Category: booktalk

Posted on

Puddle Song Board Book

Puddle Song Board Book
by Laura Purdie Salas (Author) and Monique Felix (Illustrator)
@ Amazon | Bookshop

Booktalk: There is something about the smooth surface of a puddle that beckons to children to disturb it–they want to see how the water splashes upward, to feel the droplets on their skin. This board book gives voice to the puddle as it invites the “stompers and jumpers” to explore its rippling water, offering to act as both dance partner and mirror onto the world.

Snippet:
Bring me your boots,
[TURN THE PAGE]
you stompers and jumpers.

The author, Laura Purdie Salas, is one of my former students.
Copyright © 2023 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

We Are Lions!

We Are Lions!
by Jens Mattsson (Author), Jenny Lucander (Illustrator), and B.J. Woodstein (Translator),
@ Amazon | Bookshop

Booktalk: The narrator and his big brother have the best game in the world together. They are dangerous lions on the savannah! One day, big brother doesn’t want to run around anymore. His stomach hurts. He has to see the doctor and take medicine, and even has to stay at the hospital.

Lions don’t want to be trapped by wires and tubes! The narrator instigates a hunt, and the brothers run around the hospital together, chasing gazelles and startling the wildebeest. But big brother is very sick and can’t keep up. Lions can’t cry, his little brother insists. But they can miss the rest of their pride. With Mom and Dad, the narrator tries to comfort his sibling. Soon, he knows, the two lions will go hunting again.

Snippet:

I am a lion. My big brother is one too. ROOOOARR!
We are a pride. We hunt gazelles and wildebeest on the savanna.
When we catch them, we eat them. We are dangerous!

Copyright © 2023 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.