Winter’s Tale: An Original Pop-up Journey

Winter’s Tale: An Original Pop-up Journey by Robert Sabuda,
Brief annotation:

Winter's Tale is Robert Sabuda's most spectacular original pop-up story yet. The simple, elegant text is illustrated with breathtaking artwork and extraordinary paper engineering. Stunning visual effects of foil, glitter, and a twinkling surprise further capture the magic of winter. This is a must-have for everyone's bookshelf.

Themes include animals and their winter environment using three dimensional pop-ups.

Pop-up books are also participation books as readers have to be involved in seeing what is in front of them as well as scenes hidden under the animals that are popping up. This is a good book to read during winter holidays or to study animals habits during winter time.

Four Hungry Kittens

Four Hungry Kittens by Emily Arnold McCully

Brief annotation:

In this wordless story, four kittens share adventures while their mother is away hunting food.

Themes include adventure, friendship, family and life on a farm.

As with any wordless picture book, students can write their own words or simply take turns per page saying what they think should be written based on the pictures and what their classmates said on previous pages.

Bark, George

Bark, George by Jules Feiffer, 1999

Brief annotation:

"Bark, George," says George's mother, and George goes: "Meow," which definitely isn't right, because George is a dog.

And so is his mother, who repeats, "Bark, George." And George goes, "Quack, quack."

Themes include animals and the sounds they make as well as humor.

This book is a fun and funny book for young students to express themselves as different animals and to identify the sounds that George is making every time his mother instructs him to bark.

One Gorilla: A Counting Book

One Gorilla: A Counting Book by Atsuko Morozumi, 1990

Brief annotation

One very playful gorilla keeps popping up in gardens, forests, jungles, and even people's houses as he takes the reader on a wild counting adventure. He hides--as much as a gorilla can!--along with all the other creatures as they dart, leap, and peer from the most surprising places, waiting to be counted. A chart at the end of the book provides a key to all the animals and their corresponding numbers. Soft, precise illustrations characterize this colorful counting book.

Themes include counting, nature and repetition.

This is a fun and colorful book to get young children involved in counting as well as identifying the animals that appear on the page.

The Absolutely Awful Alphabet

The Absolutely Awful Alphabet by Mordicai Gerstein, 1999

Brief annotation:

An alliterative alphabet book presents mean and monstrous letters, from A (an awfully arrogant amphibian) to Z (a zig-zagging zoological zany).

Themes include alliteration, ABC's and interesting monsters/creatures.

This book is a fresh way to look at the alphabet. Instead of A is for Apple, you get an awfully arrogant amphibian. It is a great opportunity to talk about nouns, adjectives and adverbs. It would also be a fun way to introduce alliteration in a poetry unit.

Black and White

Black and White by David Macaulay, 1990

Brief annotation:

Four brief "stories" about parents, trains, and cows, or is it really all one story? The author recommends careful inspection of words and pictures to both minimize and enhance confusion.

Themes include family, creativity and looking at the world in different ways. In the four stories, 3 of the four have words while the other one has no words.

Readers really have to pay attention with this book. Get students to point out differences from one page to the next, similarities occurring within the four stories and how these stories might be influencing each other ... or not.

– Caldecott Medal Winner