The Great Picture Book Culling: Day 10

Jo read some great ones last night. Her favorite? Mouse Paint by Ellen Stoll Walsh. It's a cute one about little white mice who play in some paint and learn - quite by accident - about mixing colors. Fun!
Alan's favorite was Scrambled States of America by Laurie Keller. If you think a book about geography and the states would be dry and boring - think again. This is laugh-out-loud funny with terrific art and lots of great little jokes. The states decide they're bored with living in the same place all the time and they decide to move around.Needless to say, things don't work out and they end up moving back, but not before they all have some adventures. We used to read this book all the time and Jo was able to identify most of the states by their shapes. Her favorite was Oklahoma. This one is definitely on our must-have list - check it out if you're not already familiar with it!

And my favorite of the night - Waiting for Wings by Lois Ehlert. This is an absolutely beautiful book that takes you through the life cycle of the butterfly with stunning cut-paper art. The weird-looking lines in the art are actually specially-cut pages. So you get beautiful art and a nice story - but also extra pages with more butterfly facts, info on planting a butterfly garden, and identification of all the varieties of butterflies and flowers in the book. Very nice!

Jo also read Where Is the Green Sheep? by Mem Fox with art by Judy Horacek. She especially likes the pictures in this one of all the sheep doing funny things.

And finally, we got Once Upon a Potty by Alona Frankel. This is a very good potty book and I read it to Jo a lot when she was two. Now she's six and a book that repeatedly uses the words Wee-Wee and Poo-Poo sends her into uncontrollable gales of laughter. It took us forever to get through this very short book. I voted to cull it, but Jo and Alan outvoted me. Oh well. . .

Read-a-thon total so far: 39 books read