Jane Godwin

I think this can be read at least two ways:

1. As a read-aloud for a group of kids, I'd emphasize colors, counting, and answering the simple questions ("Shoes go on your feet. What goes on your head?"). The text is simple and the illustrations are clear and bright. This could be a great story time selection!

2. For an individual preschooler, this is an easy seek-and-find to pore over. The little bitty mouse is on every page and they can match the endpaper patches to the illustrations. Also, there are lots of connections to make between the final illustration of the interior of mouse's house and all of the previous scenes. How fun!

The rhyming text is really fun to read aloud. I was also a big fan of the illustrator's previous work in [b:One Family|22718696|One Family|George Shannon|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1406526556l/22718696._SX50_.jpg|42246990].

One last thing: I don't think I've ever seen sun-showers depicted in a picture book. The train scene has simultaneous sun and rain. And there's a scene of a girl looking out at a window at a "sunny rainy day." This made me google sun-showers and find all the strange things people around the world call the phenomenon.… (more)

Trigger warnings: death of a mother, sexting, suicidal thoughts, hospitalisation, mention of cancer

7/10, I actually enjoyed this one but it was certainly one of the heavier ones that I've read since it discusses a lot of serious topics and most importantly, nothing is what it seems in this so where do I even begin? I've read a book similar to this called Bus Stop Baby by Fleur Hitchcock and When Rain Turns to Snow succeeded where the last book failed which I liked. It starts off with the main character Lissa living in her home when a person named Reed comes along with a baby whom they name Mercy and she's getting sick and it might get worse so they take care of her as best they can. She then notices that something is wrong with Harry because he left a suicide note and was framed for sexting by taking pictures of another girl and rating her which I found quite gross but I kept on reading to see where this was going. Lissa keeps trying to live her life but apparently, Reed is on the run from his parents and Mercy's health is getting worse; towards the last half of the book it comes to a climax where the truth was revealed when Lissa was actually adopted, her biological father had cancer and her biological mother is dead and she was very shocked at this news. Anyways her brother Harry didn't make the offending pictures, Reed is somehow related to her, she went to a park to confirm the truth from earlier and it just ended like that.… (more)