Click, Clack, Moo Cows That Type (Caldecott Honor) By Doreen Cronin Pictures by Betsy Lewin

I have read this story with both of my children and enjoy it every time. I think you have to have a certain sense of humer to really appreciate this story. The thing I love most about the illustrations are the expressions of the animals, they are priceless! The cows seem so determined to ge those electric blankets! And, it is really amusing when the cows and hens go on strike and quit producing milk and eggs until they get what they want. We can all relate to this a little!The carefree way the illustrator uses color makes the humor really stand out. In the story, the author writes click, clack, moo to look like it is typed. That was really a clever idea. It allows the fact that cows are typing to come across.
Also, The way the farmer gets so frustrated and finally gives the cows and hens what they want, kinda reminds me of me with my own children (sad to say). But, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do, to get something accomplished!

The Hello, Goodbye Window By Norton Juster Illustrated by Chris Raschka (Caldecott Medal)

As a parent, we all can relate to this story. It's about a little girl who goes to stay with her grandparents while mommy and daddy go to work. As a parent, we all look for those "little distractions" to help our children cope with a situation. The hello, goodbye window is found at the grandparent's house and the little girl looks in it every time she stays with them. You find all kinds of delightful surprises and can play all kinds of games while looking through this window. Needless to say, it helps the little girl be excited about going to her grandparent's house every time.
The illustrations in this book look like watercolors done by a child. This is a great way to inspire other children to paint and explore watercolor.
Children will like this story because they can easily relate to it. A lot of kids stay with their grandparents while mommy and daddy work, or for other reasons. It also helps children to realize that grandparents can be fun, and we can learn a lot of things from them!

My Friend Rabbit (Caldecott Medal Award)

I reviewed the book My Friend Rabbit by Eric Rohmann, who wrote and illustrated the book. The first thing that grabbed my attention when I read this book was the dark black outline around the drawings. This made the illustrations really "pop out" at the reader. The colors were so bold and vivid. Another thing I really noticed was the details of each character in the story. It added so much to the tone the author was trying to set for the story.

The story was about a rabbit who is friends with a mouse. The rabbit is known for getting himself into "messes". When mouse gets his airplane stuck in a tree, rabbit is there with one of his brilliant ideas to get the plane out of the tree. Rabbit uses some unwilling animals and stacks them up until mouse is able to reach the airplane. Well, you can imagine what happens! All the animals come crashing down and they aren't very happy about it. Just when rabbit thinks he's going to get it, mouse swoops in with his freed airplane to rescue rabbit from the angry animals. Mouse knows that rabbit is his friend and really means well by his attempts to try and help him. Anyway, rabbit is so grateful mouse rescued him, that he gives mouse a big hug that blocks his vision and mouse crashes into another tree. At least rabbit has another great idea to get it out!

I think we all know children who can relate to rabbit. They have such big hearts and try to help, but end up messing everything up. But, what I got from the story was that true friendship is looking over each other's imperfections and loving them anyway. What a great message to teach our kids!

Another thing I really liked about the book, was that each page left you hanging and wondering what would happen next. This would be a great in having the students make predictions about what they thought was going to happen next.

There really wasn't anything I didn't like about the book. It was a delightful story with a great message!