Donut Feed the Squirrels by Mika Song

Norma wakes up and begins to cook a batch of pancakes. She wants to share them with her friend Belly but because she leaves her cooking to find him the pancakes are burned. As the two friends discuss what to do next they smell something delicious.

"like honey ... it smells like crispy sugar, oil, and a hint of linden flowers."

This smell is coming from a donut van which has parked nearby.  Norma and Belly do not have any money but they do have lots of chestnuts. They pop these on the van counter but the human donut seller is horrified and he grabs a water spray bottle and sprays his small animal customers. Norma and Belly are desperate to eat one of those donuts so they devise a very clever plan.

The library I visit each week use date due slips for their books. This is a great way to see the frequency of borrowing for individual titles. Donut feed the Squirrels arrived in the library in May 2021. This is not a large school (around 300+ students) and yet I see this book has been borrowed twenty times.

Awards for Donut Feed the Squirrels:

• 2021 Eisner Honor for Early Reader 
• Chicago Public Library Best of the Best 2020
• Michigan Great Lakes’ Great Books Award 2021-22
• 2021 The Center for Children’s Books Gryphon Award Honor and
• 2020 The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books Blue Ribbon in Fiction
• The Nerdy Book Club Pick
• Indie Next List
• Junior Library Guild Pick
• Texas Little Maverick Reading List 2020-21
• Cybils Award
• ALA Best Graphic Novels for Children Reading List
• ISLN Red Dot Short List 2022-2023

I highly recommend Donut feed the Squirrels. A perfect book for a newly independent reader and a great way to introduce chapters - there are five chapters in this book. 

The paperback edition of Donut feed the Squirrels has a different cover (Pushkin Children's Books).

Take a look at the webpage for Mika Song. Here are some other books from this series:

I previously talked about Agatha May and the Angler Fish by Nora Morrison and Jessie Ann Foley illustrated by Mika Song.

What About Worms? by Ryan T Higgins and Mo Willems

"I love a book that worms its way into your heart."

What About Worms is the perfect book for a newly confident reader - it is funny and it is easy to read and it invites a reader to use lots of voices. This is also a book that a young reader will be happy to read over and over again. For adult readers you might also think about the way this book 'breaks the fourth wall.'

Tiger is not afraid of anything - well no he is very afraid of worms. 

"Worms are slimy. Worms like to wiggle. And you cannot tell their tops from their bottoms."

Surely there are no worms nearby. Oh, look a lovely pot of flowers! Oh no wait a minute worms love dirt. What if they are lurking in the flowerpot? Oh, look an apple. Delicious. Oh no wait a minute worms love to hide inside apples AND our hapless tiger just took a bite! That book on the path looks good but is that a worm on the cover? Tiger just has to run away. Meanwhile some worms emerge from the ground. They are so afraid of tigers.

"Tigers are furry. Tigers like to walk. And you can tell their tops from the bottoms."

Is there a way the tiger and the worms can actually discover the truth about one another? Perhaps the book will help.

Higgins’ latest addition to the Elephant & Piggie Like Reading series is an exclamation-point–packed, liberally uppercased rambunctious rollick through the irrational world of phobias. His Hobbes-like feline is a master of inscrutability (NOT!). Expressions ranging from cheesy grins to abject terror race across the tiger’s face faster than you can thumb a flipbook. Kirkus

The book-within-a-book will intrigue beginning readers, and the Elephant/Piggie speech-balloon format will seem like a familiar friend as they follow along (look for a surprise appearance by the Pigeon). Redeemed Reader

This book won a Geisel Honour in 2021. This book would be the perfect addition to your library, your kindergarten classroom or your preschool. 

This book is from the hugely popular and hilarious series - Elephant and Piggie. 

You might also look for these as a way to continue the fun!

The Worm

Fish and Sun by Sergio Ruzzier

Young Fish is cold and bored living under the sea. He tells his mum won't bother with breakfast - he is going to find a different place where it is warmer and more interesting. Up near the surface Fish sees Sun. Sun is warm and best of all Sun is fun! They play hide and seek, and Fish demonstrates his ability to spit out water but then something terrible happens. Sun sinks down and the sky turns red. 

"Sun are you okay? You seem a bit red."

"I know, I'm setting."

Fish returns home to his mum feeling very sad. He has lost his new friend. But wait - tomorrow Fish swims near the surface again. It is a cloudy day and at first he cannot see his new friend. Then the clouds part and yay - Sun is back!

This book has just over 160 words! And it is an example of a very simple graphic novel or as my friend calls them - Toon. The whole plot is told through a simple dialogue and using speech bubbles. AND this book is cheap here in Australia at only AUS$13. Oh, and this book has a satisfying story so it is a book you can read to a child, re-read to a child, and then later they will read it to you! (You cannot say that about silly school reader books or the new phonics books called decodables). Perhaps you could even take turns with your child and read it with two different voices.

The book nearly sparkles with color: The sun-dappled palette is one of warm, eye-catching, and elegant pastel shades. The book’s dialogue is set in bold black text in clean, white speech balloons.  Kirkus Star review

This beginning comic reader is an ideal introduction to the sequential art format, and the guided reading series provides a short tutorial for budding comic fans. Ruzzier presents a delicately designed story of friendship full of intimacy and emotion. His textured watercolors mirror the environment as well as the shifting moods of the lonely Fish. School Library Journal

If you are unfamiliar with this style of book there is a handy guide to reading the speech bubbles on the first page. Kirkus explain this - Like many titles in the series, this one includes a page at the beginning that demonstrates the fundamentals of reading comics, including the order in which panels should be read and the differences between various types of word balloons. Each spread consists of a single panel, with thoughtful separation between the left and right sides.

Fish and Wave from the same series won a Theodore Geisel Honour in 2023. 

The Theodor Seuss Geisel Award is given annually to the author(s) and illustrator(s) of the most distinguished American book for beginning readers published in English in the United States during the preceding year.   The winner(s), recognized for their literary and artistic achievements that demonstrate creativity and imagination to engage children in reading, receives a bronze medal.

There are three more books in this series:

Due out June 11th, 2024

I previously talked about Sergio Ruzzier and his book A letter for Leo (not a Toon or graphic novel). Try to find A letter for Leo it is such a sweet story about friendship and letter writing.

A Letter for Leo

Sergio Ruzzier is a picture book author and illustrator. He was born in Milan, Italy, in 1966, and began his career as an illustrator in 1986. Sergio has written and illustrated many picture books, including Fox and Chick: The Party, a 2019 Geisel Honor Book; Fish and Wave, a 2023 Geisel Honor book; Two Mice; and more. ... His work has won many awards, including the Parents’ Choice Gold Medal for The Room of Wonders and This Is Not a Picture Book!. After many years in Brooklyn, NY, he now lives in a very old house in the Apennine Mountains in northern Italy. 

Little Robot by Ben Hatke

 

The opening scenes of this graphic novel or toon are wordless. We see a highway, trucks and then move in closer to see one truck in particular. A carton falls off the truck when it goes over a bump in the road. The box falls off a bridge and into the river below. The wordless scenes continue into Chapter One. A young girl climbs out of the window of a trailer house. She plays at the park and then heads down to the river where she has stashed her toolkit. She finds a carton and when she opens it, she discovers something very surprising - a robot! He's been slightly damaged from the fall out of the truck so the girl, remember she has set of tools, sets about some repairs and before too long the little robot, who looks a little like R2D2 is up on his feet and able to walk. 

Meanwhile back at the factory the computer sensors ring out alarms because one of the units - UNIT 00012 - is missing. The orders are to locate and recover.

I hope this plot is making you think of The Wild Robot by Peter Brown.

Of course, things are heading for a showdown. The sinister robot charged with finding UNIT00012 is coming. The little girl has truly made a special friend so what will happen when the retrieval robot arrives? Problem solving, ingenuity and true heroism are at the heart of this story. Oh, and there is a lot of 'boom', 'zom', 'clink', 'clang', 'chonk', 'pling', 'ploop', and 'jonk' to enjoy along the way as well as lots more robots!

This delightful, nearly wordless graphic novel portrays a kid with gumption enough to take on big business and smarts enough to advise the factory’s fix-it robot on repairs even though she just might be too young for kindergarten. Despite having little material means and few human connections, this kid creates life in the inanimate and fosters community where none could exist before. Girl power at its best. A sure winner!  Kirkus Star review

This is not only a sweet and wonderful book about friendship, though – it’s a great maker space selection! This is a little girl who’s comfortable with a tool belt and she tinkers with a robot! What' cha Reading?

Blurb: When a little girl finds an adorable robot in the woods, she presses a button and accidentally activates him for the first time. Now, she finally has a friend. But the big, bad robots are coming to collect the little guy for nefarious purposes, and it's all up to a five-year-old armed only with a wrench and a fierce loyalty to her mechanical friend to save the day!

This is not a book an Australian school library could ever add to their collection which is such a dreadful shame. Here in Australia this book, with only 135 pages, costs over AUS$45. Why oh why?

In 2016 Little Robot won Will Eisner award (Considered the “Oscars” of the comic book industry, are handed out each year in a gala ceremony at Comic-Con International: San Diego. Named for renowned cartoonist Will Eisner (creator of “The Spirit” and pioneer of the graphic novels), the Awards are given out in more than two-dozen categories covering the best publications and creators of the previous year):

2016 Best Publication for Early Readers (up to age 8): Little Robot, by Ben Hatke 

2023 Best Publication for Early Readers (up to age 8) Chibi Usagi: Attack of the Heebie Chibis, by Julie and Stan Sakai

Other 2023 entries for ages up to 8 years:

Beneath The Trees: A Fine Summer, by Dav (Magnetic Press)

Fox + Chick: Up and Down: and Other Stories, by Sergio Ruzzier (Chronicle Books)

Grumpy Monkey Who Threw That? by Suzanne Lang and Max Lang (Random House Studio)

Hey, Bruce!: An Interactive Book, by Ryan Higgins (Disney/Hyperion)

Here is the full list of past winners:

2012 Dragon Puncher Island, by James Kochalka (Top Shelf)

2013 Babymouse for President, by Jennifer L. Holm and Matthew Holm (Random House)

2014 Itty Bitty Hellboy, by Art Baltazar and Franco Aureliani (Dark Horse)

2015 The Zoo Box, by Ariel Cohn and Aron Nels Steinke (First Second)

2016 Little Robot, by Ben Hatke (First Second)

2017 Narwhal: Unicorn of the Sea, by Ben Clanton (Tundra)

2018 Good Night, Planet, by Liniers (Toon Books)

2019 Johnny Boo and the Ice Cream Computer, by James Kochalka (Top Shelf/IDW)

2020 Comics: Easy as ABC, by Ivan Brunetti (TOON)

2022 Chibi Usagi: Attack of the Heebie Chibis, by Julie and Stan Sakai (IDW)

2023 The Pigeon Will Ride the Roller Coaster! by Mo Willems (Union Square Kids)

Here are some other books (graphic novels) by Ben Hatke:

Pepper and Boo series by Charise Mericle Harper

 

Pepper and Boo are two, slightly crazy dogs. They live with a suspicious housemate, the Cat. This series is perfect for newly independent readers who like funny books. If you are reading a book from this series in your family, you could take turns to be Pepper or Boo or the long-suffering cat. The voices are easy to follow because Charise Haper uses different speech bubble colour to show which dog is speaking.

Cat is a solitary creature, so she speaks to herself and about herself. Her commentary is so funny. 

Plot Book One - A cat surprise: They are two dogs who do not know much about cats. (Who does?) They wonder why the cat sleeps so much (in their beds!), licks itself so much, what the cat is thinking, and what makes the cat happy. Luckily, the cat can explain. The cat knows a lot about being a cat. They know a cat will sleep anywhere (a box, a keyboard, a sink, and Boo's bed) and any time of day. They know what cats like and do not like to eat. They also know that although they are different, they're happy to have housemates like Pepper and Boo.

Plot Book Two - Puddle Trouble: Pepper and Boo are two dogs who like to have fun. The Cat likes to have fun, too, but cat fun is very different from dog fun. Cats can have fun with a newspaper, a bottle cap, an ice cube, and some boxes. Dogs like to have fun by chasing leaves, biting sticks, and licking the grass. That’s not the only way cats and dogs are different. The Cat explains while Pepper and Boo try to find coats so they can go outside on a rainy day. With the perfect coat, cats and dogs can all have fun outside together. 

Plot Book Three - Paws up for joy!: Pepper and Boo are two dogs who love to celebrate. What could be more special than a day in the house without the Cat! The dogs can play with their toys and dance for treats and the cat will not come running. Hooray, the cat is outside. The Cat knows about special things too. Special things can be big, but sometimes special things can also be small. Like a sunny day after lots of rain, a yummy smell, a little bug, or even a sweet sound. When you look, there are joys to be found. At the end of the day there is one last surprise - the feeling of family.

Charise Mericle Harper is author of many books for young readers including the Just Grace series Charise lives in Oregon. You can see lots of other books - picture books, older readers graphic novels and more at her website. 

Pizza and Taco who's the best by Stephen Shaskan

My friend and I have a Pinterest of books which feature Unlikely Friends. Pizza and Taco sure are very unlikely friends who discover differences can be fun.

There are five short chapters in this book and the text is presented as a dialogue between the four characters - Pizza, Taco of course and minor side kicks Hamburger and Hotdog. 

• Chapter One - Pizza and Taco are best friends
• Chapter Two - Pizza and Taco: who is the best?
• Chapter Three - Pizza and Taco Vote for the best
• Chapter Four - Pizza and Taco prove who's the best
• Chapter Five - Pizza and Taco: The true meaning of being the best

Chapter three is a fun commentary on how elections work which you could share with a group of older students perhaps. 

There are six books in this series and they are perfect for newly independent readers. These fun and attractive books would be a fabulous addition to any school library. Here is the web site for Stephen Shaskan. These books are also the perfect introduction to graphic novels. My friend calls them Toon and she has a large collection of them in her library. 

These books were first published in US but the first title has now published here in Australia by Scholastic for a really good price of AUS$11. I hope they have a plan to bring us the other books in the series which are way too expensive at AUS$25 for the hardcover editions. 

I don't want to be a frog by Dev Petty illustrated by Mike Boldt

"I want to be a cat."

"You can't be a cat"

"Why not?"

"Because you're a frog."

"I don't like being a frog. It's too wet."

"Well, you can't be a cat."

And so it all begins. Can frog be a rabbit? Can frog be a pig? Can frog be an owl? Then frog meets the Big Bad Wolf. He loves to eat cats, rabbits, pigs, owls and even badgers. BUT ... there is one animal he never eats!

This book is perfect for young readers who enjoy books by Mo Willems (Elephant and Piggie; and the Pigeon books).

Here is a bookshop blurb: Frog wants to be anything but a slimy, wet frog. A cat, perhaps. Or a rabbit. An owl? But when a hungry wolf arrives--a wolf who HATES eating frogs--our hero decides that being himself isn't so bad after all. In this very silly story with a sly message, told in hilarious dialogue between a feisty young frog and his heard-it-all-before father, young readers will identify with little Frog's desire to be something different, while laughing along at his stubborn yet endearing schemes to prove himself right.

There are three more books in the series - I Don't Want to Be Big: There's Nothing to Do!: and I Don't Want to Go to Sleep.

Here are other books illustrated by Mike Boldt. Mike Boldt comes from Alberta, Canada.  Here is the website for Dev Petty. 

The Bear who Wasn't There by LeUyen Pham

"Dear reader you will find the bear on page 9. Signed Anonymouse"

"We have to get away from this duck! Turn the page."

"Wait! Look! There is the Bear! He's hiding behind the next page! Turn the page, quick!"

These text samples might give you a tiny idea about the writing in this book which contains multiple voices  - a duck, a narrator, a mouse, assorted animals and the author herself! And there is regular text and assorted speech bubbles along with very zany cartoon characters. 

Here is the text from the last page:

"Well that does it. We've reached the end of the book. I guess there really IS no Bear her. Unless ... "

Hint check under the dust jacket. Oh and do look at the back cover - it is funny too!

Readers are encouraged to explore, pore over details, and follow the comical clues. The wordplay is delightfully nonsensical. Look—and laugh out loud. Kirkus Star

Publisher blurb: Bear has gone missing! When he doesn't show up in the book he's supposed to star in, his friends rally to find him. Who will find him first? Will it be Giraffe, who himself seems to always be in the wrong place at the wrong time, or Cow, or even the author herself? Duck doesn't seem concerned that Bear is missing. In fact, he seems to be trying to steal the show for himself! But after pages of searching high and low and everywhere between, Bear appears after all, somewhere utterly unexpected. LeUyen Pham's latest picture book invites readers to join the hilarious search for the titular missing Bear.

The library I visit each week has a large selection of Toon.  Toon books represent a whole new approach to books for beginning and reluctant readers—a rethinking as radical as the first time Theodor Geisel put a hat on a cat. Each book is just right for reading to the youngest child, ... (they)  offer early and reluctant readers comics they can read themselves.

Read about LeUyen Pham here. She is the illustrator of the popular Princess in Black series. The Bear who wasn't There is listed in hardcover for an amazing price right now (August 2022) so I can recommend you consider adding this funny book to your school library - it is sure to be popular. 

The Bear who wasn't There can be classified as a 'Meta" book. Here is a definition: Meta books acknowledge the structure of a story. A character may even acknowledge they are in a story and realize they are playing with its structure. In THE BEAR WHO WASN’T THERE, the narrator and the animal characters all realise they are part of a story. The duck keeps trying to interrupt the story and make it about him. Sings are left for the reader and the narrator talks to the characters.  Picture Book Summit How to Build a Book: 4 Things You Can Learn from LeUyen Pham

You could pair this book with:

Nobody's duck by Mary Sillivan

One of the most popular parts of every school library, in my experience, are the joke books. Nobody's duck reads like an extended joke - a joke every young child is sure to "get". Their laughter will be infectious - you the reader parent and child can be assured that reading this book everyone will be laughing at the end. Oh and do make sure you look at the back cover which shows the next scenes from the story.

Duck meets another fellow.

"Whose duck are you?"

"Think think think ... I'm nobody's duck!"

His new friend is not satisfied with this answer and so the pair head off, in the style of "Are you my Mother?", to unearth the truth. At the library he asks a giraffe; at the movie theatre box office he asks the pig ticket seller; at the go-cart track he asks an elephant; finally at the sky diving both they ask the dog attendant. This duck does not belong to any of these characters.

Exasperated the new friend asks the duck again: "Whose duck are you?"

"I am your duck." comes the reply.

"So, if you're MY duck, am I your alligator?"

"I thought you were a crocodile."

As with all the "best" picture books you do need to take time to explore all the tiny details in the illustrations. Alligator observes Duck painting her toe nails, sleeping and playing with a chatterbox.

Duck empties her bag searching for an answer to the crucial question. You will see hats, undies and a bowling pin come flying out. Duck puts on her thinking cap. It even has a light bulb on the top. At the library notice the book that Duck is reading. It surely is the perfect choice for a library:

The pair buy movie tickets to see "Dogzilla: Monster from the pond". It is a 3D movie (you can see their special glasses). In 2014 Mary Sullivan talked to KidLitTv.

Here are some other titles by Mary Sullivan:

Ball by Mary Sullivan received a Theodor Geisel Honour in 2014.

Here Comes the Cat! by Vladimir Vagin and Frank Asch

In a peaceful mouse village, the lookout mouse is alarmed to see the approaching shadow of a large cat. He races through the town, alerting every resident. The cat, however, has harmless intentions. A gift of cheese to the mice helps a friendship develop between two very different kinds of creatures. 

American author Frank Asch met Russian author Vladimir Vagin in 1986 at the Soviet American children's book symposium. Frank Asch had a dream that became the idea for Here comes the Cat! I picked this book up in the library of a friend a few weeks ago. She has a brilliant Toon selection and this book caught my eye because I adore Frank Asch. (Moon Bear series and Mr Maxwell's Mouse).

There are only four words in this book:

here; comes; the; cat (and) !

We watch as the message is passed from one mouse citizen to another. Using a train, hot air balloon, bicycle and even underwater the important message is shared in English and Russian:

СЮДА ИДЕТ КОТ

In her School Library Journal review Elizabeth Bird suggests this is actually a book about the cold war but I just read it as a simple tale of anticipation and perspective. If you can find this book I found a set of interesting philosophical questions which you could use with a senior Primary class. One interesting thing I discovered. When I used a translation site to find the Russian script I discovered the title should read Here Comes a Cat! This difference could lead to an interesting discussion with your class.

The illustrations in this hardcover book are lovely and timeless; wall worthy, really.  Luckily, its dust jacket unfolds into a giant poster featuring a beautiful image from the book. In the Know Mom

Funny, whip-smart, and illustrated in mesmerising detail, Here Comes the Cat! is a parable about fear, more relevant than ever, that follows in the great tradition of Chicken Little. Book Depository

Here comes the Cat is out of print but Weston Woods made a delightful animation of the story. Here are some other books (all out of print) illustrated by Vladimir Vagin who now lives in America. 

Frank Asch books: