There's No Pace Like Gnome

By Library Romp - 12:36 PM

All my ducks are back in the nest. Three worn-out children have returned from summer camp bringing home noise, muddy Chacos, mountains of laundry, never-ending stories, along with a sense of kindness and respect. Gotta love what two weeks away does to a kid, a Christian camp mind you.

What's LLYC? A Snapshot for Inquiring Minds.

And as for Little Reader, we are keeping cool with daily library romps, water trampoline jumping, dusk gardening, and fairy Netflix movies. Also one of our gnome reads sparked an idea, we want fairies to come live in our garden. So how do we attract them? By building fairy houses, and what a better place to begin than at the library!

Fairy House Inspiration

Update from the Wild Blue:

For all you blue fans out there, the month of July is National Blueberry Month! And it’s just in time, as the “new blue” is almost up and running!

Into The Books

Daddy is a Doodlebug

By Degen, Bruce

A simple cute Father’s Day read about a bug and his father enjoying the day together. Little Reader was tickled with the “oodlebug” words.

The Daddy Mountain

By Feiffer, Jules

One little girl takes on one very big quest, climbing the Daddy Mountain. Turn each page to follow the step by step instructions on how to execute this monumental climb. Love the charcoal illustrations and the surprise page ending. Little Reader looks forward to this silly Daddy’s Day read every year, and says it goes best with blueberry pancakes!

I Want My Hat Back

By Klassen, J

Bear cannot find his red hat and commences to asking the passing woodland creatures. All insisting they haven't seen it, including rabbit who is wearing it. Bear’s in despair, and then remembers where he’s seen it. I’m going to stop here, but will say it ended with shrieks of laughter form Little Reader and shocked the teenager SB. I had to read the ending again to make sure what happened, and it did!

“This is so wrong for a children’s book!” - SB

“No it’s not wrong, its right! That’s how the writer wanted it to be!” - Little Reader

Gotta love the literal musings of a six year old. I do so much, that the story I’m working on invloves idioms. Little Reader had such a ball reading, In a Pickle & Other Funny Idioms and munching on pickle pops.

I got this to teach about idioms, and though she interpreted it like a joke book, we are expanding vocabulary. And why don’t we get to keep interlibrary loans very long? Guess this means I’ll just have to go Amazon hunting again! I do love finding little packages at my front door ;-)

Fartiste

By Krull, Kathleen

A somewhat true story about the famous fartiste, Joseph Pujol. Born in France in 1857, and at eight years old found his unique talent of expelling odorless gas. Over time he learned to make the sounds of famous music composers and animal sounds, even performing this at Le Moulin Rouge. Not a fan of flatulent books, but kids will find this well rhymed humorous piece of history explosively funny.

Big Red Lollipop

By Khan, Rukhsana

An Arab-American culture read about fairness, maturity, and sibling rivalry. Rubina is excited about going to her very first birthday party, that is until her mother insists in taking her little sister, Sana. And to make matters worse her little sister ends up eating her birthday party lollipop. And when Sana is invited to a party mom insists Rubina go. Will she go to the party, or take the time to teach her mom about American culture?

Lawn to Lawn

By Yaccarino, Dan

Four lawn ornaments including a flamingo, gnome, horse racing jockey, and deer are distraught when the family moves to a new home leaving them all behind. They find a map and set off to find their owner Pearl, without realizing the danger lurking every corner. Is their fate to end up in a trash truck, or will it be a joyous reunion? A charming quirky idea, but often found it hard to tell which lawn ornament was being referred to. Not a good read-alone book, but a good read-aloud allowing parents to explain the vague moments.

Here's my gnome romp, How to Survive a Garden Gnome Attack: Defend Yourself When the Lawn Warriors Strike. Ever read it?

A Little Story About A Big Turnip

By Zunshine, Tatiana

A simple wacky read depicting how sometimes we need a little help to get a big job done. Only Grandie, Grannie, Annie, Ruffie, Meowsie, and Squeakie know what to do with a turnip that won’t budge. Dug the illustrations, folksy touch, balance between fantasy and reality, and the clever pattern writing style. I write with a similar style, and really like its readability for young readers. Little Reader was able to repeat the lines on each page. A Russian folktale blue beast read.

“The littlest was the one who got it out of the ground, so I’m going to pull out the sunflowers by myself.” - Little Reader

And yes harvesting our Sunzilla Sunflowers was a reenactment of the turnip scene.

Look at all those seeds! If interested, drop me a note.