valley University), my Golden Egg-loving son spent my class time at the preschool on campus.  My Children's Lit teacher (favorite class ever, BTW) asked us if anyone had a child they could bring in and do a reading-with-your-child demo.  I volunteered Michael's services and he joined us for our next class.  We read The Golden Egg Book together, of course.  He sat on my lap in front of the class and stared shyly at all my classmates, who stared right back at him with gigantic smiles on their faces.  Once we began reading, he forgot where we were and became completely engulfed in our usual read-aloud routine.  I would let him finish the sentences, ask him a few questions about the pictures, and he chimed in with the comments we always made at certain junctures of the story.  He was completely adorable and the entire class was amazed by his "reading."  Proud mommy moment.