February Book Reviews from Rock Star Santa's Book Bag

Today, I'd like to post three more book reviews for children's authors.

Pterodactyl Show and Tell

Whimsical and a fun what if…picture book. As a pre-K Director, we had Show and Tell every Thursday, and though the children LOVED dinosaurs, no one ever brought a live one to story circle. But the main character does in Pterodactyl Show and Tell, by Thad Krasnesky. His classmates and teacher aren’t quite sure if they should trust the flying beast. Chaos and havoc reign as Tanya Leonello’s illustrations tell more than half of the story. The rhyme scheme is short and sweet and goes perfectly with the illustrations. I highly recommend it for Pre-School.

Year of the Meatball

Joey Marconi can’t believe his parents are moving the whole family to upstate New York, where, in their opinion, it is safer. What? Joey doesn’t want to leave his best friends, his championship baseball team, and good old Bronx. Traveling to his new home in the country doesn’t make him happy. Everywhere he looks there are…cows instead of cars, trees instead of taxis, and worst of all, pumpkin patches instead of the best pizza in the world. What’s a boy to do?

Make new friends, of course. And that’s exactly what Joey does. Only when his mother tells him he’d meet a new friend named Bobby at the neighbor’s, he has no idea that his new “best” friend would be a girl. A girl? Who plays baseball, no less. But when Joey’s old friends come to visit, Joey ignores Bobby. And with bases loaded, Joey makes an error. He wasn’t expecting a curveball, but with a changeup ball, learns that friendship resides in the heart and not in the mind. Though Calabrese makes great use of her childhood memories growing up in the Bronx in The Year of the Meatball, she too, like Joey, lives in upstate New York. They say, “write what you know.”

If a Bumblebee Lands on Your Toe

With beautiful, magical illustrations by Vikki Zhang, the pages of Cynthia Mackay’s If a Bumblebee Lands on Your Toes take the reader to another world of imagination while still presenting a message to children about finding their calm in stressful situations. A lyrical guide to emotions, the story encourages children to find their inner calmness and breathe bravery into the moment until the crisis has passed or flown away, as is the case with the bumblebee. As a former Pre-K Director, I highly recommend this book for the classroom as well as the home library.