After who-knows-how-many-years of work, I have finally completed author last name “B” at my local library. I’m hoping to pick up the pace a bit and complete all the picture books by author last name “C” this year!

*An asterisk denotes a book that I wouldn’t mind re-reading.

---

Board Books

Since I’ve already read all the board books at our library (except the ones they’ve acquired since I finished my challenge), I’m reading these simply for pleasure – or ’cause the little ones pick them up when we’re at the library.

• Look at Me: I Love My Family
  Pictures of little ones playing with their family along with very spare text. I won’t be getting it again.
• *Rrralph! by Lois Ehlert
  “Did you know my dog can talk?” the narrator asks. We learn just how in this delightful tale (Ralph says “Ralph”, “Roof”, “Wolf”, “Bark”, and more.) We get this from the library, but I’d love to own a copy – it’s a fun, fun book and Beth-Ellen’s current favorite.
• Newtonian Physics for Babies by Chris Ferrie
  Not particularly straightforward and the illustrations look like they were made using Microsoft Word’s graphic editor. Not worth it.
• Anne’s Colors and Anne’s Numbers by Kelly Hill
  Lovely little books illustrating scenes from Anne of Green Gables. See my review for more details (and photos!l)
• Blankie by Leslie Patricelli
  Patricelli’s little character really, really loves his (her?) blankie.

---

Picture Books

Author Last Name “B”

I had just a few of these sitting around waiting to be read before we could close off the “B”s

• *Banjo Granny by Sarah Martin Busse and Jacqueline Briggs Martin
  A delightful story about a granny who travels the nation with her banjo to play with her dancing grandbaby.
• My Bibi Always Remembers by Toni Buzzeo
  A fun little story about a distractable elephant baby and his (or her?) wise grandmother.
• One Cool Friend by Toni Buzzeo
  In which a boy steals a penguin, just like his father stole a turtle. Weird.
• R is for Research by Toni Buzzeo
  A big-kid alphabet book centered around a research project. Eh.
• *The Sea Chest by Toni Buzzeo
  Based on a Maine legend, this tells the story of a baby washed ashore near a lighthouse after a shipwreck. Very sweet.
• The Power of Henry’s Imagination by Skye Byrne
  New-Agey “imagine it and it will be”. Ick.
• Dream Friends by You Byum
  A dream friend helps a little girl make a new real friend. I can’t decide whether I’d be willing to reread this or not.

Author Last Name “C”

An informal count says there are about 560 picture books with an author last name “C”. That means I need to read almost 50 a month to get it done in a year – so I need to double this month’s rate for the rest of the year.

• Bertie and Small and the Brave Sea Journey and
  Bertie and Small and the Fast Bike Ride by Vanessa Cabban
  Gentle stories about a little boy and his stuffed rabbit.
• Roonie B. Moonie Lost and Alone by Janan Cain
  I’m not a big fan of “stories” that are really just lessons in disguise. This one is about how to manage being lost.
• *By the Light of the Moon by Sheridan Cain
  A sweet little story in which a mama mouse puts her baby mouse safely to sleep.
• *Lena’s Shoes are Nervous by Keith Calabrese and Juana Medina
  Lena isn’t nervous about her first day of school – but her shoes are. Clever and cute.
• *Flood by Mary Calhoun
  A fictionalized retelling of the 1993 flooding along the Mississippi. I remember that rainy, rainy season (although we didn’t experience devastating flooding in Lincoln like those along the Missouri and the Mississippi did.)
• Hot-Air Henry by Mary Calhoun
  I enjoyed learning how a hot-air balloon works in this story of a Siamese Cat who accidentally takes a solo balloon trip.
• The Enemy: A Book about Peace by Davide Cali
  I am profoundly ambivalent towards this book. It has some good points: “the enemy” is generally not a monster but another person fighting for what they believe is right. But Cali seems to discount the idea of a just war.
• A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to School by Davide Cali
  Trippy.
• Good Morning, Neighbor by Davide Cali
  A group of neighbors pools their resources to make a cake – and then has to decide how to divide it equitably. The best of the books by Cali, but still not amazing.
• Great Dog by Davide Cali
  It was funny, until we got to the end and it took a desperate twist into “you can be anything you want to be” even if that means being a dog when you were born a cat. No thank you – I’d rather encourage my kids to be what God created them to be.
• Snow White and the 77 Dwarfs by Davide Cali
  Caring for 77 dwarfs is hard work! Snow White is going to take her chances with the witch’s poison apple (maybe then she can at last get some sleep!) This really isn’t a children’s book as much as it is an illustrated book for complaining mothers.
• *Jazzmatazz by Stephanie Calmenson
  A rolicking good time ensues when a baby and a variety of animals start a jazz band.
• Ollie’s Class Trip and
  Ollie’s School Day by Stephanie Calmenson
  These books pose all sorts of ridiculous hypotheticals that children will love saying “No, silly” at. That said, I was glad to take them back to the library.
• The Teeny Tiny Teacher by Stephanie Calmenson
  How many times can you read the words “teeny tiny” before you pull your hair out? Stephanie Calmenson approaches that number in this book (which is quite clever apart from the exhausting use of “teeny tiny”.)
• Queenie Farmer Had Fifteen Daughters by Ann-Jeanette Campbell
  This was just weird.
• I Get So Hungry by Bebe Campbell
  How do you address emotional eating and obesity and weight loss with children? Campbell doesn’t do a bad job per se, but the whole topic makes me queasy given how individualized circumstances are (childhood obesity is a real thing, but so are eating disorders.)
• *Stompin’ at the Savoy by Bebe Campbell
  A fun little book about a girl who is afraid of dancing at her jazz recital – until she has a crazy dream of dancing at the Savoy!
• Franklin’s Flying Bookshop and
  Franklin and Luna Go to the Moon by Jen Campbell
  Franklin is a dragon who loves to read and to share books with others – but all the people are afraid of him until he meets a fellow book lover (who also happens to love dragons.) In the sequel, the dragon and his friend go searching for Franklin’s family.
• *The Mermaid and the Shoe by K.G. Campbell
  Little Minnow is the only unexceptional daughter from among King Tritan’s many exceptional daughters. But then she finds a shoe and goes exploring to find out what it is – and learns that she is exceptional too. I enjoyed this story quite a bit – it’s not simply an “everyone is special” book, but an “everyone is special in different ways” book.
• Adrian Simcox Does NOT Have a Horseby Marcy Campbell
  Adrian has an imaginary horse and the protagonist must learn to not be so mean about it. Eh. (Lovely illustrations, though, by Corinna Luyken.)
• Hug Machine by Scott Campbell
  Does the hug machine ever run out of hugs? Okay, but not great

Other picture books:

• *Yummy by Lucy Cousins
  A fun collection of folk tales loosely themed around food.
• *The Night Gardener by the Fan Brothers
  A neighborhood is astonished to wake up every morning to a new topiary along their sleep. Fun.
• *My Love Will Be With You by Laura Krauss Melmed
  A precious, simple father/child book. I especially liked Henri Sorensen’s beautiful (acrylic? oil?) paintings of different animal father/child combos.
• *Good Night, Good Night Construction Site Sherri Duskey Rinker and Tom Lichtenheld
  As good as promised. My truck-loving Louis wanted to take this to bed with him most nights (and for a majority of naps as well.)

---

Holiday Books

Christmas

Christmas lasts until January 6 and I’m pleased to keep reading Christmas books right up until then :-)

• *Just Right For Christmas by Birdie Black and Rosalind Beardshaw
  A Christmas book I’ll be checking out again and again – a king buys a bolt of fabric to make his daughter a gift for Christmas, and then a whole set of people and animals use the scraps to make a “just right” gift for their own loved ones.
• The Animals’ Santa by Jan Brett
  Brett is always a delight. The animals speculate about Santa’s identity – and discover who he is thanks to the ingenuity of a skeptical little one.
• *The Nutcracker by Valeria DoCampo
  A very nice retelling of the ballet.
• *The Twelve Days of Christmas in Washington D.C. by Candice Ransom
  A little one (I forget whether it was a girl or a boy) visits his cousin in D.C. and writes letters home to his parents about all the things his cousin showed him in D.C. It’s great fun hearing my kids mash up the traditional version and this version of the song. Tirzah Mae sings “And a partridge in a scarlet oak tree” and Louis loves to sing “Five… doll-ar rings!”
• *Christmas in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder
  Tirzah Mae wanted to get a jump start on Barbara’s Laura Ingalls Wilder reading challenge with this “My First Little House Book”. Of course I let her :-)

Marting Luther King, Jr. Day

I greatly enjoyed learning more about Martin Luther King, Jr. this year

• Martin Luther King Jr. Day by R.J Bailey
  A very simple book that focuses on kids doing community service vs. on Dr. King’s life or the Civil Rights movement. Not a fan.
• *Martin Luther King Day by Linda Lowery
  A good review of Dr. King’s life and of how MLK Jr. Day became a national holiday.
• Martin Luther King, Jr. Day by Dianne M. MacMillan
  A simple chapter book that is nevertheless quite informative.
• *Martin Luther King Day by Janet McDonnell
  A grandfather tells his granddaughter about the civil rights movement. Very nice.

Groundhog Day

Our library has LOTS of books for Groundhog Day, but very few of them are any good.

• *A Garden for a Groundhog by Lorna Balian
  Mr. and Mrs. O’Leary are a wee bit frustrated with how the groundhog keeps eating their garden – so they devise a plan. Any vegetable gardener will identify with the O’Leary’s in this clever little book.
• Go to Sleep, Groundhog! by Judy Cox
  The groundhog can’t fall asleep, so he keeps taking walks only to get trundled back to bed by a holiday figure who rocks him, tells him a story, and gives him food. He finally falls asleep just in time for his alarm to go off for Groundhog Day. He pops out of his hole, sees his shadow, and runs back inside for six more weeks of sleep.
• Groundhog Stays Up Late by Margery Cuyler
  Foolhardy Groundhog stays up playing instead of preparing for winter – which means he gets awfully hungry. So he plays a trick on his friends to get some of their stored food. But the other animals have the last laugh when they trick him on February second. Eh.
• Groundhog Day! by Gail Gibbons
  Fairly informative, if somewhat disjointed discussion of Groundhog Day and groundhogs themselves.
• It’s Groundhog Day! by Steven Kroll
  Roland Raccon wants winter to continue so he can make more money off his ski resort – so he attempts to kidnap Godfrey Groundhog so he can’t predict spring. Eh.
• Who Will See Their Shadows This Year? by Jerry Pallotta and David Biedrzycki
  All sorts of animals try their shadows, hoping to encourage spring to come early. But they only manage to set off all sorts of weird weather phenomenon.

---

Nonfiction Books

Pregnancy and Babies

Tirzah Mae has been pretty obsessed with pregnancy since I was pregnant with Beth-Ellen – and now that we’ve read everything the library has (for children) on the topic, we’re moving along to babies after birth.

• *9 Months by Courtney Adamo
  A look at what is happening inside (and outside) a woman during her nine months of pregnancy. The best children’s book on the topic that I’ve seen so far (and I’ve read them all, given that I have a pregnancy obsessed little girl.)
• My Mommy’s Having a Baby by Dori Hillestad Butler
  Fairly informative – but I’m not a fan of the illustrations and there were a couple pages on sex that I wasn’t terribly comfortable with (then again, my four-year-old is probably a bit younger than the target audience).
• Our Brother Has Down Syndrome by Shelley Cairo (and daughters?)
  A basic introduction to Down Syndrome with lots of pictures of the authoresses and their brother. The main message is that those with Down Syndrome are unique people, just like all of us.
• The Obstetrician by Lee Jacobs
  What does an obstetrician do? This was a simple, repetitive book that seemed geared toward early independent readers. Daniel thought it terribly boring; I thought it a bit too pro-medicalized birth; Tirzah Mae was heartbroken when I returned it to the library.
• Multiple Births by Elaine Landau
  Informative book about multiples (focused mostly on quads and quints!) – but tragic throughout. The first chapter details the terribly sad story of a set of Canadian quints in the early 20th century who were taken from their parents and basically turned into zoo animals. The third chapter is all about the trials and risks of higher order multiples and why selective reduction (more accurately called “killing some babies in the womb while leaving some of their siblings alive”) is recommended. I cried many, many times as I read this.
• Drugs and Birth Defects by Nancy Schniderman and Sue Hurwitz
  Written for teens and clearly designed to scare them away from doing drugs during pregnancy. Definitely from the early nineties (as evidenced by the dated photos, the hardcore scare tactics, and the absence of mention of methamphetamine.)
• That New Baby by Sara Bonnett Stein
  This book contains large print to read out loud to your children and smaller print to read yourself. It’s intended to open a conversation with kids about a new baby in the home. Like many books about the coming of a new baby, it’s focused on how the older child is going to feel jealous and left out and angry. I’m not a fan of such things (and, from my experience bringing both new babies and older children into our home, I don’t think jealousy and anger has to be a universal.)

Tools and Trucks

These are for Louis, who would sleep with his mallet and his dump truck every night if I’d let him. Instead, he takes the library books to bed with him :-)

• The Saw and
  The Screwdriver by David and Patricia Armentrout
  Very simple and well-suited for reading to a two-year-old.
• Concrete Mixers and
  Dump Trucks by Jean Eick
  Terribly boring for me. Terribly interesting for Louis. I’ll survive the toil of reading them for the joy of watching my son delight in reading them :-)
• *Tools by Taro Miura
  A very simple labeling book, but with beautiful graphics.
• Does a Woodpecker Use a Hammer? by Harriet Ziefert
  Talking about the “tools” different animals use – and how humans are different from animals because they use complex engineered tools

Other Nonfiction

• FlyGuy Presents: Castles by Ted Arnold
  FlyGuy, a cartoon fly, gives a tour of castles. Louis liked it. Daniel liked it. I did not.
• *Who Was Mother Teresa? by Jim Gigliotti
  Informative look at Mother Teresa – I like the “Who Was…” series. I am interested to learn more about Mother Teresa – I hadn’t know that she was a universalist (kinda thought that was incompatible with Catholicism).

---

Magazines

• BabyBug: September 2018
• BabyBug: January 2019
• Highlights Hello: October 2018
• Highlights Hello: November 2018
  I enjoy these very simple little magazines for babies and toddlers – this issue was about shapes. These are sturdy little booklets, although easy to lose since they’re so small.
• Disney Princesses Official Magazine #47
  Gag me with a spoon. But Tirzah Mae ate it up – and now I can mark it read :-)

---

Our library includes a running tally of our savings from using the library – and it’s always fun to see how quickly these children’s books add up. We’ve saved $2,845.47 so far this year!

I’m sad that Five Minutes for Books is no longer hosting the monthly “What’s on Your Nightstand?” roundup – but I completely understand, especially given how my own participation has waned in the past several years.

Nevertheless, I have valued these monthly reminders of what I’ve read – and hope to continue them.

---

Books for Loving:

Our Triune God by Philip Ryken and Michael LeFebvre

When I determined that I would study the Trinity this year for my own personal spiritual formation, I was a little worried that it would be mostly an academic pursuit and that I would have to work hard to find cause for worship in the doctrine of the Trinity. Ryken and LeFebvre’s little book (114 pages long) was the perfect start to my project, helping me to clearly see the glorious truth of the Trinity and to worship God as a result. Rather than setting out to give some sort of comprehensive analysis of the Trinity, or a historical background on the doctrine, the authors take a main text for each of their four chapters. They exposit each of those texts to help their readers understand the work of the Trinity in salvation, the mysterious doctine of the Trinity, the activity of the Trinity in sanctification, and the work of the Trinity in the fulfillment of the Great Commission. I heartily recommend this book as an introduction to the doctrine and worship of the Triune God.

---

Books for Growing:

I chose Matt Perman’s Do More Better as my first book for growing this year – but it’s too long to fit into one month. So I read just the first 13 chapters this month and will be finishing up next month.

---

Books for Knowing:

The Why Axis by Uri Gneezy and John A. List

Why do we do what we do? Plenty of economists try to answer the question – but generally their observational methodology means they can only observe correlations, not causation. Gneezy and List are pioneers in the use of “field experiments” randomized experiments on the unknowing public that attempt to tease out causation. The Why Axis describes several of their experiments into discrimination, the gender gap, getting kids from hard places to graduate high school, raising money for charity, and more. I found this a fascinating book, although perhaps not quite as fascinating as say, Freakanomics (although that may well be because Freakanomics was one of the first “economics for the public” books I ever read.)

---

Books for Seeing:

Utopia by Thomas More

More is clearly an intelligent and witty man – and I enjoyed reading his little fiction. Utopia is made up of four parts – an introductory letter (full of witicisms), a first part that describes the author’s first acquaintance with the man who told him about Utopia, a second part that describes Utopia, and a final letter. I enjoyed the letters best, the first part next, and the actual description of Utopia least. The island of Utopia is a little too… utopian… for my tastes. For a Catholic saint, More shows little awareness of the doctrine of original sin.

---

Books for Enjoying:

A Common Life by Jan Karon

I’ve been making slow but delighted progress through Karon’s Mitford books. They are exactly the sort of books suited for a mother (who wants something to read but still needs to sleep at night.) This book goes back in time a bit to learn more about the lead-in to Father Tim and Cynthia’s wedding.

Anne of Green Gables: A Graphic Novel adapted by Mariah Marsden and illustrated by Brenna Thummler

I enjoyed this much more than expected. Follow the title link for my review.

Anne of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery

It’s been far too long since I last read this. It was like visiting an old friend, grown more mature by life’s passage but just as sweet as ever.

---