STARTED & FINISHED:

Taylor, Mark. (1966). Henry the explorer. Boston: Little Brown & Company.

[Super charmed by this one. It looks like there are more adventures of Henry, so I'm definitely going to have to check those out. Cool watercolor wash illustrations and a simple, deadpan funny story about a kid and his dog, Laird Angus McAngus (is that not the greatest name for a dog!?!), who decide to go exploring, marking their discoveries with homemade flags along the way.]




Lakin, Patricia. (2007). Rainy day! New York: Dial/Penguin.

[Looks like it's one in a series (i.e. "Sunny Day!", "Beach Day!", etc.). Like the illustration style a lot, but the story itself is awfully random - and not in an OK way (they play mini-golf in the rain at one point...). The bold, rhyming text is fun, but, again, it's just kinda random.]




Wheeler, Lisa. (2004). Farmer Dale's red pickup truck. Orlando, FL: Harcourt, Inc.

[The evening that I read these turned out to be rhyming night. Haven't read a whole lot of rhyming texts here, but, then all of a sudden a bunch pop up. Sweet illustrations compliment a tale about a pickup truck driven by a dog that picks up a bunch of other animals along the way into town. Would work well in a storyhour about animals or farms.]




Gorbachev, Valeri. (2005). That's what friends are for. New York: Philomel/Penguin.

[I'm finding myself drawn again and again to this guy's illustrations. There's something very Richard Scarry about them, and who didn't LOVE at least one Richard Scarry book as a child? This a cute little Arnold Lobel/Frog & Toad-ish tale where Goat sees his neighbor Pig crying and assumes the worst - then coming up with ways to help. Turns out, Pig was just chopping onions. Again, GREAT illustrations and a fun, simple story that would be perfect in a storytime.]




Yee, Wong Herbert. (2001). Fireman Small - fire down below! Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

[I thought that I'd be charmed by Fireman Small, but that wasn't quite the case. He's a cute character, and I still LOVE the drawing of him with a towel wrapped around his arm smashing open a fire alarm case, but the resolution just doesn't work for me. I'm willing to give him another chance and will check out one of his other adventures, though.]




Ward, Lynd. (1973). The silver pony. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

[Had big hopes for this one, too. Again, just kind of weird and random. What drew me initially to it is that it's told completely in pictures done in a cool '50s illustration style. But the story about a kid dreaming of a flying horse and the things they do together is just odd and unconnected - although, I suppose that they work in a dream-like way. In the end it seems like the kid has a horrible sickness and that is why he's hallucinating (??) and then gets a pony. RANDOM.]

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