It's Christmas Wish List Time!

Girls and boys around the globe are making their Christmas wish lists! Maybe many adults are, too. We welcome Penguin, the little bird with a big heart. In Penguin's Christmas Wish, he and his family go on an adventure to see Pinecone, Penguin's tree friend. They discover that Pinecone has grown up! And while things don't go exactly as planned, Christmas works its magic so that Penguin's wish comes true. This sweet book gets to the core of Christmas--sharing love--that all ages can understand and enjoy. The publisher, Bloomsbury, offers a free activity kit chock full of gift tags, ornaments, and more.

I was happy to meet author Salina Yoon at the 2016 Plum Creek Children's Literacy Festival this fall. Born in Korea, she and her parents emigrated to the U.S. when she was 4 years old. Knowing no English, she struggled to fit in with other kids, and many of her books have a strong friendship theme. This title is one of several in the Penguin series. Her Bear series is equally delightful. (I wrote about one title in a previous post.)

My granddaughter's Christmas wish is for the entire Penguin series, which is fairly easy to fulfill. Some of our adult wishes are much more difficult, as this song expresses:

May your Christmas wishes come true!

Keep Fear Away on a Stormy Night

We've been fortunate this season so far--storms have gone around us. Tonight is another stormy one with heavy wind, rain, possible hail, even possible tornadoes in areas around us. Farther away, tropical storms' flooding have caused death and damage.

What do you do to keep youngsters' fear at bay when storms rage? It seems that author Salina Yoon's Bear family has the right answer--comforting others. In Stormy Night, a picture book for ages 3-6, Bear can't sleep because of a storm. He comforts his bunny with a loving verse and feels better. The storm keeps rumbling, and Bear keeps repeating the words to bunny until Mama comes to check on him, saying that she wants to stay with him because she is afraid. Soon Papa joins them. Kisses, tickles, and books, family love and affection make everything all right. This sweet, tender book is comforting to kids and a model for parents on how to handle non-threatening storms with little ones. Reading this book is like getting a hug.
(I bought this book and its accompanying plush toy when Kohl's featured it as a Kohl's Cares title.)

A more recent huggable book by Yoon is Be a Friend, about Dennis, the mime boy. As a mime, of course, Dennis doesn't speak. He acts in scenes. It's fair to say that Dennis is different from the other kids, and he is happy being himself--though a tad lonely. This story has a happy ending because Dennis finds a friend who understands him as he is, and vice versa. The artwork is a real treat, with Yoon's drawings of Dennis miming an egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, and butterfly. She has drawn red dashed lines to show Dennis' actions both in the book and on the end papers.

My three-year-old granddaughter has never seen a mime, so I explained that he was pretending to do these things. She liked saying what Dennis was "'tending" to do (on a teeter-totter, being a tree, going downstairs), but I wasn't sure she grasped the friendship theme until she told her mom about the book. "He makes a friend and they do 'tend thing together." She got it!

(Disclosure: I won this book as part of a giveaway on Miranda Paul's Facebook page.)

Emily Arrow liked this book so much she wrote a song about it. Get your jazz hands ready!