(The content below contains Amazon affiliate links. When you buy through these links, Mrs. Ferraris may earn an affiliate commission at no additional cost to you.)
The Invitation
by Stacey May Fowles (Author), Marie Lafrance (Illustrator)
Brief summary: Fern opens her mailbox and pulls out a yellow letter, too worried to open it until her friend, Fawn, encourages her to see what’s inside. It is an invitation to a surprise exhibition, but Fern does not want to go due to all of the things she imagines could go wrong. Fern goes to the museum’s special exhibition with the help of her friends who help tame her anxiety.
Comments: This could be a nice class discussion after reading this aloud. “How can we help someone who we see is afraid?” “What can you do if you have something you are afraid of, like Fern did?”
I would share this with the guidance counselor to read to those students experiencing anxiety.
Rating: 3.5/5 📗📗📗1/2
Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’sAmazon page.
Dear Street
by Lindsay Zier-Vogel (Author), Caroline Bonne-Muller (Illustrator)
Brief summary: Alice loves her street, but only some do, making her think of writing a letter about what she loves about it and placing that letter for someone to find. She continues her letter writing whenever she hears someone complaining. Soon, others are too.
Comments: The author created The Love Lettering Project, which encourages people to anonymously write love letters and leave them for strangers to find, spreading the love.
Rating: 3.5/5📗📗📗 1/2
Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’sAmazon page.
Close to You from Far Away
by Erica Root (Author)
Brief summary: Gigi had to move away from her grandmother and misses her terribly. Her grandma tells her, “I’m close to you from far away.” Over the school year, whenever Gigi spoke to her grandma over the phone or when she wrote letters or received letters and packages, she tried to understand this saying.
Comments: I can see this being a lovely read-aloud with the children saying the “I’m close to you from far away” sentence in red capital letters on several pages in the book.
Loved the facial expressions of the grandmother and daughter throughout the book.
Rating: 3.5/5 📗📗📗1/2
Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’sAmazon’s page.
Children’s book titles are carefully handpicked by a certified elementary school librarian who, although retired, still enjoys reading children’s books, especially picture books, and recommending them to busy teachers, school librarians, parents, grandparents, and other book lovers.
Most of the books Mrs. Ferraris reads before recommending are checked out from the public library, except for those much-appreciated complimentary copies sent to her for an honest review. Those are noted.
(The content below contains Amazon affiliate links. When you buy through these links, Mrs. Ferraris may earn an affiliate commission at no additional cost to you.)
Garden Walk
by Virginia Brimhall Snow (Author)
Brief summary: Grammy and her four grandchildren walk through the forest and to the garden, learning about plants, animals, and insects. They place a blanket on the ground and picnic while Grammy reads to them. Narrated by one of the children.
Comments: Blue ink illustrations with the plants, animals, or insects highlighted with full-colored words that match the subject.
Picnic recipes are in the back.
Rating: 4/5 📗📗📗📗
Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’s Amazon page.
If you enjoy this book, you may be interested in Virginia Brimhall Snow’s Seasonal Walks series. For more details or to buy, continue reading o this book’s Amazon page.
Love Makes a Garden Grow
by Taeeun Yoo (Author, Illustrator)
Brief summary: A young girl and her grandfather tend a garden together until he moves to an apartment where he brings some of his plants.
She grows up and lives far away, but her grandfather sends her a gift of peonies. When her daughter grows, the granddaughter visits the man showing her little one how to tend the house plants and flowers like he taught her.
Comments: An Author’s Note in the back explains how this story is based on her relationship with her grandfather.
Rating: 3.5/5 📗📗📗 1/2
Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’sAmazon page.
Linh’s Rooftop Garden (Where In the Garden?)
by JaNay Brown-Wood (Author), Samara Hardy (Illustrator)
Brief summary: Lihn needs to find blueberries for their brunch and walk around the rooftop looking at all the fruits and vegetables. The girl describes what a blueberry looks like and compares those characteristics to each plant methodically until she finds them.
Comments: There is a blueberry and banana pancake recipe in the back.
Rating: 3.5/5 📗📗📗 1/2
Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’sAmazon page.
If you enjoy this book, you may be interested in the other three books of the Where in the Garden?series:
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Watch Me Bloom: A Bouquet of Haiku Poems for Budding Naturalists
by Krina Patel-Sage (Author, Illustrator)
Brief summary: A collection of twenty-four haikus about different flower species, all illustrated with lovely bright colors, including the paste-down end pages.
Comments: There are Floral Fun Facts in the back of the book.
Rating: 3.5/5 📗📗📗 1/2
Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’sAmazon page.
Just a Worm
by Marie Boyd (Author, Illustrator)
Brief summary: Worm begins its day crawling through the garden when two humans cause it to have self-doubt. The worm crawls through a garden talking with each insect and creature it comes across, asking what it can do. Will the worm realize its importance to a garden and regain self-confidence?
Comments: The back pages include Make Your Own Quilled Butterfly, Earthworm Facts, and a Glossary. Illustrated using quilling techniques to make the plants.
I recommend that this picture book be read to supplement a quilling unit.
Rating: 4/5 📗📗📗📗
Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’sAmazon page.
George Washington Carver: More Than “The Peanut Man” (Bright Minds): More Than “The Peanut Man”
by Janel Rodriguez (Author), Subi Bosa (Illustrator)
I’ve only known George Washington Carver as the “peanut man” and updated my education when reading this narrative nonfiction about this knowledgeable and talented man nicknamed “Plant Doctor.”
Brief summary: This book begins with his life as a child who studied plants and painted them. It continues with his young adulthood of going to college, learning, and experimenting with plants. The book tells of his adulthood of going around in a Jesup wagon, educating farmers on improving their crops and livestock. Readers will learn about many of his inventions and personal life too. I enjoyed reading about this remarkable man.
Comments: This book is full of a variety of nonfiction text features. The back sections include Your Turn!, Glossary, Index, and Further Reading.
Rating: 4/5 📗📗📗📗
Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’sAmazon page.
Little Land
by Diana Sudyka (Author, Illustrator).
Brief summary: This is an ecological/environmental story from the beginning of the earth to its present of how the land and its inhabitant have changed and how to live in balance.
Comments: I included this book under gardening(although it could be under ecology or environmental) as it highlights how to tend a little bit of land.
Rating: 4/5 📗📗📗📗
Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’sAmazon page.
Every Little Seed
by Cynthia Schumerth (Author), Elisa Paganelli (Illustrator)
Brief summary: A young girl with her mother and grandfather plant seeds in the spring garden and tend them to grow, observing how the seed changes to develop. Birds and bugs visit the garden. Soon fall comes when the plants begin to produce seeds they gather for the next planting.
Comments: A plant’s cycle.
A story in rhyme.
Facts about seeds are in the back of the book, including a seed diagram.
Rating: 4/5 📗📗📗📗
Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’sAmazon page.
A Flower is a Friend
by Frieda Wishinsky (Author), Karen Patkau (Illustrator)
Brief summary: An animal/creature is paired with a flower in the garden, and readers are asked why they coexist so well. Answers are in the book of how they benefit each other.
Symbiosis.
Rating: 3/5 📗📗📗
Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’sAmazon page.
My First Garden: For Little Gardeners Who Want to Grow
by Livi Gosling (Author)
Brief summary: This nonfiction book is a beginning guide to gardening with step-by-step instructions. Everything one needs to know is covered with illustrations.
Comments: This is for the primary children to learn by looking at the lovely illustrations or for older elementary students who want to start a gardening club.
I usually stick to picture book reviews, but this nonfiction book’s illustrations make a difference with the covered topics by clarifying the lesson.
Ratings:4/5 📗📗📗📗
Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’sAmazon page.
A Garden in My Hands
by Meera Sriram (Author), Sandhya Prabhat (Illustrator)
Brief summary: A little girl has her hands Painted by her mother for a wedding the next day. Her mother tells her memories as she paints a garden of flowers and decorations. She sleeps with gloves on over the henna to wake and brush the flakes off to reveal her red garden of stories and the fragrance of henna.
Comments: Facts about henna are in the back of the book.
Rating: 3/5 📗📗📗
Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’sAmazon page.
G is for Gardening (A Gardening ABC Primer)
by Ashley Marie Mireles (Author), Volha Kaliaha (Illustrator)
Brief summary: Readers will learn their ABCs of gardening, discovering tools, plants, and animals in a garden.
Comments: Large and colorful illustrations. A good builder of garden vocabulary.
Rating: 3/5 📗📗📗
Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’sAmazon page.
Children’s book titles are carefully handpicked by a certified elementary school librarian who, although retired, still enjoys reading children’s books, especially picture books, and recommending them to busy teachers, school librarians, parents, grandparents, and other book lovers.
Most of the books Mrs. Ferraris reads before recommending are checked out from the public library, except for those much-appreciated complimentary copies sent to her for an honest review. Those are noted.
(This content contains Amazon affiliate links. When you buy through these links, I may earn an affiliate commission at no additional cost to you).
Mother-Themed children’s books can be shared throughout the year, not only on Mother’s Day or as a baby shower gift for an expecting mother. Young readers like to cuddle and read with their moms all year long.
Brief summary: A rhyming alphabet book board book teaching the ABCs as well as the correlating social and emotional words that Moms share and do with their children.
Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’s Amazon page.
Rating: 3/5 📗📗📗
This book is one of the “Books of Kindness” series. Learn more from their Amazon page.
Mommy’s Kisses and Cuddles
by Linda Ashman (Author), Jane Massey (Illustrator). Publisher : Cartwheel Books. 2023. 3-5 years old. Hardcover. ISBN-13 : 978-1338359770.
Brief summary: A calming rhyming book with moms and their children sharing the different parts of the day.
Please note: This books is a cross between a board book and a picture book with heavier cardstock paper but not cardboard. The size is 7.32 x 0.39 x 8.03 inches.
Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’s Amazon page.
Rating: 3/5 📗📗📗
You may be interested in “Daddy’s Hugs and Snuggles” from this author. Learn more from its Amazon page.
Amazing Moms
by Alison Brown (Author). Publisher : Silver Dolphin Books. 2023. Baby-2. Board Book. ISBN-13 : 978-1667203928.
Brief summary: Cute animal moms interact with love and support to their babies, all with rhythm and rhyme.
Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’s Amazon page.
Rating: 3/5 📗📗📗
She Is Mama
by Mackenzie Porter (Author), Heather Brockman Lee (Illustrator). Publisher : Little Simon. 2023. Baby-2. Board Book. ISBN-13 : 978-1665926980.
Brief summary: Mothers care for their children in various activities and are always there. This book is in rhyme.
Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’s Amazon page.
Brief summary: This gentle rhyming and rhythmic lullaby of unconditional love for a parent to a child will give your little one sweet dreams.
Each stanza is a single illustration that extends across both pages with calm, eye-pleasing colors. At the same time, the four-line stanzas have an ABCB rhyming pattern that is soothing to the ears.
Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’s Amazon page.
Rating: 4/5 📗📗📗📗
* I received a complimentary digital copy of this picture book for an honest review.
Brief summary: Nora is old enough this summer to help her lola, her grandmother, in the sari-sari store in the Philippines. The granddaughter cleans all of the shelves that hold various items in the little store.
A heat wave comes, and all the customers stay home from the hot sun. Lola has an idea to bring back business.
Traditional text as well as speech bubbles. Recipe on the back page. Several two-page spreads.
Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’s Amazon page.
Rating: 3.5/5 📗📗📗1/2
Milko
by Samuel Narh & Freda Narh (Author), Alisa Knatko (Illustrator). Publisher : Chasing A Spider Publishing . 2023. Grades 1-2. Hardcover Picture Book. ISBN-13 : 978-1734789720.
Brief summary: Milko misses his mother, who has gone to Ethiopia for a year instead of being home with them in Bolivia. His sister, Abena, cries too, but Papa cannot console them. No one does it like Mama.
Milko counts down the days. Will she ever return?
I recommend this to school counselors/librarians/teachers, and parents who are away for jobs/military deployment/social work.
Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’s Amazon page.
Brief summary: A mother cradles her infant son and dreams and shares all the wonderful ways her boy will be as he grows up.
Beautiful two-paged spread illustrations.
Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’s Amazon page.
Rating: 4/5 📗📗📗📗
Because I’m Your Mom
by Ahmet Zappa (Author), Dan Santat (Illustrator). Publisher : Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. 2023. PreK-2. Hardcover Picture Book. ISBN-13 : 978-0316338219.
Brief summary: A monster mom tells her child all the fun and silly things they can share together, no matter how outrageous they may seem.
Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’s Amazon page.
by Allen Say (Author, Illustrator). Publisher : Scholastic Press. 2023. Grades PreK-3. Hardcover Picture Book. ISBN-13 : 978-1338300406.
Brief summary: Andy notices his grandmother’s front door is open and stops by to let her know. He discovers his mother is watering the roses. Andy goes inside the kitchen to keep his Grandma company. He notices a white box and takes it to her, wondering what is inside.
His grandmother believes she is his kindergarten teacher, Miss Irwin. Andy plays along, remembering that his mother told him his grandmother was struggling with her memory. He learns about a boy named Willie and what is inside the box.
Allen Say certainly captured Alzheimer’s with a compassionate story all can understand. The illustrations of the images are not seen clearly and symbolize blurred memories.
Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’s Amazon page.
Brief summary: A stay-at-home mom spends time with her boy as the father and sister are away. The daughter is collected from school, and now the two children share mommy time.
The book is about a day in the mom’s life and the time she spends with her children.
Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’s Amazon page.
Rating: 3.5/5 📗📗📗1/2
The selected children’s books are chosen by a highly qualified retired elementary school librarian, who passionately reads and recommends picture books to teachers, school librarians, parents, grandparents, and other book enthusiasts.
Most of the books Mrs. Ferraris recommends are checked out from the public library. The only exception is for the complimentary copies that she receives for an honest review, which are duly noted.
Brief summary: Samira is a bit nervous about going to the bazaar with her grandmother for the first time to buy groceries. She repeatedly asks Mama Shamsi to hide in her chador, but the woman wisely resists using humor to soothe her granddaughter’s fear.
by Élise Fontenaille (Author), Violeta Lópiz (Illustrator), Karin Snelson (Translator), Emilie Robert Wong (Translator). Publisher : Enchanted Lion Books. 2023. K-3. Hardcover. ISBN-13 : 978-1592703821.
Brief summary: A grandson visits his Grandpa Luis every Wednesday and Sunday. His grandpa is not only a talented artist but can make anything grow, creating the beautiful garden where they spend their days. The six-year-old is learning to read and write and tells us that his Grandpa does not know how as he was an immigrant from Spain to France who had to work in the fields as a child.
This is a French translation and captures the two kindred spirits. I like the mixed-up idioms and how the grandson narrates how he is getting to know Grandpa Luis.
For more details or to buy, click here (in ENGLISH).
by Ana Siqueira (Author), Elisa Chavarri (Illustrator). Publisher : HarperCollins. 2023. K-3. Hardcover. ISBN-13 : 978-0063113657.
Brief summary: Luis and his abuela have fun every Saturday going around the neighborhood being superheroes. One Saturday, she does not visit. Luis learns that his abuela is very sick in the hospital. She comes to stay with them as she recovers. Although Luis is saddened that his abuela is unable to be as active, he tries to come up with a way to have fun and realizes his sister, Isabel, can be his new sidekick and fight and do adventures together in their capes.
There is a glossary of the Spanish words used in the book.
by Marla Frazee (Author, Illustrator). Publisher : Beach Lane Books. 2023. PreK-2. Hardcover. ISBN-13 : 978-1665912488.
Brief summary: The text has seven lines with seven words each(except for the last line). Each line is across the top of a two-page spread with small illustrations below, and then the next two-page spread is an illustration matching that color scheme.
The words are calm and straightforward. The stunning illustrations are done with pencil and gouache and are detailed little scenes of family members with everyday interactions. I stopped and looked at the details of each one before continuing to the following line and was glad to see that grandparents were included.
Brief summary: A grandmother and her grandchild put on rain gear to play in Spring’s rain. Summer arrives with them cooling off from the hot sun. Autumn brings the wind they need to fly a kite and enjoy the falling leaves. Winter comes with them getting cozy and watching the snow from inside. Each season is spent with one another.
The seasonal color schemes go in hand with this gentle and calming book that blends from one season to the next.
The selected children’s books are chosen by a highly qualified retired elementary school librarian, who passionately reads and recommends picture books to teachers, school librarians, parents, grandparents, and other book enthusiasts.
Most of the books Mrs. Ferraris recommends are checked out from the public library. The only exception is for the complimentary copies that she receives for an honest review, which are duly noted
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