I Love That Book! Mrs. Gibbs' Awesome Book Blog for Children

  40. It’s So Amazing by Robie H. Harris Harris, R. (1999). It’s so amazing. Boston, MA: Candlewick Press. This is a book that explains “the birds and the bees” in a clear and simple way for kids to understand.  It discusses body parts and the differences between male and female. It discusses the different kinds of love.  It discusses how a baby is made.  It discusses the growth of a baby inside the womb.  It discusses the birth of the baby.  It mentions sexual abuse, HIV and AIDs.  To be honest, I wish this was around when I was “of that age.”  I learned things when I read it that I didn’t know. I wish I would have know about it when my son was “of that age.” It would have been very useful in explaining thing to him.   The illustrations are well done. Simple but in enough detail for kids to understand what they are looking at.    I had to purchase this book.  I couldn’t find it in any library.  I don’t see it bei...

  39. Gross as a Snot Otter by Jess Keating Keating, J. (2019). Gross as a snot otter.   NY: Knopf.  Kids love gross!  Anything with gross in the title is going to attract all kinds of readers. This is a cleaver book of “gross” animals. Each animal gets a two-page spread.  On the left is a full color photograph of the animal.  On the right, you have what they are known for and why they are so gross.  They you have their specifications on the edge of the page. Some of the animals in the book include of course, the snot otter, zombie worm, maggots, hagfish, star-nosed mole, dung beetle and sea cucumber.  The book even has an eye-catching glossary of useful words.  This book It is part of a series called The World of Weird Animals.  Other books in the series include Cute as an Axolotl; Pink is for Blobfish; and What Makes a Monster?  I bought this book because I had trouble finding it.  I put it into my classroom library, and it i...

  38. In My Family by Carmen Lomas Garza Garza, C.L. (1996). In my family. San Francisco, CA: Children’s Book Press. This book is like looking at a family scrap book.   Instead of photographs and newspaper clippings, there is these beautiful paintings that tell the story of the author’s family and what it was like growing up in a traditional Mexican American community in South Texas. She tells stories about cleaning nopalitos, empanadas, birthday barbecues, Easter eggs, stories about the Virgin of Guadalupe, seeing the blessing on her cousin’s wedding day. All of these stories give you a snapshot of the Mexican American culture.   This book is written in both English and Spanish.   It would be good for an English Language Lerner to read.   They could see both languages at the same time. If they were paired up with a strong reader, they could hear the English version, and follow along with the Spanish version. This is the author’s second book about her family...

37. Marsupials by Nic Bishop Bishop, N. (2009). Marsupials. NY: Scholastic.   Most marsupials live on the continent of Australia. They are mammals but raise their young in a furry pouch called a marsupium. Sibert-Honor photographer Nic Bishop introduces the beauty and diversity of these amazing animals. The text presents both basic information and fun, quirky facts about marsupials' appearance, habits, and life cycle. This book has an index and glossary which can help young readers with some of the vocabulary.  Marsupials are nocturnal, so most of his photography is done at night. If you have students that love animal books, then this is a great author.  His photographs are interesting to look at and his text is simple.  These books would support science lessons about different kinds of animals.  He has other books he has done including Red Eyed Tree Frog; Chameleon, Chameleon; Nic Bishop’s Butterflies and Moths; Nic Bishop’s Spiders; Nic Bishop’s Frogs...

  36. Aunt Harriet’s Underground Railroad in the Sky by Faith Ringgold Ringgold, F. (1992). Aunt Harriet’s Underground Railroad in the sky . NY: Crown. One night, while flying among the stars, Cassie and her brother, Be Be, encounter Harriet Tubman and learn about slavery. The story begins with the children flying through the sky and seeing the train and Harriet Tubman.  Be Be runs to get on the train and leaves Cassie behind.  Cassie follows Aunt Harriet’s instructions and boards the Underground Railroad.  She learns that it is not an actual railroad, but safe places for runaway slaves to hide and rest on their way north to Canada.  Cassie goes from station to station, finding clues of Be Be along her way.  In the end, Cassie makes it to Canada and finds Be Be again. That day there was a celebration commemorating the one hundredth anniversary of Harriet Tubman’s first flight to freedom.   This is a simple story of historical fiction, told in a chi...

35. The Stinky Cheese Man and other Fairly Stupid Tales by Jon Scieszka   Scieszka, J. (1992). Stinky Cheese Man and other fairly stupid tales. NY: Viking.     This book is a satirical take on a collection of traditional tales.  The layout of the book resembles a theater play.  It has a narrator (Jack) and a sidekick (hen) guiding readers through the different acts of the story. Each new tale seems to be an act. The new versions of the fairytales are dripping with satire.  Reminds me of those movies that make fun of other movies.  The first one I think of is Space Balls; which makes fun of Star Wars.   The fairytales included are The Little Red Hen, Jack and the Beanstalk, Chicken Little, The Princess and the Pea, The Ugly Duckling, The Princess and the Frog, Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Rumpelstiltskin, The Tortoise and the Hair and the Gingerbread Man. I have reviewed many different fairytale books. I would love to have students do ...

  34. Bravo! Poems about Amazing Hispanics by Margarita Engle Engle, M. (2017). Bravo! Poems about amazing Hispanics. NY: Henry Holt. This is a collection of lyrical poems about Hispanics through history and their contributions to society.   Each short poem is accompanied by eye-catching artwork. At the end, there are bits of additional information about each person featured in the book which include: Juan De Miralles, Felix Varela, Juana Briones, Paulina Pedroso, Jose Marti, Ynes Mexia, Louis Agassiz Fuertes, Aida de Acosta, Fabiola Cabeza De Baca, Arnold Rojas, George Melendez Wright, Julia De Burgos, Tito Puente, Cesar Chavez, Roberto Clemente, and Tomas Rivera.   Another surprise!   I loved this book.   I don’t prefer poetry, but I do love history.   Each person has a 2-page spread.   The poem honoring them is actually about their life and accomplishments, so it is bibliographic.   At the end, of the book, you can read more about each person....

33. Clubhouse Mysteries: The Buried Bones Mystery by Sharon Draper   Draper, S. (1994). Clubhouse mysteries: the buried bones mystery . NY: Aladdin.   This book one of a six series collection about a group of neighborhood friends always looking for adventure. In book one, they four best friends: Rashawn, Jerome Rico and Ziggy think their summer is going to be boring after someone trashes their neighborhood basketball court.  They decide to form a club called the Black Dinosaurs.  They build a clubhouse behind Ziggy’s house out of an old wooden fence.  While digging, they discover a buried box of bones.  They want to get to the bottom of the mysterious box of bones. Several go to the library to look for answers, several ask their families.  They find out that the fence once surrounded an African American graveyard.  A big land developer bought the cemetery and instead of moving the graves, they built over them!  The box of bones was collec...

32. Young Martin’s promise by Walter Dean Myers   Myers, W.D. (1993). Young Martin’s promise. Austin, TX: Steck-Vaughn. This is a biography about a young Martin Luther King Jr. and the segregation he faced.   When Martin was young, he and his white neighbors would play baseball together.   After they all started school, things changed.   Martin learned he would go to a black school and his friends to a white school.   This changed things.   His white friends said they can’t play baseball together anymore because they were white, and he was black.   This upset Martin.   He asked his parents about it at dinner. They explained to him about segregation.   He still didn’t understand why they all could just be friends.   The next experience with segregation happened when he and his father go shopping for some shoes downtown.   Martin and his father go into a shoe store and sit down.   The clerk said he would be happy to wait on the...

  31. Th Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats Keats, E.J. (1962). The snowy day . NY: Viking.   This is the story of Peter.   This story leads you to believe Peter lives in more urban area.   He wakes up one morning and everything is covered with snow.   After breakfast he puts on his red snow suit and heads outside to enjoy the day.   He begins his fun by making different patterns of footprints in the snow.   He is excited when he finds a stick in the snow.   He uses it to hit a snow-covered tree and all the snow falls on his head. He wanted to join the snowball fight, but new he was to little.   Instead he builds a snowman and makes snow angels. He makes a snowball and puts it into his pocket for tomorrow.   He goes into his warm house and takes a warm bath.   He thinks of his adventures as he soaks. He checked his coat pocket before going to bed and of course, the snowball is gone.   He was so sad, that night, he dreamt the sun me...

  30. Danitra Brown Leaves Town by Nikki Grimes Grimes, N. (2002). Danitra Brown leaves town . NY: Amistad   This is the story of two friends: Zuri and Danitra.   Danitra is going to visit her aunt in the country for the summer and Zuri is sure that the summer will be boring without her. The girls correspond through a series of poems and letters to keep in touch. The girls talk on the phone to say their goodbyes the night before Danitra leaves.   Zuri is cross with Danitra for leaving her.   She worries about this argument until she receives a letter from Danitra.   Danitra tells Zuri about events in the country like the fireflies, how beautiful the night sky is, working in the garden and her family reunion.   Zuri tells Danitra about the block party, playing softball, and going to the beach with her mother. At the end of the summer, the friends are reunited. This is a good book to teach compare/contrast to younger readers.  The girl’s summer expe...

29. The Mighty Miss Malone by Christopher Paul Curtis   Curtis, C.P. (2012). The mighty Miss Malone . NY: Yearling   This is the story of Deza Malone and her family.  They live in Gary, Indiana during the Great Depression. Deza and her brother have good things going for them: she is a scholar, and her brother Jimmy is a talented singer.  Like for most people living during the Great Depression, jobs are scarce. Their father leaves Gary supposedly to find work, but he is actually running from guilt.  There was a horrible accident on a fishing trip, and their father, Roscoe, ended up taking a man’s life. After he leaves Deza, Jimmy and their mother Peg, set out for Flint, Michigan where they think he may be. They ride the rails, live in a shanty town. Jimmy leaves them to find his own success as a singer.  So, the two of them move into Flint and end up renting a room in town after getting on their feet.  They live their lives waiting, hoping to hear fro...

  28. Balloons Over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy’s Parade by Melissa Sweet Sweet, M. (2011). Balloons over Broadway: the true story of the puppeteer of Macy’s parade .      NY: Houghton Mifflin.   This is the story of Tony Sarg.  He began creating simple machines to make things move when he was six years old.  When Tony grew up, he moved to London and began making puppets for children.  His marionettes’ movements were son lifelike; he became very well known.  He then moved to New York City and begin to perform his puppeteering on Broadway.  Macy’s department store heard about Tony’s puppets and asked him to design a puppet parade for the store’s holiday window. Macy’s wanted to put on a parade to honor their employees’ (mostly immigrants) holiday traditions.  Tony created a parade based on street carnivals from all over the world.  He made costumes, built horse-drawn floats and arranged to bring live ...

  27. Bruh Rabbit and the Tar Baby Girl by Virginia Hamilton Hamilton, V. (2003). Bruh Rabbit and the tar baby girl. NY: The Blue Sky Press. This is a retelling, using Gullah speech, of the story about the character Bruh Rabbit and his attempts to outwit Bruh Wolf. Bruh Wolf plants corn to prepare for winter, but the “tricky-some” Bruh Rabbit didn’t do anything to prepare. All that winter Bruh Rabbit stole corn and peanuts Bruh Wolf discovers this and makes a scarecrow to try and frighten Bruh Rabbit to stay out of his fields. That night, Bruh Rabbit discovers the scarecrow is nothing but a bundle of old rags and kicks it over, fills his sacks with peanuts, and runs home to his place in the briar bush. The next day, Bruh Wolf discovers his plan didn’t work.  He decides to make a baby girl rabbit out of tar to get Bruh Rabbit. That night, the Rabbit sees the tar baby girl and tries to knock her down but gets stuck.  Wolf came out the next morning and found Bruh Rabbit stu...

  26. Are We There Yet? by Dan Santat Santat, D. (2016). Are we there yet? NY: Little, Brown and Company. The story begins when a boy and his parents begin a road trip to grandma’s birthday party.  After a while he begins asking the age-old questions “are we there yet?”  He begins to feel as if time is slowing down and it seems to go backwards!  They experience the old west, pirates, knights jousting, the Egyptian Pyramids being built and even a dinosaur!  Then he realizes maybe it will fly by too quickly.  They begin to go into the future with flying cars and QR codes as addresses.  Then the boy wakes up and they are at grandma’s house.  It was all a dream. This is a graphic novel-style picture book and has a unique structure.  Readers have to turn the book upside down and then back again to follow the story.  It exhibits the imagination of a board child by moving backward and forwards in time.  More importantly, it conveys the imp...

  25. The Three Pigs by David Wiesner Wiesner, D. (2001).  The three pigs . NY: Clarion This book is a cleaver twist to the original.  It begins just like the original.  The big bad wolf blows down the first pig’s house made of straw.  The pig escapes the wolf in the pages of the book. The wolf then goes to the second pig’s house made of wood and blows down his house.  That pig also escapes in the pages of the book.  The third pig joins the first two in the pages of the book and leaves the wolf in the pig story.  They run and play through the pages They make an airplane out of their story the wolf is still in.  They visit other pages with tales such as Hey Diddle Diddle.  The cat from the story joins them. Then they visit the tale of the golden rose.  They invite the dragon to join them on the pages as well.  They find the page with the third little pig’s house and decide to go back and inviting everyone to join them.  T...

24. Because by Mo Willems Willems, M. (2019). Because . NY: Hyperion Books. This picture book begins “Because a man named Ludwig wrote beautiful music…” “a man named Franz was inspired to create his own…”  It continues with because this, then that.  People wanted to hear the music, so they became part of an orchestra and practiced for the performance.  The little girl got to go with her aunt because the uncle got sick. Because she saw the performance, she became enthralled with music.  She learned to play and write.  Over time she worked hard and became good and her music was discovered and performed.  And because of it, someone else was inspired to create music. This story has a strong theme; what you do now can effect on others later.  You never know what impact you will have on the future.  Hundreds of years ago a man loved and wrote music, and it influences people even today to love and write music.  This book uses music, to show how this...

  23. Dumpling Days by Grace Lin Lin, G. (2012). Dumpling Days . NY: Little Brown and Company. Pacy Lin is our main character in the story.  She and her family spend a month in Taiwan visiting family.  Pacy and her sisters feel as if they are entering a new world.  They don’t speak Chinese and are not familiar with the customs.  They feel like outsiders despite that their parents grew up there. As the month passes, Pacy and her sisters learn about their Taiwanese heritage.  They take art classes, eat some amazing (and strange) foods, and hear stories from their relatives about the Taiwanese customs.  At the end of their visit, Pacy and her sisters find who they are by embracing their Taiwanese heritage while still holding on to their American ways and ideas.   I learned so much about the Chinese/Taiwanese culture while reading the book. The description of the food the characters ate made me want to visit just to eat! This story is good for teachin...