The title Oasis in futuristic white lettering that’s somehow giving crisp ribbons of Asimov font vibes… A smooth, retro-20s robot looking skyward, a seeming galaxy of stars and deep blue and purple and pink light bursting outward from its chest as two young siblings (maybe 7 and 4?) clasp arms and look on in pure, joyous wonderment.

#ThisBookTheseReasons

Near future climate catastrophe life: Two left-behind children, too young to have a single mom away working hard to raise funds to reunite…kids find an old AI helper robot, repair it, put it in mom mode…what about when real mom comes home?

It’s a cute, touching, and lowkey…

A picture of the book What Do Brothas Do All Day lying open so that back and front covers are visible. Shows a variety of Black men of different ages, hair/clothing styles, uniforms, etc…in a digital line drawing/graphic design style.

A sneak peek, a partial view of the the hidden board covers under the dust jacket. I’ve shown just enough to get the sense there’s a large portrait of a brotha on the front cover and that the back cover is a view of the back of his head.

An angled partial view of the front interior endpapers with a grid of 30+ thumbnail digital line drawing portraits of Black men of all ages and hairstyles, facial hair styles…all drawn from various angles.

Going through a box of new books…

#ThisBookTheseReasons

@ajuanmance.bsky.social’s celebration of Black men’s joy and varied roles also has a great #SecretCover and stylish “wallpaper pages” (I often call endpapers that) with tons of portraits.

#RepresentationMatters

Cover of Little Freddie Two Pants featuring a white dog with brown spots/ears that is wearing two pairs of pants…on hind legs and forelegs.

#ThisBookTheseReasons
Just putting this out there #TLsky folks:
If you want a “nailed it!” zany book that the K & Gr 1 set think is absolutely absurd & hilarious, it’s this one—especially if you play up the comically exasperated/confused narrator stuff.
Used it the last week or two—big hit.
📚👍

Cover of Respect The Insect by Jules Howard and Gosia Herba. Bright yellow background with horizontal rows of bug characters in bright colours, cross between cartooning and graphic design style.

#ThisBookTheseReasons

I swear I could stock a fairly stellar personal library collection for a kid just from very funky books that Wide Eyed/Quarto puts out…
This is a very engaging #scienterrific insect book; fact-packed; great text; cool facts (not only standard fare); fab layouts; cool art!

#ThisBookTheseReasons
Wow! The gatefold (?) in the middle of the story…a huge, four-page, upward foldout is quite spectacular (though I’ll need to do some creative strengthening processing before putting it into kids hands hands).

Cover of Scott Campbell’s Cabin Head and Tree Head, featuring those characters…amorphous, vaguely anthropomorphic, cute monster-ish creatures, one with…well, a red-roofed cottage/cabin for a head topper, and one with a deciduous tree (with tire swing) for a head. Told you it was sooooo weird!

#ThisBookTheseReasons
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It’s soooo weird!
Just absolutely bizarro—in the best way.
It’s like a rabbit hole stream of consciousness evolved from musing on the modern trend of calling an aficionado of things a ___-head (sneakerhead, etc)…gone amok.
It’s a wild, charming world full of zany humour…

Cover of the mentioned book, by Drew Beckmeyer. Features a cut paper looking dark cave interior with anthropomorphic (minimalist but expressive eyes and mouths) stalactite and stalagmite characters, one above the other, slowly dripping themselves into elongated existence.

#ThisBookTheseReasons
Excellent narrative nonfiction: It’s #scienterrific with its great front & back matter, mini visual timeline at bottoms of pages; charts evolution from POV of titular Stalactite & Stalagmite; plus, has a #SecretCover; and now is part of my #RecodeTheBarcode series.

Drip💧 drip💧

Just learned that, in the UK, this is National Nonfiction November…? So, here’s a l’il reminder that I semi-regularly do #scienterrific posts with #ThisBookTheseReasons logic for why those nonfiction books would be great for col’n development…see also, examples attached…& more.

#NNFN

Cover image: Little Freddie Two Pants (The Dog With Too Nany Pants).features a brown-spotted white dog wearing blue jeans (I think) with tail hole on its hind legs and yellow pants with white polka dots bunched up on its front legs.

#ThisBookTheseReasons

Not since Potato Pants has there been such oddball, silly, pants-based humour in a children’s book. Unless I’m forgetting some other super weird pants book…?

I’m here for bizarro humour, every day.

My hand holding up the book when you can swim, by Jack Wong, against a melted buttery coloured wall. The cover is a vibrant swimming pool blue with all kinds of swirly reflective surface lines traced over top of it. Forgrounded, is a portrait of a young Asian girl, goggles perched on head, wearing a vertically striped rainbow swimsuit, standing at the edge of the pool looking upward… with a look of wonder on her face, in her eyes, since, as you find out, we read the book, her mother is telling her of all the amazing adventures swimming outdoors that they will have after she learns to swim at her lessons in the pool.

#ThisBookTheseReasons
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Jack Wong has literally helped me shift my attitude about swimming a little…

I always say that picture books are magic, but even knowing that, I still get surprise sometimes by their power.

This book is absolutely luminous – both in poetic & incredible swimming scenes.
&⬇️

#ThisBookTheseReasons

Due to “capybaras rising,” the collection needed another book, as kids have been asking.

Always interesting how whatever the newly popular animals are rises up in the zeitgeist.

Thoughts?
Kids wanting capybaras at your library?
Sloths still going strong?
Lots o’ axolotls?

Cover of The Dark! Wild Life in the Mysteries World of Caves (which I ever-so-wittily snapped a photo of in the darkness under some chairs in my kitchen…like the book in a cave…cause I’m so tricky). The main title in slightly jagged, shivery, “spooky” all-caps…purple dark cave background… stalactites and awesome creepy insect thing (!?) plus snake, glow worm strings and bat coming down from top…stalagmites insects, critters (?), a newt (?), a mouse at the bottom

#ThisBookTheseReasons
@linseedling.bsky.social rocks it again w/ a #scienterrific crossover nonfic/ #graphicnovel w/ her comics-style & realistic-enough details illustrations. Fab facts. Great example of how modern illustrator-driven nonfic is so highly engaging vs trad photoreal/text block books

Photo of two books about video gaming history: 1) Narrative nonfiction picture book Blips On A Screen: How Ralph Baer Invented TV Video Gaming and Launched a Worldwide Obsession. + 2 Game On: Video Game History… Blips features an illustrated scene with a perhaps middle aged 1968 Ralph seated on the floor with his “brown box” console, playing his Odyssey game—playing the first wide-market video game (later copied and renamed Pong by Atari)—on a huge wooden box TV from the era. Game On features…schematics style background lines?…the title centred with circular subtitles around it, and little circular inset images in the four corners—showing Pong, Pac-Man, Mario, and the Minecraft cube.

#ThisBookTheseReasons
2 books on video gaming history:
A)
Blips—great narrative nonfic pic book re: creator of Odyssey, a game that later became immortalized as Pong (Atari copied it).
@katehanniganbooks.bsky.social nails whittling down info to best narrative tidbits; Ohora nails 60s/70s vibes.

& …

Cover image of the book How to speak animal. Subtitle: decode the secret, language of dogs, cats, birds, reptiles, and more. It features a bright pink background with a subtle sort of zebra stripe that is mostly all covered over by the title, running through the middle with various animal head photos peeking out around from under the title: basset hound, and some other dog, a snake, a rabbit, a goldfish, some other fish, a budgie or parrot, and some other parrot, and a cat. (ha ha! I barely know what some of these animals are) (Sorry)

This is a shot of the table of contents that shows that it refers to the various “languages” you can learn to interpret from dogs, cats, rabbits, birds, hamsters, guinea pigs, horses, snakes, fish.

#ThisBookTheseReasons
📚👍
Great book! Kids will love it. Gorgeous cover. Fab photo examples & clear facts and tips about understanding pet animal body language and sounds.

(Doesn’t have a pet rats section…nor lizards…but quite a few others.)

Loafing bunnies are especially cute.

#TLsky #skybrarians

Cover of Grandad’s Pride. The title is on a Progress Pride flag, carried by sweater vest wearing (whit) grandfather, his famous camper in the background…various parading folks…

#ThisBookTheseReasons

With the haters being all hatey all over, I felt our library collection needed even more lovely, accepting, celebratory stories ASAP. Had missed out on this @harrywoodgate.bsky.social one previously. Glad to have it now.

Cover: You’re So Amazing! Subtitle: Being singled out doesn’t always feel amazing. Light yellow beige background; three kids below the title; Joe, a white-appearing blond boy with only one leg and forearm crutches; to the left is a black haired white or perhaps Asian appearing boy kicking a soccer ball; right, a Black girl with double puffs hairstyle.

Cover: What happened to you? Features Joe, and his double puffs friend…as described in previous pic…title and info below their feet. They are both gripping the chains and standing upright rather than sitting on the wooden boards of their swings.

#ThisBookTheseReasons
Just bought You’re So Amazing for the library & will need to get What Happened To You? ASAP. Thoroughly refreshing #inclusivity & #RepresentationMatters books for #DisabilityRights discussion: Joe doesn’t want to be hassled about what happened to him; it’s not relevant to…

Cover of Rainbow Boy and the Pride Parade, by Taylor Rouanzion and illustrated by local artist Stacey Chomiak. Image features a blur of colourful parade celebration in the background behind the title; foreground shows a spectator dad crouched down with his son who is dressed in rainbow socks, yellow shirt with rainbow, a rainbow pom-pom headband, and waving a Pride Progress flag.

#ThisBookTheseReasons

Purchased on the weekend, from a local illustrator:
Esp important to support queer stories and artists in a conservative area where they face hate more often.
Great story about a boy (re-)embracing “being different” from peers after attending the pure joy of a Pride parade.

See also,
#ThisBookTheseReasons
I’ve had this #apologies book in my reading pile & added it to voting mix after my l’il apology today & two classes chose it.

Fab!
Teaches via story how to both apologize fully/properly + process your own emotions so you can get to the empathy to to do so well.

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Cover of I Was: The Stories of Animal Skulls. Title and subtitle in the centre in a purplish gradient sky, a barred owl (I think) in its natural brown/white/grey colours on the swoop across the top of the book, aligned above a cool, blue-grey scene of an owl skull in the blades of grass across the bottom of the cover.

#ThisBookTheseReasons

Beguiling #scienterrific read! Seems simple initially? Nope. Deep.
Short lines, but thought-provoking lyrical text (“A skull speaks in arches and ridges and caverns of bone”) w/ who-am-I text hints and guess-then-flip hints to go w/ skulls (“I was the seeker of sweetness”).
…

Clouds in Space: Nebulae, Stardust, and Us. Features a realistic (maybe NASA) background image of the butterfly nebula with an illustration of a spacesuited girl floating over it, with the large title in white and the subtitle in black letters within a blueish cloud shape.

#ThisBookTheseReasons I often use the word stellar—this book sure suits it: Whole book about nebulae & stardust told in an engaging, somewhat lyrical way; plus, great backmatter.
(Though, scientists naming nebulae are definitely reaching, stretching to call them elephant trunk, turtle…, right?)
4/

Meet the Mini-Mammals: A Night at the Natural History Museum. In front of a large red brocade/tasseled curtain (critter feet just visible behind it) stands a mask-faced weasel in an elegant white shirt, blue suit jacket and bow tie, holding a pointer indicating the title, which is on a large, fancy poster card on a fancy easel (weasel with an easel!), under which is a galago with a gerboa standing on its back.

#ThisBookTheseReasons Fun conceit: Night at museum, up goes curtain, shadow box displays; actual size art; interludes w/ only scurrying hind ends/tails visible; intriguing bitsy-mammal facts; animal art imbued w/ life, imagined character, yet high realism too; fantastic backmatter.

3/

Book: Like No Other: Earth’s Coolest One-Of-A-Kind Creatures. Yellow title; red subtitle; large picture of an aye-aye (monkey like/lemur like) gripping a tree trunk and staring out at the viewer.

#ThisBookTheseReasons Scientific & terrific—Yes! Last twig creatures at ends of family trees. Fun new-to-me terms like “tooth walking” (walrus), platypups (baby ___)
New-to-me critter: monito del monte. Ton of stellar backmatter. Included H.sapiens as last unique human species, family hominidae.
2/

4 nonfiction (picture book format) books. More info and ALT for each individual book in each of the posts in this thread.

Clever Crow book cover. Red typewriter style font for title text, but with letters in slightly varying font size. Centre image of a probably N. American crow, one leg up, head stretching down to look toward the claw on the ground. Behind it, is a stylized blue and white blotchy background painted over old newsprint or book pages.

Reading/processing new arrival #Scienterrific books this afternoon…

Clever Crow:
#ThisBookTheseReasons
Corvids rawwk! Gorgeous art; quick facts; cool hidden fact that Flores crow egg pic in egg gallery pic was left blank as the bird is so rare, we don’t know what its eggs look like!?

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A bunch of new books spread out on a library table top. They include titles like… Rumie goes rafting; home in a lunchbox; the café, at the edge of the woods; Marley’s pride; still life…

Some of my new books on the new books, display shelves, with another big stack, ready for book talking sitting on the counter in front of the displays. They include books like… Timmy failure; the latest dog man; miss cat mysteries; pig and small; over and under the waves; whose house is that?…

Some random shots of some of the new books I’m book talking and displaying today, tomorrow…

Probably will do some #ThisBookTheseReasons posts about a bunch in the coming days too.

Thank you so much for including my solo picture book #SamAndEva in your #ThisBookTheseReasons post!

Three great books to be discussed in this thread. Each one will have a separate picture with the ALT text to describe their covers…

Cover of TheGoat, The Stoat, And The Boat, by Em Lynas and Matt Hunt. Features blue background of watery waves with a bright green sailboat (white sail), with a large seated goat (with big yellow checkered coat) and small stoat in it.

#ThisBookTheseReasons
📚👍 🧵
3 fab new #ReadAlouds:

The Goat/etc, by @emlynas.bsky.social & Matt Hunt (no relation) will be fun to read to kids with all the zany rhyming, silly battle over the boat, and the sharing-is-the-better-way resolution.

Make it a #HatTrickLit experience by pairing it…

Cover of Wildful, by Kengo Kurimoto. Shows a middle grade/preteen girl, black leggings, black and white striped shirt sitting on a log, black and white medium sized dog at her side…beneath a sepia toned bower of overgrown forest limbs that creates a frame/tunnel effect with the silhouette of a deer in the background. Though the interior doesn’t use any brighter colours, the left and right foreground on the cover have subtle, muted sprays of bluebells flowers growing, and the title Wildful across the top is a mid-range yellow.

#ThisBookTheseReasons
It’s #GraphicNovel mastery. Mostly wordless: Matches quietude of the forest, plus grief issues. Black/white/sepia tones, yet feels vibrant. Focus on close observation of nature, beauty, finding wonder. Micro details of character facial expressions to convey emotion—stellar.

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Cover of Prunella, by Beth Ferry and Claire Keane. The title is done in thorny vine lettering. Shows a girl W-sitting in the dirt, surrounded by Venus fly traps, fungi, corpse plants, cacti. She’s eclectically dressed (as kids often are) in a white T, yellow overall shorts, pink rubber boots; her hair is a black bob; her arm is stretched above her head, a fly from the jar between her her knees, held aloft as she glances up to watch a Venus fly trap gobble it up.

#ThisBookTheseReasons
Honestly, wanted this on strength of Keane’s fab digital ink brush art (fan since Why? & I Want 100 Dogs) + Ferry can write a great story.

Prunella loves weird,spiky, smelly,monster-style plants. Makes it hard to make friends, till her niche crew wanders into her garden…

1/2

Cover of Aiko and the Planet of Dogs. It features a girl with two giant black buns hairdo and very surprised circle eyes sitting up in a bed surrounded by tons of dogs of many varieties (a lot of them just white furred, but many in odd orangey or pinkish tones).

#ThisBookTheseReasons
📚👍
Well, that was an odd & wonderful read! Aiko stumbles across former astro-dogs from early space exploration that now have a secret planetary colony. Jammed packed illustrative details (incl some little gross ones, for kids that are observant).

Large variety of dogs…

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Redirecting...

I do posts with micro book reviews that I call #ThisBookTheseReasons

I like this oldtimey librarian system for reviews of books in the collection—fun that it’s still accessible in this library branch…

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