And the Train Goes by William Bee

William Bee's over-the-top, almost macabre sense of humor makes a completely unique addition to the wide world of children's books. Bee's style is completely his own, and that's why I adore this author from across the pond.

I first came across Bee's wickedly funny book Beware of the Frog about a monster-eating frog who stands sentry at the front door of poor Mrs. Collywobble's house. I instantly fell in love with Beware of the Frog, but since this is a story time blog, I have to warn you that it is so completely over the top, it might frighten young children. Today's selection by William Bee is And The Train Goes... and though true to Bee's humorously subversive style, there is nothing at all frightening about it.

And the Train Goes.. is a little train book with detailed line-drawing illustrations, flamboyant circus colors--green apple meets eggplant--and roll-off-your tongue prose. In fact, I think the pacing is just perfect. And this time, there is no sting at the end of Bee's little tale. Since this book still has a pinch of Bee's subversive sense of humor, toddlers will be mesmerized by the read-out-loud prose, AND parents will be chuckling along at the busy conductor and the sights and sounds of the train station and the train's passengers.

In this book you will find ladies eating cakes ("Lovely cake, Doris, Lovely Tea Mabel"), a muttering fireman shoveling coal, soldiers on parade, and children on a class trip ("Please, sir, please ma'am...are we there yet?"), businessmen shouting "Time is money, Time is money!", and even a guard sleeping on the job.

All the while, the train goes, clickerty-click, clickerty-clack, and chuff-puff, chufferty puff.

What's not to like?

So give this book a try. The illustrations have an almost hippy sensibility to them. The apple greens and tomato reds and eggplant purples in this book are wonderfully British, and full of humorous detail. Look for spitballs on the school children's train cars, and notice the businessmen are eating the eggs as quickly as the hens headed to market can lay them.

This book is a quick read and I would read in a toddler story time or preschool story hour.

More Recommended Train-Themed Books

• Trains Go by Steve Light
• Chugga Chugga Choo Choo by Kevin Lewis
• The Goodnight Train by Susan Sobel

Getting Kids Involved in This Book

• Divide your group into three parts. Each should say one of these lines. Then have them help you read the story.
• Clickerty-click, clickerty-clack
• Chuff-chuff, chufferty chuff
• Puff-puff, pufferty puff
• To keep things simple, you could have all of the kids join in on the line "clickerty-click, clickerty clack"
• Form wiggly preschoolers into a human train. Invite them to line up, and make sure you have a few adults to help. Make sure to point out that the front is the engine and the end person is the caboose. Remind kids that some trains have two or even three engine cars. When you're ready to move, say, "Last call, all aboard!" and have all of the kids say "Woo-ooooooo!" Walk through the library or classroom, saying chuff-chuff chufferty chuff, and clickety-clackety.

Noisy Nora by Rosemary Wells

Noisy Nora by Rosemary Wells

Noisy Nora just wants to be heard. Looking for a book that will hook even the squirmiest of youngsters? Noisy Nora by Rosemary Wells could be your answer. This sweet story about a little sister acting out predates David of the No David! series by David Shannon, and is as old as I am. (And I'm older than dirt, in case you were wondering.)

I read this story to my little middle child, and well, her jaw was so slack I almost saw a fly buzz inside! This book is escape fiction at its finest. Poor little Nora, making so much noise, and still nobody notices her.

Nora rattles windows, slams doors, and bangs pots and pans together, but to no avail. Mom and dad are so busy helping an older sister with her school work and feeding and bathing the baby, that Nora gets lost in the shuffle. Even when Nora dumps her sister's marbles on the floor, nobody seems to care.

Finally Nora takes drastic action, and slams the door as she makes a dramatic exit. Of course, nobody notices she is gone until they realize the house is completely quiet! Now the search is on, and everybody is searching for Nora, and she finally gets the attention she is looking for with a dramatic crashing entrance at the very end of the book.

This book has a few things going for it from a storytime perspective. First, it has a cute little mouse as its main character. I find stories with cute mice almost always do well. Not sure why this is. I don't really want to encounter a cute mouse at home, but in stories it is different. Next, Nora does some outrageous things that would get her into big time trouble if she were my mouse--I mean child. Third, the book is well-paced and spare with words. Rosemary Wells doesn't have to say much to get her point across. I recommend this book for a preschool crowd, probably 3 and up.

A Little Story About a Big Turnip

A Little Story About a Big Turnip is a short version of an ancient folktale.

An early morning chill is hinting at my favorite season being just around the corner: Autumn. It is still late summer here in Farmerland, Iowa, and the fresh-harvested corn is just now beginning to brown on the remains of their stalks. Not quite ready to dive into the panoply of pumpkin-spiced tales, I wanted to share a fall-harvest vegetable themed story book based on a folktale about a different vegetable that has been passed down through the ages.

A Little Story About a Big Turnip holds a wonderful appeal for early preschool and up crowds. The book has a cast of likeable, rustic characters full of personality. There's a grandma and grandpa, a girl name Annie, her two pets, and a distracted little mouse who would rather be reading than doing anything else. The plot is simple and repetitive, which makes this book easy to join in.

And as you would expect, when they finally do pull out the giant turnip, you as the storyteller have the opportunity to make a sucking, slurping, popping sound. I hope you know what I mean. So practice up and maybe even invite your storytime crowd to do the same. The story is short and that part is a lot of fun!

Now to be sure, I don't know very many people who actually EAT turnips, but that is not the point.

Books to read with A Little Story About a Big Turnip

• The Big Pumpkin by D. Schindler and Erica Silverman puts a Halloween twist on the giant turnip folktale.
• The Gigantic Turnip by Aleksei Tolstoy and Niamh Sharkey is another version of my title pic. This book is lengthier, with zany illustrations ala James and the Giant Peach.
• Growing Vegetable Soup or Eating the Alphabet by Lois Ehlert.

Get the Kids Involved

• Encourage children to repeat the refrain "but the turnip didn't come out."
• Show the kids how to make a giant popping sound by licking your lips, then smacking them together. Now they can help you make a sound effect when the giant turnip leaves the ground.
• Act the story out.

One Winter's Day by M. Christina Butler

One Winter's Day by Christine Butler

I am a sucker for books that focus on values, and this one, printed by a publishing house called Good Books, has a moral that is hard to miss. If you help others, treating your neighbors with compassionate kindness, you will be helped when the time comes. This is a worthy message to share with the young audience for whom this book is intended, and it is a pleasure to see Little Hedgehog rewarded for his compassion, even when he wasn't expecting it. Though it is easy to argue that the world doesn't always work this way, and the rewards of giving are usually much more ephemeral. Young children are usually looking for simple and concrete answers when they are caught up in life's storms, and I liked the way this book approached its story.

Tina Macnaughton's illustrations use dark colors punctuated by the vibrant red and orange hues selected for the hedgehog's scarf, hat, and gloves, which are featured in their touch and feel glory on almost every page of this story book. These clothing items are raised and give a soft surface, making this book just a little more pleasureful to read. I think this book would make a nice companion to The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats, and either The Mitten or The Hat by Jan Brett, which are, interestingly enough, also both about cute little hedgehogs and their wintertime adventures with clothing.

Read This With

•  The Mitten or The Hat by Jan Brett

•  The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats
  

This children's classic, The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats
is another story about a snowy journey

The Quiltmaker's Gift by Jeff Brumbeau and Gail de Marcken

The Quilt Maker's Gift by Jeff
Brumbeau and Gail de Marcken

The Quiltmaker's Gift by Jeff Brumbeau is a rather long children's picture book featuring a powerful and wise old quilt maker, a greedy king who has a mind-boggling collection of things, so that "he kept a list of all the lists of things he owned." The king begins the story looking like a Bavarian in a showy military uniform with a sash and ostentatious jewelry. In this story, the quilt maker is an unabashed philanthropist, sharing her quilts only with the needy, and the king doesn't need a thing--except to learn the difference between the happiness that comes from owning things and the happiness that comes from serving and helping others. But the king wants a quilt, and he demands that she make one for him. She agrees, but only on the condition that he give away his other possessions.

This story won the Booksense Book of the Year Award, and it is easy to understand why. It reads like time-worn folktale, and lends easily to verbal retellings. The story has some truly charming moments, with florid prose that is rivaled only by the rainbow of colors in the fanciful illustrations.

Gail de Marcken's illustrations are complicated and they tell a story on their own that exceeds the already interesting and well-told story. On one page, a spider with a magnificent web pays homage to spider woman, the weaver of Navajo myth.

Visual references to the names of the quilt patterns depicted on the pages of this story are private jokes between the reader and the author and illustrator. In one scene of the story, the little old woman is imprisoned in a cave with a hungry bear, who is meant to eat her. Instead, we see his sharp-clawed paws outstretched as she shows him so much kindness that he forgets to eat her. On these pages of the story a bear-paw patterned quilt square is nested between the images of the quilter and her new animal friend. On the next page, the two eat berries and tea, and a tea-leaf quilt square is depicted on that page of the story.

Other elements in the story share the names of the quilt squares depicted in the book. On the endpapers a full-color glossary of quilt pattern names give clues to visual play inside the pages of the story. This book really isn't for preschoolers, because it is so long, but I think some preschoolers would still enjoy reading the story. Still, I couldn't resist sharing this book, because this is a wonderful choice as a gift book or for reading to an elementary school crowd.

I suspect the author drew his king character from a familiar story in the New Testament. I'm thinking of the wealthy young man who goes away sorrowing from Christ because he asks to follow the Savior, who then instructs him to give away all of his worldly possessions. But in this story, the ending is joyful.

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Who Ate All the Cookie Dough by Karen Beaumont

Who Ate All the Cookie Dough

Who Ate All The Cookie Dough by Karen Beaumont is a fast-paced rhyming story that simply tries to solve the mystery of the question Who ate all the cookie dough?. The meter of the rhyme bears a strong resemblance to the well-known chant, "who took the cookie from the cookie jar," and as Mrs. Kangaroo asks each animal friend who ate all the cookie dough, the reader gets closer and closer to the cute but somewhat predictable ending. This book, while not GREAT children's literature, fits well into the genre of read-aloud stories for young preschoolers, and would be a very good selection for a preschool story hour for ages 2-4.

This book, because it is short and sweet (sorry, sometimes I can't help myself with those puns), makes a good companion to Eric Carle's Does a Kangaroo Have a Mother Too?and From Head to Toe by the same author. For a cookie-themed story hour, pair this book with  If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, and Cookies, Bite-Sized Life Lessons. This book will be an attention-keeping addition to your reading arsenal if you have young children who aren't quite ready to sit down and read a longer, more complicated story, such as children who are transitioning from the board book stage.

   

The illustrations by Eugene Yelchin feature animals that are comic in character, their features are exaggerated, but their facial expressions add a mischievous something to the story. The other details are subdued, stylized, and monochromatic. This book makes an excellent selection for story hour or young preschoolers, but if I were considering this as a purchase, I'd go for the more well-known Does a Kangaroo Have a Mother, Too?

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