Stella Blackstone

I enjoyed the obvious rhyme scheme of this story. The repeated lines “Where are you going bear, please wait for me” signified the strong relationship between the boy and the bear. I gathered that the bear represented a strong personality and someone who loves to explore. The illustrations and the repeated line above made me, as the reader, feel that the boy isn’t as adventurous but likes to tag along with his bear friend. This can be related in friendships because sometimes children show more with opposite personalities connect and build strong relationships.
The images were culturally appropriate. For example, when the bear and boy traveled to the river, castle, seaside and market, other animals were represented, as were different ethnicities in people. The buyers and sellers at the market were all different races and dressed differently. I liked this small detail because it made the setting realistic and it was humorous to me that the author gave this bear such humanistic qualities.
I liked that the author chose a bear and not another child for the African American boy to play with. It made the story more entertaining, unique, and can interest readers who love animals. I think the big idea was that there is no adventure too big or too small and it doesn’t matter the company. This is described in the story because the bear and boy traveled from somewhere remote like a river, to somewhere extravagant like a castle and then outer space. I also enjoyed that the reader can think of the bear as the boys imaginary friend. I did not realize this until the end of the book, which made me think more into the author’s word choice and made me investigate, which was enjoyable. show less

I bought My Granny Went to the Market: A Round- the- world Counting Rhyme, because my mother in law is an avid folk art collector and I think it will resonate personally with my children after they become familiar with her house -filled to the brim with treasures from around the world. After spending some time with the book, however, I cant get enough of the fanciful, candy colored paintings that depict a grandmother sailing around the world on a magic carpet to collect artwork such as masks show more and drums from different cultures.

In addition to teaching counting through these collected objects (yet in a pleasantly subtly manner), this book does a great job of teaching cultural awareness. Corr’s images celebrate the diversity of our planet’s creative pulse, yet they also show humans as collective makers, which is a spirit I hope to instill in my own children. I think art is one of the best ways to highlight the similarities of humankind and show us all as connected beings, and this seemingly simplistic counting book does exactly that. show less

Where to even start?! This book grabbed my children from page one - asking questions, picking out who looked like them, spotting differences we could talk about... this book gives me ALL the feels. Tonight we spent over 30 minutes - just to get through the book - expanding briefly on eyes, food, and languages. Each and every page is a treasure trove of talking points and sharing moments! I know we will spend many hours together enjoying this amazing book!

This book uses a variety of sea creatures and other animals - all depicted with brightly colorful illustrations - to discuss a number of opposites pairs. Each spread shows two of an animal each highlighting one part of an opposites pair (i.e., "elephant young, elephant old" with what appears to be a parent and child elephant together). The following spread features another pair of opposites, which combines with the previous page to complete a simple rhyming couplet. For instance, one spread show more says "Crocodile wet, crocodile dry." with the next spread stating "Chimpanzee bold, chimpanzee shy." The rhymes allow this relatively simple book to be read in an interesting sing-song way rather than a dull listing of opposites pairs.

The author chose to include a number of opposites pairs beyond the commonplace ones like big and small, tackling ones such as climb and fall and push and pull. This was particularly useful for me in talking to my toddler class about opposites. Several of the other books we used for our discussion including the more basic ones like hot and cold, so it was good to move on to some other words for them to use in describing their environments and see how those words relate to one another. So that was a definite plus to this book, although it's worth noting that this book included some of those simpler opposites pairs also and thus could be used for introducing those as well.

There were a few kind of odds things about this book about which I'm still not sure how to feel. The illustrations are certainly not realistic, which is fine because their enthusiastic brightness fits cheerfully well with the intended audience. But it seemed out of place for the sea urchin illustrations to be the only ones that had an element of collage to them - although I do have to admit that the use of gradient paint swatches for them is brilliant. The story ends with the question, "Far and wide, high and low, where do all these creatures go?" I guess this could lead to open-ended questions/discussions about animal habitats, but my class wasn't really interested once the opposites were gone. The book's final page shows a list of the opposites complete with miniaturized versions of the illustrations for each. I suppose it's useful to have them all in one handy place, but it doesn't seem entirely necessary - if the reader wants to share the opposites with the kids again, they could just as easily start the book from the beginning with the more engaging rhymes.

Nonetheless, despite my reservations about the book, the children in my class absolutely loved it and asked to hear it read over and over again. They also repeatedly went over to the shelf and kept picking this book out to look at on their own. show less