I’m A Dirty Dinosaur by Janeen Brian

This picture was taking from https://m4218.myubam.com/p/3738/im-a-dirty-dinosaur

Title: I’m a Dirty Dinosaur
Author: Janeen Brian
Illustrator: Ann James
Genre: Picture Book
Age: Children
Is This Part of a Series?: No

*I received a copy of this book as part of the consultant’s kit when I became an Independent Consultant for Usborne Books & More

Summary:
A cute little book about a dinosaur who is dirty and likes it that way! The reader gets to follow him as he gets different body parts dirty using different motions (like stomping versus sliding).

Overall Impression:
It is brightly colored, with cute illustrations and some fun rhyming and actions.

The Nitty Gritty:
There are quite a few good things about this book: the drawings are cute (although very simple–but it totally works for this book), the actions the dirty dinosaur does just beg to be acted out by the child (and parent!), and the colors used in the lettering are super bright and catchy. The rhythm of the words and even the rhyming makes it almost impossible to sit still while reading this book; you can practically hear the clomping footsteps of the dinosaur as you read.

As a mother, I also like the size and shape of the book and the thickness and feel of the pages. This isn’t a board book, but the pages are much thicker than your average picture book. They should have no problem holding up to the rougher handling of a child who isn’t used to turning real pages yet–or who turns back and forth between favorite pages with high frequency.

On the negative side–and these are small negatives, really–I have issues with the layout of the book. I don’t have any suggestions for how to improve it, but the way it is currently set up (in a three page pattern of: I’m a dirty dinosaur with a dirty [body part], a rhyme which includes how he doesn’t wash the body part and instead just stomps [or some other action] about, and a page with a repetition of the action [“stamp, stamp, stamp, stamp, stamp and stamp about”]. That means that there is no pattern to which side of the book a particular type of page is on. I know, I know. Minor, right? But it bothers me when I can see the old action on the left hand side of the book and it has moved on to the new body part in the same spread. Perhaps I would have been happier if the action-repetition page was a larger, two-page spread.

Goodreads Rating: 3.82 Stars (77 Ratings)
Amazon Rating: 5 Stars (2 Reviews)
UBAM Rating: 5 Stars
My Son’s Rating: 1,000 Stars
I like this book because it is on dinosaurs and (SPOILER!) at the end he gets clean like a clean little boy like me. I am super glad; I LOVE we have it! I think it is for both females and males. I think it is for 6 through 9 year olds because I think 6 year olds are normally able to read this. [[Bookwyrm’s Note: There will certainly be some 6 year olds who can read this book, but there will also be plenty of six year olds who can’t read this. None of the words are particularly difficult, but there is definitely a need to pay attention to the words: there are times when sniff and snuff are right next to each other, for example. Not difficult, but easy to miss if reading quickly.]] I would say little kids would LOVE it because it would remind them of themselves, even though they can’t read it.
My Daughter’s Rating: 16 Stars (One for each letter in the title)
It is called I’m a Dirty Dinosaur so that they can learn that if they get dirty and their moms or dads tell them to take a bath they know to take a bath to be clean. I like this book because…where’s the tum tum? (And then she read the dirty tum pages to me). Because that’s why!
My Rating: 4 Stars
A good book and I’m fine with reading it to my kids multiple times (which I have definitely had to do), but the fact that it triggers my OCD some keeps me from downright loving it. More importantly, the book lacks a clear “message” to give it a bigger impact with my children. Again, nothing really wrong with the book, but just enough to keep me from loving it.

Llamas in Pajamas by Russell Punter

*This photo was taken from m4128.myubam.com

Title: Llamas in Pajamas
Authors: Russell Punter
Illustrator: David Semple
Genre: Picture Book
Age: Toddlers, Preschool, and Early Elementary
Part of a Series?: Yes (Usborne Phonics Readers; a 16-book series based on the language rather than the characters)

*I received a copy of this book in the consultant’s kit I received when I became and Independent Consultant for Usborne Books & More

Summary:
This book tells the story of four llamas having a Halloween sleepover. Since this is part of the Usborne Phonics Readers line of books, there is a focus on rhyming and–as indicated by the title–a repetition of the words “llamas” and “pajamas”. The story covers the invitations, the choosing of which pajamas the llamas want to wear, arrival to the party, scary stories, the llamas being scared, and Grandma Llama bringing a snack.

Overall Impression:
This is a cute story, with cute photos, and it really caught the attention of the 4-6 year old girls in my daughter’s ballet class. I started reading it to my daughter and was soon surrounded by several pink tutu’ed, beribboned little girls. Needless to say, it was a big hit.

The Nitty Gritty:
This is a very short book (it is only twenty pages long) and is aimed at ages 4 and up. The pictures are cute and, despite being depictions of a “Halloween” and “spooky” sleepover. The book feels good in the hand and has both a sturdy (but flexible) cover and sturdy pages). The rhyming and rhythm of the story is nice and consistent throughout the book and there is a nice little twist at the end of the book.

One of the standout features of this book is the “About Phonics” pages (aimed at parents) at the end of the book. It explains what phonics is, gives a brief explanation of how to begin the reading process for kids, explains the importance of phonemic awareness, and covers how to listen to your child reading in a supportive manner. There is also a website where you can find out more.

Book Club Chatter:
This book is rather short, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t things to talk about with your child. The more you talk to them (making connections between the book and themselves, guessing what will happen next, etc), the better they will understand–and ENJOY–reading! Here are a few questions you can ask during and/or after reading this book:

• What do you think they will do at the sleepover? (Or, after you have read the book: What would you do if you had your own sleepover?)
• What would you pack for a sleepover?
• What do your pajamas look like? Which pajamas would you want to wear?
• What games do you like to play with your friends?
• Have you ever heard a spooky story? Did you like it?
• What do you think is coming down the hall and making the floorboards quake?
• Were you surprised to find out who came to the party?
• What is your favorite snack?
• Have you ever been to a sleepover? What was your favorite thing about it?

Goodreads Rating: 4 Stars (4 Ratings)
Amazon Rating: None. This book is not available on their website; it must be bought through an Usborne Consultant.
Usborne Books & More Rating: 4 stars (approximately)
Other Ballet Dancer’s Thoughts:
I liked when the grandma brought a snack. I liked ALL the pictures!
My Daughter’s Rating: 30 hundred stars
The creepy stuff was my favorite part. My favorite picture was the one where the girl llama was picking out her pajamas.
My Rating: 4 Stars
There is nothing wrong with this book, and the quality is good, but there is nothing unique, really, about the rhyming or drawings. The extra section for parents saved it from an “average” 3 star rating; this information in the back is the true “gem” of this book. Despite not giving it a 5 star rating, however, I do feel that it is worth the money. It is a quality product and captured the attention of the girls around me.

Goodnight, Little Monster by Helen Ketteman

Title: Goodnight, Little Monster
Author: Helen Ketteman
Illustrator: Bonnie Lieck
Genre: Picture Book
Age: Young children
Part of a Series?: Yes

*I downloaded this book as part of my son’s monthly Kindle Unlimited subscription.

Summary:
This book is a little monster and his mother as they go through the many steps of Little Monster’s bedtime routine. It covers a few monster-specific items, like howling at the moon, and some that will be more familiar to the child, such as taking a bath.

The Nitty Gritty:
This book is pretty cute over all, and I love the monster elements that they added into the bedtime routine. There’s some great rhyming in the book, which reads more like an illustrated poem than prose, but there are also a few spots where the rhythm becomes a little clunkier. The illustrations are great, with rich colors and an amazing amount of texture, but tend towards the creepy and gross side of things, with bugs, bats, and dead plants featured in the majority of them. This isn’t an issue for the most part, but if you have a kid more like my daughter (who decides to be scared every now and then), this could turn the child off of this book.

The monster characters, and the thoroughly “monster-ized” nature of the illustrations, makes me believe that this book will draw in more boys, although I would not be surprised to find girls drawn to this book as well. I do believe that any child could enjoy this book. I would recommend parent’s taking their own child’s particular preferences into account before purchasing this book, however.

My son has read this once so far, and has asked me to leave it on the Kindle so that he can read it again in the future. He hasn’t been eager to read it again, however, and it was a more difficult read for him at the time (about six months ago). I was surprised a couple nights later, though, when he told my mother all about it.

Goodread’s Rating: 4.24 Stars (430 Ratings)
Amazon’s Rating: 4.6 Stars (603 Reviews)
My Son’s Rating: 10,000 Stars (out of 5)
I like it because the monster howls and it’s like half wolf, half bunny, half of an animal. And also I like it because the monster, it helps me learn about when I have to go to bed I will know what to do when my parents aren’t here, when I’m a big kid.
My Daughter’s Rating: N/A
I don’t want to read it because I don’t like monsters.
My Rating: 3 Stars
While it was cute and I loved the creativity and commitment to carrying the monster theme throughout the poetry and illustrations, I was disappointed by my son’s luke-warm reaction to it and feel that this is not an “every-kid” sort of book. While there is nothing truly wrong with it, it wasn’t the home run I was hoping for.

Mabel and the Sock Pirates by Elwyn Tate

Title: Mabel and the Sock Pirates
Author: Elwyn Tate
Illustrator: Elwyn Tate

Last year when my son turned seven, one of the gifts he got from Babcia (my mother) was a Kindle Fire. As part of this gift, I decided to get Kindle Unlimited and Kindle FreeTime (more on these in posts on my blog Modern Momology), primarily as a way to get more books into the house without, well, actually bringing more books into the house. Between books we already own and books we check out from the library, we are practically drowning in books. Which is a quite wonderful way to drown, admittedly. And while I am quite proud of that fact, it is time to concede that we are running out of room. So…enter the digital option and today’s book:

Mabel and the Sock Pirates by Elwyn Tate

The cover of Mabel and the Sock Pirates as seen on my son’s Kindle Fire.

Summary:
This book is about a farmer named Bill, his white cat named Mabel, and their orchard of magical trees that grows socks. One night pirates spy the magical trees and decided they are going to “pilfer and plunder” them. It is up to Mabel to find a way to save the day.

Overall Impressions:
If you don’t have Kindle Unlimited, or you simply want to own the book rather than borrow it, it is $0.99 (as of August 21st, 2015). This book is very much worth the money.

The silly nature of this book, combined with the pirate theme and a female lead character, can easily appeal to either gender. My son has read it multiple times and, so far, has asked me to leave it on the Kindle so that he can read it again in the future. On my side of things, I plan to check out the several other books available by Elwyn Tate.

The Nitty Gritty:
This book has a really nice flow to it, with a rhythm that is easy to find and rhymes that are spot on without distracting from the story being told. The illustrations are super cute, with a whimsical style and gorgeous, rich colors. There are a few words in it that are longer and hard to sound out (like flourished and marvelous), and one word that has a British English spelling (chequered), but for the most part the vocabulary of the book is within the reach of a reader who is confident in his or her smooth and bumpy blending skills and has a good storehouse of sight words under their belt. Any of the longer words simply provide you the opportunity to broaden a child’s vocabulary–and what kid doesn’t like to learn a big, fancy word?

Goodread’s Rating: 4.48 Stars (27 Ratings)
Amazon’s Rating: 4.9 Stars (38 Reviews)
My Son’s Rating: 10,000 Stars (on a scale of 1 to 5)
I like it because Mabel scares the pirates. I think it’s cool that she’s brave. I like it because the pirates say “Let’s get out of here! Let’s hide!” And I like it when the farmer wonders what happened when he finds the pirate hat.
My Daughter’s Rating: 500 Stars (I like it lots and lots and lots)
I like it because Mabel scares all the pirates and then they say “Let’s run away” and then they say “No, let’s hide” and then Mabel scares them all away and then that’s it.
My Rating: 5 Stars
Cute, entertaining, and leaving my son wanting to practice his reading. Who could ask for more?

Its Name Was Joy: Callie Cat, Ice Skater by Eileen Spinelli

Title: Callie Cat, Ice Skater
Author: Eileen Spinelli
Illustrator: Anne Kennedy
Age/Genre: Children’s Picture Book

*This review was originally posted, with minor differences, at my author’s blog.

One of the great things about books is that they are so much more than “just” a story. They can be portals to another world, lessons for life, a chance to work through difficult emotions, and a chance to build memories. All of these things can be as important in the reviewing of a book as the words written and the techniques used.

Several months ago, I read the picture book “Callie Cat, Ice Skater” by Eileen Spinelli to my children. I remembered buying it two or three years ago, but I don’t know where my daughter happened to find it in their big pile of books for this particular night. She chose it because it features a cat (her favorite animal) wearing purple (one of her favorite colors) and ice skating (something Bria is quite enamored of, almost as much as she is ballet). Turns out it is a pretty nice book. It even made me choke up and get a little teary.

Now, I know what you’re thinking and no, I do not tear up every time I read my kids a book, despite what my Girl Who Loved Wild Horses post on my author’s blog would seem to indicate. But I did that night, and for good reason: this book has an excellent message and a superb ending! Even better, it resonated with me on a level that I have only recently discovered. And all that in just 28 pages.

What was the message, you ask? Well, in “Callie Cat, Ice Skater”, Callie is a cat who loves ice skating. She skates every night during the week and all day long on the weekend. And “Whenever Callie skated, she felt a melting sweetness” that she cannot name. Callie’s friends don’t understand why Callie is always ice skating. They are always trying to get her to do other things, until one day, they notice there is a competition with many great prizes for the winner. They spend the next few weeks “helping” Callie get ready for the contest. When the competition rolls around, they all head into town, Callie’s parents telling her to do her best, while Callie’s friend are telling her to win.

The excellent message comes from the fact that it doesn’t matter whether Callie wins or not: she does her best, her parents say they are proud of her for doing her best, and Callie goes home and continues to enjoy skating. The superb ending comes from Callie learning what the melting sweetness is: “Its name was joy.” It is such a sweet book, and I love that it shows a girl chasing a dream–through hard work and dedication–and that winning isn’t what makes her enjoy her craft.

I am sure you are sitting there reading this and thinking “Wow. Cute. But how did it possibly resonated with a grown woman who was soon to be graduating with an MFA?” Good question! The answer is this:

First, there is some beautiful writing: “…when the sun was bright and the wind sang through the tall stalks of thistle” and “her sun-dazzled blades crisping across the ice” are two of my favorites. Of course, there are also some silly phrases (such as “She’d be a banana not to” [want to win]) for the kids to enjoy, but over all, it was beautiful to read aloud. Eileen Spinelli cares about her craft and pours over every word. That is a level of craftsmanship I have been working hard to achieve and learn to analyze and critique during the past two years. I could connect with the effort that Spinelli obviously put into the creation of this book.

Second, and most importantly (as far as my getting teary-eyed goes), when Callie starts skating the morning after the competition: “She knew that the melting sweetness came from doing what she loved…doing…was the best prize of all…”

Wow. What a great message to give to kids. What a great message to give to adults. A message I have had trouble holding on to in the middle of all the wonderful and awful things that I’ve dealt with in the past several years. I actually stopped doing, stopped writing, at one point. And I lost my prize. A prize I was searching for when I applied to the Stonecoast Creative Writing program. A prize that, every time I sit down to read, review, or write, I hope to teach my children to reach for.

A prize with a name: joy.

Goodreads Rating: 3.98 Stars (85 Ratings)
Amazon Rating: 5 Stars (15 Ratings)
My Rating: 5 Stars