Children’s
Book Reviews
Summertime
is a Breeze with these Fine Books. Read and Enjoy!
by Selene
Vasquez
Picture books: ages 5 thru 10:
There
Was A Bold Lady Who Wanted A Star
by Charise Harper (Little Brown and Co., 32 pp., $15.95).
A cheery retelling of the favorite song There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed
A Fly with a feisty woman roller-skating, bicycling and even rocketing to
reach a star.
The
Magic Hat
by Mem Fox. Illustrated by Tricia Tusa. (Harcourt, 32 pp., $16.00)
There’s mischief and wizardry in a hat that blows into town, changing people
into different animals as it lands on their heads. Whimsical illustrations in
watercolor and ink.
Biography: ages 8 thru 10:
The
Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins
by Barbara Keeley. Illustrated by Brian Selznick. (Scholastic Press, 32 pp.,
$16.95)
In the mid nineteenth century, a Victorian artist named Waterhouse Hawkins dazzled
the slumbering scientific world with the creation of monumental dinosaur sculptures.
Luminous paintings make this tribute to an ingenious artist a visual masterpiece.
Fiction: ages 6 thru 8:
Things
That Sometimes Happen
by Avi. Illustrated by Marjorie Priceman. (Atheneum, 32 pp., $16.95).
“On a very hot day, an Ice-cream Cone waits...and waits... to be eaten.” Nine
succinct short stories for very young listeners delightfully capture the joyous
and uninhibited spirit of childhood imagination.#
Selene S. Vasquez is a media specialist at Orange Brook Elementary School. She is formerly a children’s librarian for the New York Public Library.