On You Are My Little Bird, Elizabeth Mitchell's clear, steady voice burnishes traditional and original folk tunes to a warm glow; her precise vocalization gives these simple songs a subtle sense of sophistication. The album's a treasure. (Smithsonian Folkways, 2006)
Reviewed by Melissa Chianta
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Awake to Nap
by Nikki McCure, is not your everyday board book—not with its elegant paper cutouts and such unusual first phrases as C is for "Crows Commune" and D is for "Dinghy Dream." Nor is it your everyday alphabet book—McClure intentionally ends at the letter N. The author produced the illustrations while her son was sleeping; she says, "the naps were too short and life too thrilling to justify going all the way to Z"—an anti-perfectionist philosophy if ever I heard one. And with illustrations as satisfying as these, who needs the whole alphabet anyway? Ages 1 to 3. (Sasquatch Books, 2006)
Reviewed by Melissa Chianta
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Bear and Ball
This charmingly refined board book, by Cliff Wright, features delicate watercolors of a bear learning to walk and crawl—and play with his ball! Ages 0-2. (Chronicle Books, 2005)
Reviewed by Melissa Chianta.
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Born Yogis
by Susie Arnett and Doug Kim, features lyrical black-and-white photographs of small children naturally assuming yoga postures, each image capturing a profound moment of pure presence. Accompanying the photos are insights from great mystics, truths these babes seem to innocently embody with ease. Nourishment for the eyes and spirit, Born Yogis honors the grace children bring into our lives. (Rodale Books, 2005)
Reviewed by Melissa Chianta
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Finger Puppet Friends: Little Duck, Little Ladybug, Little Lamb, and Little Bee! (Finger Puppet Book)
Finger Puppet Friends is a clever collection of four tiny board books from Imagebooks—Little Duck, Little Ladybug, Little Lamb, Little Bee—that entertain with an animal finger puppet that pokes through a circular hole in the center of each book. For ages 0 to 2. (Chronicle Books, 2007)
Reviewed by Melissa Chianta
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For You Are a Kenyan Child
Author Kelly Cunnane shares a typical day in the life of a much-loved Kenyan boy and teaches some Swahili words along the way. Painted with a rainbow palette, Ana Juan's sensuous, nuanced images tenderly animate the tale. Ages 4 to 7. (Simon & Schuster, 2006)
159766006x Reviewed by Melissa Chianta
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It's So Amazing!: A Book about Eggs, Sperm, Birth, Babies, and Families
by Robie H Harris, illustrated by Michael Emberley, is a lighthearted, understandable explanation of the birds and the bees that also attends to more complex topics, such as different kinds of love and the function of genes. Diversities of race and sexual orientation are represented in both text and images. For ages 8 to 12. (Candlewick Press, 2002)

Just a Minute: A Trickster Tale and Counting Book by Yuyi Morales(Chronicle Books, 2003) Ages 3 to 6.

Lizards, Frogs, and Pollywogs
by Douglas Florian, pairs primal yet sophisticated watercolors with clever poems that subtly instruct on the nature of amphibians. Ages 3 to 6. (Voyager Books, 2005)

Me!
Page 1, "Me." Page 2, "I like myself." And that's how it goes with the self-satisfied bear who narrates Philip Waechter's Me! If ever a child feels left out —and who does not?— this book is a warmhearted antidote, funny for a child, immensely funny for the adult reader as well. The warmheartedness arises from the fact that, however self-satisfied our near may be, there's just one thing he lacks—so that at the end, page by page, he runs to... I cannot give it away, but it's so lovely, it brings tears to my jaundiced eyes. If, oddly, you don't have a child, give this as a valentine. For any age.

Misery Is a Smell in Your Backpack
by Harriet Ziefert, with drawings by Jennifer Rapp, is a book about bad days. Kids get annoyed with life's little irritations just as adults do, and Ziefert lets them know that it's just fine. My favorite entry: "Miserable is when you feel horrible, rotten, basty, dreadful, and mean and someone says: 'Hi! How are you?' " Exactly! Ages 9 and up. (Blue Apple Books, 2005)

Miss Spider's ABC's by David Kirk (Scholastic Press, 1998) Ages 1 to 4.

Mister Seahorse by Eric Carle (Philomel, 2004) Ages 4 to 7.

Mommy's Best Kisses
beautifully conveys the tender intimacy of the mother-child bond. Susan Winter's pastel-hued paintings of nuzzling animals illustrate Margaret Anasya's endearing text: "I kiss your small hand / as you reach for my face / I kiss your sweet neck—it's my favorite place." Ages three to six. (Harper Trophey, 2003)
Reviewed by Melissa Chianta
Buy It Now

My Book Box, by Will Hillenbrand, is a simple, clever, and attractively designed and illustrated story beginning with the elephant baby asking "What can I do with a box?" He then goes through a list of silly answers—a box for bugs, for pizza, pasta, or a hat—until the "Great idea!": a box for books to read at breakfast, or in the bathroom, or on an airplane. It's also a box to share, especially at bedtime, when little elephant and his companion, a frog, are tucked in, sound asleep. At the end, there's a printed recipe for making such a box of your very own.
Reviewed by Peter F. Neumeyer

My Very First Book of Animal Homes
My Very First Book of Animal Sounds
A sense of humor is one of the great gifts that we can impart to children. To that purpose, fresh, ingenious samples spring once again from the inexhaustible studio of Eric Carle. My Very First Book of Animal Homes and My Very First Book of Animal Sounds are small-format books, also illustrated with collages of painted paper by Carle, the current Michelangelo of that craft. A consummate storyteller and artist, Carle has chests of thin, wide drawers filled with colored paper, from which he assembles magical tales that have by now become canonical—such as The Very Hungry Caterpillar (1969) and Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? (1967). What's so funny about the two new books is that all the board pages are cut horizontally in the middle—you can juxtapose any animal with any home or sound: "Dog" may sleep in "nest" or "bat" in "iceberg" or—in the Sounds book—"dog" may "moo" and "mouse" may "crow." You get two pleasures at once: the child learns appropriate domiciles or sounds for animals, and—this is what's so delightful—these books can well serve as an introduction to humor for the young. In our house, the dialogue gets progressively sillier:

"Does the lion say Quack?" I ask.
"Noooo," says Emily, flipping the pages, "the lion says Peep."
"Does he really say Peep?"
"Noooo, the lion says Roar!" roars Emily, having turned to the appropriate picture. And we both roar at the joke.
Reviewed by Peter F. Neumeyer
Buy It Now! My Very First Book of Animal Homes
Buy It Now! My Very First Book of Animal Sounds

Black Ants and Buddhists: Thinking Critically and Teaching Differently in the Primary Grades
Mary Cowhey chronicles nine years instructing the innovative Peace Class at Jackson Street School in Northampton, Massachusetts. After 14 years as a community labor organizer, Cowhey became an educator and fashioned a radical first- and second-grade curriculum in which everything from history to math is taught through the lenses of social justice and cultural tolerance. Written in an engaging style, this is an inspiring book for educators and parents alike. (Stenhouse Publishers, 2006; www.stenhouse.com)
Reviewed by Melissa Chianta.
Buy It Now

The Camelback Dogs! by Jasper Tomkins (Sasquatch Books, 2004) Ages 6 to 10.

Child of Faerie: Child of Earth by Jane Yolen (Little, Brown and Company, 1997) Ages 4 to 8.

Clip-Clop, by Nicola Smee, is one of the year's beauties. One after another, four barnyard friends beg to ride on Mr. Horse, and once on him, they urge him to go faster and faster, till they all fall off—and it was all such fun that they beg to ride again. The text is satisfyingly rhythmic and recurrent. The simple, large, totally unambiguous animals leave a broad path for the slapstick good humor, and invite reading aloud. Steve Jenkins and Robin Page's realistic, nonfiction Move! is similar to Clip-Clop in its natural narrative flow across the pages, as we are shown that penguins "waddle" and snakes "slither." The animals are striking, brilliant, as rendered in collages of torn paper, and at the end are two more pages of explanatory text—a beautiful book in every way.
Reviewed by Peter F. Neumeyer
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Disabled Fables
This is a collection of Aesop's fables retold and illustrated by adults with developmental disabilities, such as autism and Down syndrome, who are members of LA Goal, a non-profit that serves their community. Ages 7 to 10. (Star Bright Books, 2005)
Reviewed by Melissa Chianta
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Eating the Alphabet, Fruits & Vegetables from A to Z, features bold colors strikingly juxtaposed—endive, in many shades of green with yellow stems, overlaps with brown-to-purple dates set against an ochre background, the whole facing a glory of three green-stemmed, purple-bodied eggplants set against a turquoise tray of figs. It makes one dizzy merely to write it. And although the book is for toddlers (six months to three years), its subtly watercolored origami illustrations are so finely graded in hue and so ingeniously designed that Eating the Alphabet is living proof that artistic subtlety can be offered to the very young.
Reviewed by Peter F. Neumeyer

I See The Rhythm by Michele Wood (Children’s Book Press, 1998)Ages 5 to 10.

Illuminations from the Bhagavad-Gita by Chris Murray (Mandala Publishing Group,1998) Ages 6 and up.

It's So Amazing!: A Book about Eggs, Sperm, Birth, Babies, and Families by Robie H. Harris, illustrated by Michael Emberley, is a lightjearted, understandable explanation of the birds and the bees that also attends to more complex topics, such as different kinds of love and the function of genes. Diversities of race and sexual orientation are represented in both text and images. For ages 8 to 12. (CandlewickPress, 2002) Ages 8 and up.

The Islamic Year: Surahs, Stories and Celebrations by Noorah Al-Gailani(Hawthorn Press, 2004) Ages 8 and up.

Larky Mavis by Brock Cole (Straus & Giroux, 2001) Ages 6 to 10.

The Little Wing Giver by Jacques Taravant (Henry Holt, 2001) Ages 4 to 8.

Look What I See! Where Can I Be? At the Synagogue by Dia L. Michels (Platypus Media, 2003)

The Louvre in Close-Up by Claire d’Harcourt (Éditions duSeuil/LeFunambule, 2001) Ages 6 to 12.

Me! Page 1, "Me." Page 2, "I like myself." And that's how it goes with the self-satisfied bear who narrates Philip Waechter's Me! If ever a child feels left out —and who does not?— this book is a warmhearted antidote, funny for a child, immensely funny for the adult reader as well. The warmheartedness arises from the fact that, however self-satisfied our near may be, there's just one thing he lacks—so that at the end, page by page, he runs to... I cannot give it away, but it's so lovely, it brings tears to my jaundiced eyes. If, oddly, you don't have a child, give this as a valentine. For any age.

Mommy's Best Kisses
beautifully conveys the tender intimacy of the mother-child bond. Susan Winter's pastel-hued paintings of nuzzling animals illustrate Margaret Anasya's endearing text: "I kiss your small hand / as you reach for my face / I kiss your sweet neck—it's my favorite place." Ages three to six. (Harper Trophey, 2003)
Reviewed by Melissa Chianta.
Buy It Now

My Book Box, by Will Hillenbrand, is a simple, clever, and attractively designed and illustrated story beginning with the elephant baby asking "What can I do with a box?" He then goes through a list of silly answers—a box for bugs, for pizza, pasta, or a hat—until the "Great idea!": a box for books to read at breakfast, or in the bathroom, or on an airplane. It's also a box to share, especially at bedtime, when little elephant and his companion, a frog, are tucked in, sound asleep. At the end, there's a printed recipe for making such a box of your very own.
Reviewed by Peter F. Neumeyer

Music For Alice by Allen Say (Houghton Mifflin Co., 2004) Ages 6 to 12.

My Chair by Betsy James (Arthur A. Levine Books, 2003) Ages 4 to 7.

My Very First Book of Animal Homes
My Very First Book of Animal Sounds
A sense of humor is one of the great gifts that we can impart to children. To that purpose, fresh, ingenious samples spring once again from the inexhaustible studio of Eric Carle. My Very First Book of Animal Homes and My Very First Book of Animal Sounds are small-format books, also illustrated with collages of painted paper by Carle, the current Michelangelo of that craft. A consummate storyteller and artist, Carle has chests of thin, wide drawers filled with colored paper, from which he assembles magical tales that have by now become canonical—such as The Very Hungry Caterpillar (1969) and Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? (1967). What's so funny about the two new books is that all the board pages are cut horizontally in the middle—you can juxtapose any animal with any home or sound: "Dog" may sleep in "nest" or "bat" in "iceberg" or—in the Sounds book—"dog" may "moo" and "mouse" may "crow." You get two pleasures at once: the child learns appropriate domiciles or sounds for animals, and—this is what's so delightful—these books can well serve as an introduction to humor for the young. In our house, the dialogue gets progressively sillier:

"Does the lion say Quack?" I ask.
"Noooo," says Emily, flipping the pages, "the lion says Peep."
"Does he really say Peep?"
"Noooo, the lion says Roar!" roars Emily, having turned to the appropriate picture. And we both roar at the joke.
Reviewed by Peter F. Neumeyer
Buy It Now! My Very First Book of Animal Homes
Buy It Now! My Very First Book of Animal Sounds

Pop-Up Aesop
by John Harris and illustrated by Calef Brown, inventively showcases brief versions of little-known fables by Aesop with creative pop-up art. Precisely engineered pages feature pullout pieces that hide the morals of the stories. Ages six to ten. (Getty Publications, 2005)
Reviewed by Melissa Chianta.
Buy It Now

SkinAgain by Bell Hook (Hyperion, 2004) Ages 4 to 7.

Sunshine on My Shoulders illustrated byChristopher Canyon (Dawn Publications, 2003)

Traveling Man: The Journey of Ibn Battuta 1325-1354 by James Rumford(Houghton Mifflin, 2001) Ages 7 to 12.

The Twelve Gifts of Birth by Charlene Costanzo (HarperResource,1999)All Ages.

Watakame's Journey: The Story of the Great Flood and the New WorldbyHallie N. Love and Bonnie Larson (Clear Light Publishers, 1999) Ages 8 to 12.

Welcome With Love
My jaw dropped when I first saw Welcome With Love, by Jenni Overend, a gorgeous Australian picture book about a homebirth. The gently told story is illustrated by Julie Vivas?s intimate, pastel-hued watercolors, which bravely portray what actually happens during birth. This older but nonetheless exceptional book is stunning, and definitely deserves a place in your children?s library. For ages 3 to 7. (Kane/Miller, 2000) Reviewed by Melissa Chianta
Buy It Now!

When a Monster Is Born
Author Sean Taylor, was announced the Gold Medal Winner of the Nestlé Children's Book Prize, under-5 category, for his book When a Monster is Born, illustrated by Nick Sharratt. He declined the prize money, saying that he could not accept the money because of his concerns over the marketing tactics used by Nestlé in their promotion of infant formula (as reported in Mothering's January 7, 2008 news bulletin. Show your support for Sean's decision by purchasing When a Monster Is Born for a child you love.

When I Get Little
Dog on Fleas's When I Get Little is a delightfully eclectic array of unique tunes tasting of bluegrass, Cajun, World, and straightforward rock. The album includes some real treasures, including The Coo Coo, which boasts exotic balafons and djun-djun drums; the ragtimey Moonsong; and the folksy, a cappella Honeybaby. (Dog on Fleas, 2006; www.dogonfleas.com)
Reviewed by Melissa Chianta

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