Archive for the ‘children, picture book’ Category

A Greener World…One Garden at a Time

Thursday, June 10th, 2010

Congratulations to Peter Brown for winning the E. B. White Read Aloud Award for picture books.  The award honors the read aloud standards created by White’s classics like Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little.

It’s our favorite children’s book from 2009, and our best-seller for young and old.  Customers light up when they first discover it.  They cradle it, and smile as they reach the end.

Inspired by a garden in NYC, the book is about a boy who discovers a struggling garden of weeds and transforms it—along with the glum gray city—into a lush, green world.

Story and illustrations are beautiful, whimsical and magical.

It’s a wonderful read aloud for all ages.

Liam may not have been a gardener, but he knew that he could help.  So he returned to the railway the very next day and got to work.  The flowers nearly drowned and he had a few pruning problems, but the plants patiently waited while Liam found better ways of gardening.

Celebrating Diversity and Food Literacy

Thursday, April 8th, 2010

Our goal is to promote food literacy in a culturally inclusive way, by featuring books about foods from different cultures or reaching out to diverse communities to create a better understanding of what we eat and where our food comes from.

And so we want to highlight April 30th as El día de los niños/El día de los libros (Children’s Day/Book Day), promoting the importance of literacy for children of all linguistic and cultural backgrounds.

One book that’s perfect for Dia is Pat Mora’s Yum! MMMM! Que Rico!: Americas’ Sproutings, a delightful collection of haiku about familiar (and a few unfamiliar) foods native to the Americas.

These poems capture the enduring appeal of foods that have been part of the diverse cuisines of the Americas for centuries.  Muralist, Rafael López, brings the playful energy of the haiku to life.

Blueberries, cranberries, prickly pear fiesta,
Tomatoes, chile, corn; spicy, spicy salsa.
Lime for papaya, cream for pumpkin, butter for potato
Yum!  Vanilla!  Peanuts!  Chocolate.  ¡Mmmm! ¡Qué rico!

Hungry, Hungry, Hungry for some BEE-BIM BOP!

Saturday, February 20th, 2010

One of our family’s favorite picture books and food to eat, Bee-bim Bop! is also a favorite read-along book of children’s librarians from Seattle to New York (NY Public Library’s 2005 Best Book List).

Both the rhythmic prose and the kinetic illustrations capture that frenzy when a child is so, so hungry for her stand-by meal of bee-bim bop.

Not to worry if your child is not familiar with the popular Korean dish, as they’ll love chanting “bee-bim bop!” along with you.

And we’ve heard that they’ll even want to eat this delicious rice and mostly vegetable dish, which you can make following the recipe that Newbery winner Linda Sue Park includes at the end.

Hurry, Mama, hurry

Gotta shop shop shop!

Hungry, hungry, hungry

For some BEE-BIM BOP!