A Gaggle of Book Reviews

We loved these two books about cafes and food. Food plays a huge part in our life because we have celiac disease (we can’t eat wheat, rye, oats, & barley). I do all of our cooking, and we all enjoy reading about other people who aren’t exactly like everyone else. You might also want to check out our review of a book about a child with celiac disease.

The Peanut-free Cafe, by Gloria Koster, illustrated by Maryann Cocca-Leffler is a beautiful book. We love Maryann Cocca-Leffler’s illustrations, and have enjoyed her book, Clams All Year, every summer. The Peanut-free Cafe is a story about a boy named Simon who loves peanut butter, as do all of his friends at the Nutley school, until a new friend comes to school who is allergic to peanut butter, and explains his EpiPen (a shot disguised in a pen-like form to help if an allergic person has a severe allergy attack) and explains that he needs to eat at a table that has no peanut butter.

The first day, Grant has a peanut-free table, he sits alone. But then his new friends come up with the idea of creating a “Peanut-Free Cafe” with snacks, arts & crafts, & entertainment. Even though Simon helped come up with the idea, and he really likes Grant, he thinks he can’t give up eating peanut butter sandwiches, even to go to the cafe. Simon is a picky eater, and will only eat 4 foods – for lunch, he always has peanut butter.

After watching his friends enjoy the Peanut Free Cafe for several days, Simon loses his appetite and asks his mother for something else. She gives him chili, as she hasn’t been able to get to the supermarket. There’s a happy ending – Simon is with his friends at the table, and Grant is happy and safe with the new Peanut-Free Cafe!

The Peanut-free Cafe is a great book for kids with allergies – it’s always wonderful to see your own differences accepted in a book! It’s also a great book for kids who are going to school or camp or other activities with children who have food allergies – it helps them and their parents understand the importance of respecting allergies.

Matilda’s Humdinger by Lynn Downey and illustrated by Tim Bowers is also about a cafe with a difference, but this time it’s a Diner,not a school. Matilda is a waitress with other things on her mind, and she doesn’t always serve everyone correctly or follow all any of the rules of waitressing, but while she’s waiting tables and working at the diner, her brain is cooking up stories.

When Matilda has finished cooking up a story, she enraptures the whole diner, and business booms as the residents come in droves to hear the story. Unfortunately, the Health Inspector comes, too, and tells Matilda she needs to follow the health code. When she’s scrubbing and concentrating on her work, she can’t cook up stories, and the customers miss the old Matilda.

The stories build up in Matilda, though, so when the Health Inspector comes back, Matilda pictures him as a sheriff, and the Diner owner (Burt) hurries her off into the back room. “Before she knew it, she’d finished a whole chapter of a Western called Gone with the Blazes. She just had to hear how it sounded, so she started reading it out loud.” Meanwhile, back in the diner, two masked men start holding up the Diner, and the Health Inspector is hiding under the table as the masked men point guns at the customers and Burt. Just then, when the Diner becomes silent, they hear a voice from the back room saying, “This is Sheriff Smuckley! Put yer hands up — we’ve got you surrounded!”, and Burt tackles them. Matilda hears the scuffle and comes from the back to help out.

After Matilda and Burt saved his life, the Health Inspector is willing to tear up their citations, AND give them an entertainment license as long as Matilda finishes the story! It’s a sweet ending to a sweet (without being cloying) book. The illustrations of the different animal characters – the Health Inspector as an alligator is perfect! – are wonderful, and show perfect expressions.

All three of my girls enjoyed these two books, and I would recommend them for girls and boys ages 3-9, they are both engaging stories with fun pictures and plots.

I try to have themes for our bedtime books reading, so one night recently was cat night. We reread The Cat Who Walked Across France, which I reviewed here. The other two books were Metro Cat and Rufus at Work. All three cat books were sweet and enjoyed by all.

Metro Cat is a Golden Book by Marsha Diane Arnold, illustrated by Jack E. Davis. The basic storyline is that Sophie, “the fanciest cat in Paris”, is being taken to a photo shoot when her cage falls from the car into the Paris Metro (subway). Sophie begins to enjoy living in the Metro, with all the sounds and excitement. One day she goes above ground and is enthralled with all the music. She sees a man playing a wonderful fiddling tune, and she dances to the music with him, which makes people throw money into his (empty) hat. The next morning she brings him to the Metro, which at that point had no musicians. They are a hit and now the Metro is filled with musicians.

All three of my daughters are cat lovers, so they were bound to enjoy it. However, this is a great story about having it all, then having less, and being happy with less. Reading this around a major gift-giving holiday can be a good idea! This was a library book we renewed, as we loved it so much and wanted to keep reading it. It was enjoyable and engaging for all three girls (3, 6, 8 ) and for me as well.

Rufus at Work is a sweet little picture book by Tory and Norman Taber. Rufus is a striped cat whose little girl tells him he’s a lazy cat, so he tells us all the “work” he does (like listening for moles in the yard) and keeping the birds away from the birdbath. It is a silly, sweet, short book that is still engaging and fun. The pictures are fun and vivid, and the words are simple, but very well chosen.

We recommend both of these, and the one we had recommended earlier – either choose them from your local library or go buy them on Amazon!

I was reading a website where the author happened to talk about the book More Parts by Tedd Arnold. So I ordered them from the library, and then got other books by the author at our own library.

Parts, by Tedd Arnold is a very cute book. It engages the children with brightly colored pictures with exaggerated body part sizes. Throughout the book, the main character is confused by expressions and things that happen (belly button lint = his stuffing is coming out! a loose tooth means he’s falling apart). The over-reactions are intensely comical, and the children are soothed when the parents explain the expressions, and help him understand what is happening (as a hat-tip to the parent reading the book, the parents in the book have a Parenting 101 book).

More Parts is the next book in the series by Tedd Arnold. In this book, he discusses more ways you can become confused by the expressions adults use, which often confuse kids. The child tries again to save himself (gluing on a glove so he can’t “lend a hand”), in an amusing over-reaction. If you have a child who does become confused by expressions, as they are a literal thinker, this is a fun way to explain what expressions really mean. If your child does understand expressions, it’s a silly, fun book.

Even More Parts is the final book in the series by Tedd Arnold. This book isn’t as much of a story as the others. It’s a series of expressions at the top of the page, with a funny illustration of a literal translation of the expression. At the bottom of each page are toys that were in the other two books, but they are no longer observers, in this book they also offer expressions to be misunderstood.

All three books were well loved by my girls, and they would love to own them. All three entertained across a wide age range (3, 6, 8 ), and were amusing to a few different adult readers. The third book is a little more difficult to read, as it is less of a story, but they were all fun. We all strongly recommend them!

We’ve reviewed a couple more books by Tedd Arnold in this entry. We love his work!

My kids (and most others) seem to be torn – on the one hand, they want to grow up quickly so they can do fun things like drive, attend classes for older kids, and boss other people around. On the other hand, they want to be the baby of the family and have all the fun and no responsibility. These two, very different, picture books both address the good side of growing up.

The Little Scarecrow Boy is a lovely book by Margaret Wise Brown (yes, the author of the wonderful classic Goodnight Moon), illustrated by David Diaz. The brightly colored illustrations with vivid detail accent a lovely story about a scarecrow boy who wants to go out into the field with his father to scare the crows. But each day the father says No, little boy. You can’t go. You’re not fierce enough to scare a crow. Wait till you grow”.

But one day the little scarecrow boy tiptoes out of his house before his parents awake, and goes out to the field. His father has taught him six scary faces to frighten the crows, and he tries them each in turn to scare the crows away from the corn. The illustrations of the faces is wonderful – the illustrator has a wonderful knack for scarecrow faces! The scarecrow boy is so proud when he can finally scare a crow and show his father he is grown up enough to help, and his father is so proud of him for learning the six faces. The joy of achieving his goal shines in the Scarecrow boy’s face, and is infectious – we were all so happy for him. It is wonderful to finish a book smiling!

Pauline is a sweet book about a fuzzy-eared weasel, written and illustrated by Georg Hallensleben. Pauline lives in a beautifully painted tree with her parents, and when she asks to go down to the ground, they tell her she isn’t big enough yet. One day, Pauline falls out of the tree and ends up becoming friends with a young elephant named Rabusius. They play together, and she shows her parents she is grown up enough to play out of the tree. When Rabusius is captured by hunters, Pauline has to figure out a way to help him escape, and she uses her imagination and a lot of bravery – she has really grown up! The whole jungle throws a wonderful party to celebrate Pauline saving Rabusius! Another book where you put it down with a smile on your face.

Both books held the attention of all three of my children (3, 6, 8 ), and I found them lovely as well. The illustrations and the storylines of both are equally wonderful, which can be a rare combination.

My kids have now chosen Can You Say Peace?, by Karen Katz three times at the library. I’m thinking it deserves a place on the bookshelf.

This book has a simple idea – you travel through the world and learn the word for peace in each country. The pictures are lively and use vivid colors. The author, Karen Katz, has written many other books for young children, including a series of pop-up books. Unlike the pop-up books, this book engages all three girls (3, 6, 8 ) on different levels. One is fascinated by the colors and children, the other two are fascinated with the different languages. All three choose to look at this book quietly by themselves.

As the parent, I like that this is a quick read, but it is also a beautiful way of reminding children about the importance of peace. The countries and languages are varied – Iran, Australia, Ghana, Bolivia, China, France, etc. It also ends with a couple of pages talking about the things we all have in common. Highly recommended!

My husband loves history. He becomes animated about any historical topic. We discuss links between fiction and history, and we cover a lot of history while homeschooling (this year’s focus is the American Revolution).

However, most children’s books about historical topics are not that much fun to read. They don’t engage the audience, and they either have so much text that it is overwhelming, or so little that there really isn’t much point in reading it. We recently found two great books about historical topics which presented them in a way that was fun for everyone – the audience AND the reader.

Sleds on Boston Common: A Story from the American Revolution, by Louise Borden, illustrated by Robert Andrew Parker is a fictionalization of a true story during the American Revolution. This book is a bit heavy on the text, but it gives you the background about just how many British soldiers were in Boston in the winter of 1774-5 (1 soldier for ever 5 citizens). The main character is Henry, a young boy who just received a homemade sled for his birthday. At lunch, he and his brothers and sister go to Boston Common to use his new sled on the sled run before classes resume. However, when they arrive at the Common, they find that the troops have broken the ice on the ponds (so no ice skating), broken down the snow forts, and pitched tents and placed cooking fires on the sled run.

“For over a hundred years the Common belonged to everyone in Boston. Now it was covered by the barracks of General Gage’s troops.” General Thomas Gage was the Royal Governor of Massachusetts, and he was not well loved – he was enforcing a blockade on the harbor, and there were tough times during that winter. Henry and his siblings walked through the tents, keeping track of what they saw and heard for the Sons of Liberty. As they walk, they see General Gage, and he is speaking kindly to the troops, he “looked like a man who would listen, a good man, a man like my father.”

Henry goes up to General Gage, and requests that he listen to a town boy’s complaint. He explains the problem, and General Gage says that his children are in England, but they would also want to sled and skate if they were there. He instructs his troops to let the children sled (and move things from the sledding run) and leave the ice unbroken on one of the ponds for sledding.

The illustrations of this book match perfectly with the time period depicted, and the last pictures of the children sledding are wonderful, and evoke memories from anyone who has ever gone down a hill on a sled! The book finishes with a description of the beginning of the American Revolution, and has an Author’s note about what is true and what is fictionalized.

The Bus Ride that Changed History: The Story of Rosa Parks, by Pamela Duncan Edwards, illustrated by Danny Shanahan is a book written in a completely different style. This book is written in a rhyming, repetitive form, so each page builds on the next (as in “the house that Jack built” or “there was an old woman who swallowed a fly”). However, in this book there are modern-day children asking and answering questions about Rosa Parks and the Civil Rights movement that unfolded because of her bravery.

The book starts with:

This is a law forbidding

black people to sit next to white people on buses
which was overturned because one woman was brave

The book continues as it describes the segregation, and the inequality and bullying that were a part of the segregation laws. The modern-day children who are discussing the laws (in little speech bubbles outside of the rhyming pattern), ask and answer the questions that most children would have while reading the book (which is lovely, because otherwise the designated reader would have to find the answers somewhere!).

This is Rosa Parks, who said “No!” to
the driver who told her to move for the white man
left standing near the seats of black passengers riding
the bus in Montgomery,

where they enforced a law forbidding
blacks to sit next to whites on buses
which was overturned because one woman was brave

The book then explains the bus boycott, the beginning of the civil rights movement and Dr. Marting Luther King, Jr., and the Supreme Court overturning the segregation laws. It gives children information without overwhelming them, nor by dumbing it down. There is also a time line at the end of the book which outlines Rosa Parks’ life. The pictures are perfect for the text – detailed, but almost cartoonish so they are not intimidating for the children.

We recommend Sleds on Boston Common: A Story from the American Revolution for boys and girls ages 6-11 or so, our 3 year old was not interested in the longer sections of text, but the older two were fascinated by the look into the lives of children in history.

We would recommend The Bus Ride that Changed History: The Story of Rosa Parks for boys and girls ages 3-10 or so. When I was writing up this review, my 3 year old came over and said, “will you read me the story of the woman who was brave?” It’s a wonderful book for beginning or continuing the discussion on civil rights.

We recently read two books by Tedd Arnold. The covers alone drew us in – bright and fun images, and lots of expression in the faces.

The first Tedd Arnold book we read was Hi! Fly Guy. This is a funny book that could be read by children who are a little above the beginning readers. There are many contrasts between “pets” and “pests”, and it was fun for the kids to see how close the two words are. In the story, a boy catches a fly, and decides to make it his pet after the fly says his name (”Buzz”). He names him “fly guy”, but he has many people tell him flies are pests, and cannot be pets. The Fly Guy proves them all wrong, of course. It’s a silly, but fun and heartwarming book, and there are several things that happen which you aren’t quite expecting. We’re looking forward to reading more of the Fly Guy books when we can get them from the library!

The second book is called No Jumping on the Bed! I had gotten it from the library because I liked the cover, and had recently heard wonderful things about Tedd Arnold’s books. I also chose it hoping it would have a nice moral about not jumping on the bed, as that’s an ongoing argument here.

Well, it’s a great book, and lives up to the cute picture of the boy jumping on the bed. It’s a cumulative story, which is always fun to read. First Walter jumps on his bed and falls through the floor, then he lands on Miss Hattie’s dinner. Next Walter and Miss Hattie and her spaghetti fall through the floor into Mr. Matty’s TV room. And on it goes. In some ways this book reminds me of another wonderful cumulative story called The Napping House, by Don & Audrey Wood. However, this book is much sillier, and has a lot more rhymes (Miss Hattie, Mr. Matty, Aunt Batty, etc). No Jumping on the Bed seems like it is ending with a nice moral, “No more jumping on the bed for me” mumbled Walter, but the last page surprises you with a different ending.

Both books completely entertained all three girls (3, 6, 8 ), but they didn’t really settle them down for bed! The best sign I had that the books were good is that the girls took them out of the library bag so we would keep them for another week. We’ve read other books by Tedd Arnold, and definitely suggest his books as an enhancement to your library! Check out our review of three of his other books