We started with a long book today.  Bunny’s First Spring tells the story of a young rabbit discovering all the seasons for the first time.  The pictures are soft and lovely, but the rabbit gets scared as winter comes.  Nature assures him that things are just sleeping, waiting to be awakened.  We can all celebrate at the end of the story when spring arrives, and it’s the birthday of the world.

We have read a number of books about this bear and his friends.  In this story, bear finds himself outside his den when a storm comes.  He feels scared.  His friends wonder if he is okay, and they go out to search for him.  When they are reunited at the end, bear feels safe.

The bear in this story finds an empty box and thinks, “it’s the greatest thing ever!  Mouse will love this.”

On his way to find mouse, he meets many other animals who do not appreciate the empty box as he does.  By the time he finds mouse, he is discouraged.

What do you think?  Will mouse like this box?

The opening pages of this book show all the animals speaking at once, so it looks as though the book will be loud and crazy.  But each animal gets a chance to speak alone, until the end when the animals want to know how we say,

“Hello!”

The last book was a rollicking good time celebrating the rain, mud and sun in springtime.

Today we read a Mexican folk tale about a smart little lamb who tricked a hungry coyote.  Esta bien!

We also read a story that had some super-cool photographs (courtesy of the National Geographic Society).

We had a fairly young group today, so we read simple stories.

I was a bit hesitant to read Small Blue and the Deep Dark Night.  It is very hard to make book recommendations when a child is seeing scary things in the dark at night.  I hope no children at Monday’s storytime have this difficulty, and I certainly don’t want to plant that idea.  This book takes the idea of something scary in the bunny’s room.  When bunny calls Big Brown Bear in to the room, Big Brown suggests the images may be something quite silly instead.  We turn the lights on and there is nothing scary there.  This happens twice more. By the end of the book, the bunny is imagining silly scenarios.  I hope this is helpful to children, but for the moment I read it because it was silly.
~Maureen