MommaReads

The scarecrow dad goes to work in the cornfields all day and then comes home at night and teaches his scarecrow son how to make scary faces to scare the crows away. The little scarecrow boy has been warned by his father that he shouldn’t go out into the cornfields by himself because he is not fierce enough. He has to wait until he has grown. One morning the scarecrow boy gets up early, sneaks out of his house and goes into the cornfields alone. He tries all of his super scary faces, but quickly realizes he may not be ready for this job quite yet.

Flora has about had it with her little brother, Crispin. Their mom sends them outside to play on a very windy day and Flora’s little brother ends up getting swept up in the wind. Flora takes off her super heavy boots so that she too can be swept up in the wind and rescue her little brother. On their adventure they bump into a dragonfly, a sparrow, a rainbow, a cloud, an eagle and the moon. All of them want Crispin to stay with them and help them, but Flora knows it’s her duty as the big sister to get him home safe and sound.

I also love, love, love the watercolors used for the illustrations in this book. They are so beautiful and really capture the feeling of the fall leaves and the blowing wind.

I love it when a story has many different versions and spins on a familiar story. Well, this is a very cute version of Little Red Riding Hood. In this version, Betsy Red Hoodie’s friend is a wolf and he is going with her to visit her grandma. Things don’t end up going quite the way Betsy expects. The reader will be surprised, too. 🙂

If you love Mike Mulligan and His Steamshovel, then you will love Otis. Otis, a tractor, is best friends with a calf. They happily spend their days on the farm together until a new tractor shows up at the farm. Otis is put behind the barn to be forgotten until one day when the calf needs to be rescued. I bet you can guess who’s the only one who knows just what to do.

Rarely do I ever recommend a book based just on the illustrations alone, but this is one of those times. Our youngest opened this book, took one look at the illustrations and said “wow” while touching the pages to try and feel them. I don’t know how the illustrator created these pages, but they are shiny in a way that’s not glittery or shimmery. They go along nicely with the story of Willoughby and his trip to the moon.

Clancy has just moved into a house much bigger than his first house and he is missing the fireplace that his old house had and skylight that his old bedroom had when he discovers a stack of empty moving boxes. He begins stacking them when another child from the neighborhood joins him and they make all kinds of creations out of the boxes. The two have a wonderful afternoon playing and the reader is left with the sense that this isn’t the last time these two will play together and that maybe the move to a new house won’t seem quite as awful anymore either.

Owen’s parents bring home a surprise…a bear. Owen is certain he doesn’t want a bear and he’s even more certain when Gary (the bear) breaks his swing and doesn’t put the caps back on his markers. Things start to look up though when it turns out that Gary is very, very good at building with blocks. A very cute story about an unlikely friendship.

A little yellow bird that lives near Rocket has opened up a school and is determined to teach Rocket how to read. Rocket learns the alphabet and how to put letters together to make words. School has to close for the winter while bird is away, but Rocket practices over the winter and is very ready to learn when bird returns in the spring.

If you have a child who is at that age where they really, really want to learn how to read or they are just beginning to read, they will absolutely love this book. It is such a cute story…I love the relationship between the bird and Rocket and I also love how, on the first day of school, she reads Rocket a book about a dog who is digging for a bone, but leaves off right before the dog in the story finds it. Rocket returns the next day very eager to find out what happens and that is when Rocket learns the magic of books.

One little pirate piggy doesn’t want to take a bath, so he comes up with all kinds of adventures to go on so he doesn’t have to get clean. His very smart and wise mama, however, comes up with a different plan that steers him in the right direction. Super cute book that will speak to the little adventurer in your house.

Henry loves books…he just eats them up. No, not like that…he actually eats them and the more books he eats, the more he learns. This is a very cute story and it has a little twist at the end when Henry eats so many books at once that everything he has learned starts to get jumbled up and he has to go back to enjoying books the way the rest of the world enjoys books…by reading them. Also, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the illustrations in this book. The illustrations are a masterpiece just by themselves, but coupled with the story they make a very good pair.