[Monday Reading] Quirky Picturebooks for Your Collection

Fats here.

It’s Monday, What are You Reading is a meme hosted by Jen from Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee and Ricki from Unleashing Readers (new host of Monday reading: Kathryn T at Book Date). Since two of our friends, Linda from Teacher Dance and Tara from A Teaching Life have been joining this meme for quite awhile now, we thought of joining this warm and inviting community.

I have a diverse collection of picturebooks to share with you for this week’s It’s Monday, What Are You Reading? I intended to borrow one of these books for our current theme that focuses on beauty, art, and music. The other two were random library finds that I came across at the right moment! Enjoy browsing!

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My Museum

Illustrated by Joanne Liu
Published by Prestel Junior (2017)
ISBN-13: 978-3791373195
Awards/Recognition: 2018 Bologna Ragazzi Book Awards special mention
Copy provided by Cleveland Public Library.

From the back cover: Max is going to the museum today. There is much more to see at the museum than just sculptures and paintings. Art is all around us, you just have to discover it.

This wordless picturebook is about a young boy’s trip to the the art museum. Perfect for  preschool and up, the book shows how art is everywhere, not just housed within the walls of a museum. As you flip through the pages, ask kids what makes the museum fascinating for Max. Find out Max’s discoveries in the museum.

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Daytime Visions: An Alphabet

Written and illustrated by Isol
Published by Enchanted Lion Books (2016)
ISBN-13: 978-1592701957
Copy provided by Wayne County Public Library.

From Book Depository: A many-layered alphabet book from an international star of the children’s book world, Daytime Visions is graphically strong and intelligent in its exploration of words and situations. Whether it’s a kiwi who returns to a boy’s shoulder or a little duck who can’t sleep, the visions here are relatable to children and rich with possibility.

The cover stood out as I was discharging the book from another patron’s account. Adapted into English, Daytime Visions is an alphabet book by award-winning illustrator, Isol. In the Author page of the book, it was noted that Isol’s specialty is narration through the dialogue between image and word.

“These images were first created using Spanish letters as Spanish is my mother tongue. Translating them into English involved a kind of reinvention… When I look at these pages now I see that the letters have made friends with their images, as though they’ve known each other forever.” — Isol

In her acceptance speech for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award in 2013, Isol said, “What reader could be more demanding than a child? Children have a lot of things to discover and I’d better be on their high level in order to satisfy their huge capacity for curiosity. I get my inspiration from what’s wild, from what’s ridiculous, from that independence of culture that children enjoy.” Check out this other book by Isol entitled Nocturne, which Myra featured for Poetry Friday two years ago.

The Barber’s Dilemma: And Other Stories from Manmaru Street

Written and illustrated by Koki Oguma
Published by Tara Books (2018)
ISBN-13: 978-9383145652
Copy provided by Wayne County Public Library.

From the back cover: Zany artist Koki Oguma loves to wander around his neighbourhood in Tokyo, watching people go about their business. Then he goes home with his head full of ideas, and starts to doodle. Sometimes his scribbles take on a life of their own, and he’s not sure what they’re meant to be. So he talks to them, to find out more, and see what they can be turned into.

There are 19 stories included in this collection for children. The stories are short and funny. Koki Oguma is the Haruki Murakami for kids because of his whimsical tales.

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Books I Recently Finished

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Currently Reading…

Clara Voyant by Rachelle Delaney
Where the Watermelons Grow by Cindy Baldwin