Rallying together, the people of Camp cut up mattress covers for uniforms, found wood for bleachers, and friends from home sent bats, balls, and gloves. Everyone played baseball. The children as well as the grownups.
Tag: picture books
Books by Horseback: A Librarian’s Brave Journey to Deliver Books to Children
“Edith is a packhorse librarian. Every day she travels for miles to deliver books. William lives far back in the mountains. Edith will have to ride hard to reach his family’s cabin.” There is a storm coming, but that doesn’t stop Edith. Or her horse. And this is what keeps her going. As summarized in…
One Thousand Tracings: Healing the Wounds of World War II
“We have only one pair of boots and must take turns. I work at night, and my husband works during the day. We spend the rest of the time in bed for warmth.”
Andrew Henry’s Meadow
The black and white illustration in this book is enchanting. The details on the dragonfly’s wings and the lovely pictures of nature demonstrate real artistic merit. Each page has a scene which is a story unto itself. The art is perfect.
From the Good Mountain: How Gutenberg Changed the World
James Rumford’s story opens with a riddle. Each element of the riddle is explained in imagination-sparking prose with glowing illustrations. The rags became paper stiffened with glue made from bones. The brown coat was leather, printing types were molded from the lead and tin, and the oak was used to build the printing press. The…
Our Cat Flossie
This book celebrates the often humorous ways in which cats worm their way into our hearts. Flossie isn’t killing birds and catching fish. Rather, she has a hobby of “bird watching” and “fishing.”
Blizzard at the Zoo
This unassuming picture book by Robert Bahr is excellent. Written in 1982, it has the quality of an older science reader-type book but it captures the more modern event of the 1977 blizzard at the Buffalo Zoo in New York.
Noah’s Ark
Spier kept the illustration full of whimsy and still very suggestive of real things. It was the perfect balancing act. Two things struck me while I enjoyed this book…
Lucy Maud and the Cavendish Cat
Lovers of Anne of Green Gables and other Lucy Maud Montgomery stories will not want to miss this exquisite treasure. Both the story and the illustration would be Anne Shirley approved.
Sergeant Reckless
When the time came for real fighting, Pvt. Reckless proved herself to be incredibly loyal and brave. Despite being hit above the eye and in her left flank with pieces of shrapnel, she made fifty-one trips up to the cannon, going a distance of thirty-five miles up and down steep terrain fully loaded, and carrying nine thousand pounds of ammunition. The impressive little mare helped to change the entire course of the war.
The Uncorker of Ocean Bottles
He loves his job because getting the letters so often makes people happy, but his wish is that someday a letter will be for him. This is unlikely because he has no friends. His loneliness is exemplified by the bleakness of the illustrations through about half the book.
Ain’t Nothing but a Man: My Quest to Find the Real John Henry
I remember singing some version of “The Ballad of John Henry” when I was in grade school, but I don’t remember anyone explaining what it meant. Since we learned it along with silly songs like “Froggy Went a-Courtin’” and “Señor Don Gato,” it didn’t occur to me to wonder if John Henry had been a…
Swirl by Swirl and Blockhead
One regular feature that Biblioguides posts on social media is called Bookalikes. Their team highlights two books that are related and complementary in some way. What interested me about the pairing of Swirl by Swirl: Spirals in Nature by Joyce Sidman with Blockhead: the Life of Fibonacci by Joseph D’Agnese was that they looked like…
Waiting for the Biblioburro
On a hill behind a tree, there is a house. In the house, there is a bed and on the bed there is a little girl named Ana, fast asleep, dreaming about the world outside and beyond the hill. Ana has to help her father and mother with the farm work. When it’s hot outside,…
Bill Peet
As my reviews will indicate, I think Kermit the Hermit is a gem worth searching out. I think The Ant and the Elephant has a certain charm. And I think Big Bad Bruce has some things that are worth noting.