Book Talk Tuesday: Book love

These picture books are perfect for bibliophiles, but they're also great for our youngsters who may not have fallen for books...yet. Each of these works well as a read-aloud for a full class.

Read to Tiger, by S. J. Fore, illustrated by R. W. Alley

Our young main character is trying to read his book. He's in a cozy spot, clicks on his reading lamp, and gets started. But he CAN'T read his book because there's a TIGER who keeps interrupting! He's chomping on chewing gum, or doing karate kicks, or some other noisy thing that bothers our little reader. How will the boy get the tiger to be quiet and let him read?

From Read to Tiger

This is fun as a read-aloud for PreK through grade 1 because we can make lots of silly noises. It's also a great way to start a conversation about reading as a quiet "just me" activity. The pictures show lots of movement and are done as sketchy watercolors.




Book! Book! Book!, by Deborah Bruss, illustrated by Tiphanie Beeke

The barnyard animals are bored now that summer is over and all of the children have gone back to school. What can they do to entertain themselves? 

They decide to head into town and try out the library. Unfortunately, none of them can be understood by the librarian. All she can hear is "neigh" or "oink" or "moo". Is there an animal that will be able to communicate with her? (hint: check the title!)

From Book! Book! Book!

Rough childlike watercolors match well with the text and lead us along. The pictures make the story feel very approachable. This also has a fun surprise at the end.






The Incredible Book Eating Boy, by Oliver Jeffers

"Henry loved books. But not like you and I love books, no. Not quite..." 

And so begins a story about a boy who loves books so much, he eats them. He loves them all, but especially red ones. The more he eats, the smarter he gets, spewing out mathematical equations and geographical features and upstaging his teacher. But he consumes books at such an alarming rate, we begin to wonder...how can this be good for him? He starts to turn a bit green. 

Can he find a balance between loving books so much he wants to ingest them and loving them just enough to get all the information into his brain instead of his stomach?

From The Incredible Book Eating Boy

The illustrations are a brilliant complement to the book's concept: richly layered collage in a scrapbook style puts different types of pages and fonts all around Henry. The whole book is created with books.