#preschool-aged

[everybook]

The Potato King by Christoph Nieman

Using ink and actual potatoes to stamp (if I have my guess), Christoph Nieman weaves a tale no doubt emboldened by legend about the humble potato. This playful history that may not be quite accurate but gives kids a new perspective about a food most would think of as European. Giving children information about where their food actually comes from and how food has shaped the world is a tricky business that almost always feels didactic, but Nieman’s story gives a face and a bit of trickery to the tale to make it stick.

The extension activities for this one are just about endless. Making potato stamps is super cool (although always think things through about using food for anything but eating, some communities find this really offensive).  Adding this to a food storytime or a unit on food would also be incredibly easy. We just made butter with preschoolers and if you keep the numbers down (I’m talking 15 max unless you’ve got more dedicated sinks and adults) it’s super easy. Letting kids feel, smell and taste foods they’ve never seen unprepared is a huge learning experience for everybody. Also, I’m just saying, preschoolers can scrub potatoes  like nobody’s business if you’re having a baked potato bar fundraiser. Let the kiddos help. It’s great.

[everybook]

Wild Ideas by Elin Kelsey, Illustrated by Soyeon Kim

Wild Ideas is one of those books that would inspire the right kid forever. The diorama art is an imitable style that Soyeon Kim knocks out of the park using textures and depth to create stunning spreads. For me, the text gets a little lost in the artwork and could have done with a little more whitespace to balance it out. There are so many subjects offering advice in the book, it is hard to keep what is happening straight. It’s not told as a story, but instead a series of tips on what we can learn from animals and how they can inspire thought.

[everybook]

Mark Pett uses charcoal images painted digitally to tell a simple story of a boy who finds an egg. The egg hatches into a lizard, which of course continues to grow well past lizard size. In the end, the boy uses a nicely timed parade to sneak the dinosaur back to the park with his dinosaur pals. Unlike a lot of over-the-top dinosaur stories, this one doesn’t really play for laughs. It’s by no means somber, but it’s not giving sight gags about dinosaurs eating the boy’s family out of house and home or the other usual images. We get a boy and his friend, enjoying their city.

This could either go for dinosaur storytime (of course), egg storytime (always a weird favorite) or even a left-field choice for activities or storytimes about balloons. It’s calm and won’t create tiny dinosaurs out of attendees and everybody loves and has a thousand different dinosaur extensions. I really love putting puddles of tempera on paper and setting out plastic dinosaurs so kids can make dinosaur footprints through the ‘mud’. If I were still in my classroom, they would all end up with soap in the water table. It would be a good day.