May Reads Part 1

May was such an awesome month for reading.  I read two early chapter book series I fell in love with and a cookbook filled with recipes both Robert and I are enjoying making together.  And these books are only a drop in the bucket!

My May reads will be a triple post due to the many amazing books I fell in love with last month.

Early Bird by Toni Yuly (picture book)



Such a simple story, yet there's a well-developed plot and even a climax. A very smart person pointed out the color difference in the background of the pages when the bird finds the worm. So clever! My favorite illustration is the eyelashes of the sun when it peeks over the horizon.

The Ivy & Bean series* written by Annie Barrows and illustrated by Sophie Blackall (juvenile fiction)

* I am going to share my review of the first Ivy + Bean book.  I recommend them all but must tell you the mystery in the last book isn't solved.

I giggled much of the way through the first Ivy + Bean. Ivy and Bean's shenanigans are very similar to the shenanigans of my childhood, and I love how Annie Barrows is able to get into the minds of seven-year-olds. Bean is impossibly mischievous and funny. She reminds me of Beverly Cleary's character, Ramona. Bean's sister, Nancy is a bit like Beezus, but more whiny and obnoxious than Beezus. I think Ivy + Bean is an easier read than the Ramona books though and a great stepping stone for series like the Ramona series. I thought Ivy was going to be uptight and she's not. She aspires to be a witch and isn't afraid to break the rules and race through neighbor's backyards. They make a wonderfully exciting and funny duo. Sophie Blackall's illustrations are just as fantastic as the story. Bean's expressions are hilarious and so true-to-life and the illustration of the houses with their backyards is quite clever.

Get Real with Storytime by Julie Dietzel-Glair (adult nonfiction)

I appreciate how nicely this is organized, with lots of popular themes such as airplanes and dinosaurs. Each section features plenty of nonfiction titles, flannel board activities, songs, and fingerplays. I particularly like the plenitude of familiar songs with wildly different lyrics. I'm not very good at creating new lyrics with familiar tunes, so these songs help me get started. "The pterodactyl's wings went Flap, flap, flap" sung to the tune of "Wheels on the Bus" is one I can't stop singing. Though this book is geared around using nonfiction and poetry books in storytime, my favorite thing is definitely the songs and action rhymes.

The Book of Mistakes by Corinna Luyken (picture book)

The message inside The Book of Mistakes is incredibly powerful and awesome. Mistakes can be beautiful. It's all about perspective. A smudge can be a smudge or it can be a leaf carried by the wind. Luyken acknowledges and accepts each mistake and triumph. What a great attitude to have! The language read like a conversation between the author and myself and the ending baffled me and left me with my head in the clouds.

Kindest Regards by Ted Kooser (adult nonfiction)

Kindest Regards has many of my favorite Kooser poems: Selecting a Reader, Shoes, Barn Owl, and many more. It also contains poems from books I haven't been able to get my hands on yet (One World at a Time and At Home) and poems from excellent books my library doesn't own (Valentines and Sure Signs). The most exciting part of the book for me came at the end. New poems! And such beautiful, emotional, exquisite poems!

One of my favorite lines comes from the poem, A Summer Afternoon with Clouds: "But still there's the sorely overworked wind stuck at his station for the rest of the day. He dreams of having just one afternoon alone with not one cloud, with a few pleasant hours to enjoy his collection, his big stamp album spread open, showing the villages and fields."

The Weeknight Dinner Cookbook by Mary Younkin (adult nonfiction)

I like how the recipes are divided up by how long they take to make. They are also really simple, which is great when you don't want anything fussy, but they're also really versatile and fun to play around with. This is the perfect kind of cookbook for my house. I like to follow the rules. The less fuss, the better. Robert, however, enjoys basic recipes he can tinker with. The red chile beef enchiladas (which is more like an enchilada casserole), for example, is delicious on its own but has a lot of room to play with it. Onions can be added to the meat, different spices can be sprinkled in, or a different kind of cheese can be used. We haven't tried every recipe in this book, but it's definitely on our list of books to purchase because we've had so much success with it. Our favorite recipe so far is the garlicky peas and rice with kielbasa!