Wonderful Books Wednesday: When Elephant Met Giraffe by Paul Gude

I found "When Elephant Met Giraffe" by Paul Gude in my pile of new books to process and had to share it this week.

The plot of this book is simple. It contains a series of short stories about the friendship between an elephant and a giraffe. The first connection I made is that it reminds me a bit of Mo Willem's "Elephant and Piggie" series, one of my all time favorites. The simplicity of the text and focus on friendship are quite similar. It doesn't have quite as much humor as "Elephant and Piggie" books but is definitely funny in its own way.

The first short story details how Elephant and Giraffe met, and each story after describes one experience they have together. As mentioned, the text is simple, making this a great book for beginning readers. There is also nice repetition, such as the phrase "Giraffe didn't say anything." which occurs several times across stories.

The illustrations also make this a good book to give to a beginning readers. They are simple, bright and show clearly what is happening in the story. Important clues to new words are obvious in the pictures. For instance, Elephant is shown wearing a pirate hat in the story titled "The Bossy Pirate" where he and Giraffe dress up in costume.

"When Elephant Met Giraffe" could be used with children in many ways. Kids could write additional stories about these characters. They could also compare and contrast them with any of the individual "Elephant and Piggie" books. A nonfiction connection could be looking up facts about Elephants and Giraffes (such as "Do Giraffes really not make any sound?").

As always, let me know if you have any ideas for using this book or any other wonderful book suggestions!

Wonderful Books Wednesday: Tap the Magic Tree

I've decided that each Wednesday I will share a little about one of my favorite children's books. I will try to cover a range of age groups, and a variety of genres. I'm hoping this will be helpful to other librarians, parents, or anyone else interested in children's literature.

Today I will share one of my new favorites, Tap the Magic Tree by Christie Matheson.

Tap the Magic Tree is the story of how the seasons change a tree throughout the year. What I love most about it is that it is full of interactive prompts. These prompts ask the children to do things like tap, pat, jiggle and brush the pages in order to create the seasonal changes. For instance, touching each bud on the tree causes them to open into flowers.

The illustrations in the book are simple, but very well done. They feature the tree at various points through the year. Color is added through the leaves, flowers, apples and a variety of text based pages with colored backgrounds.

I have used this book in my preschool storytime and it went over very well. The kids loved touching, tapping and shaking the book. It also has the benefit of being a very versatile storytime choice. It can be used for any seasonal theme. I also think it would work well for one on one reading.

As a circular story, it could also be could be compared and contrasted with other circular stories such as If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, or any other seasonal story. This type of critical thinking helps build understanding of a text and of an author's craft. These are both important aspects of the new Common Core Standards.

If you have any questions about this book, feel free to let me know. I'd also love to hear about some any children's books you feel are wonderful.