​Hi!  This is Rachel Malay, director at the Port Library in Beloit. This week is the last week in this summer’s library programs for kids at the library.  We’d like to thank every kid and parent who came to the library this summer!

If I told you the library just got in the 25th book in a series, you might wonder what in the world could be popular enough to have 24 other regularly circulated titles?  Elephant and Piggie by Mo Willems is a series of simple early reader books, and the relationship between the title characters while humorous, fun, and occasionally directed at the reader may interest adults, the overall silliness of elephant and piggie keep even the youngest reader coming back for more. 

Over the series so far the two friends have encountered many other animals and situations, and this week’s Port Pick called The Thank You Book, attempts to review nearly every other side character in the series so far from squirrels, a snake, doctor cat, and even a whale.  All through the thanks-o-rama by Piggie, Elephant is frantically trying to get his attention.  Piggie thinks it’s because Elephant is afraid he’ll get left out of the showers of thanks, but instead Elephant quietly tells Piggie to thank the reader as well. So, for one page at the end of the book the fourth wall is broken as a book’s characters thank the reader for being there.

If this sounds like the end of a series, it’s because it is.  The massively popular fictional duo will officially retire from their own series, but look for them to “sponsor” other short early reader tales in the future by making guest appearances. And if you’re just discovering the series for the first time, the library has nearly all the other books in the series already on the shelf.

You can get the book reviewed here and more great titles to watch, read, listen to, or play with at the Port Library at 1718 N. Hersey in Beloit.

​Hi!  This is Rachel Malay, director at the Port Library in Beloit.  

This week’s review is of a children’s classic title many of my parents of children may recognize.  The library has had it most recently with an audio cassette companion, but we have decided to simply replace the original title with a new printing.  The Giant Jam Sandwich by John Vernon Lord tells the tale of the unfortunate town of Itching Down, all in rhyming verse. 

One day out of the blue the town is attacked by a swarm of four million wasps.  No one knows where they came from, but they’re not leaving! The town is at a loss – no one can take picnics, farm their fields, or even walk in their gardens.  At a town meeting a brilliant idea is posed by the baker.  Wasps like jam sandwiches at picnics, so why not build a giant jam sandwich and trap all the wasps at once?  The town comes together in record speed to implement the idea, with farmer seed supplying the field. The dough is mixed and the mountain of a loaf of bread is baked in an old mill.  After carefully taking two slices with a giant saw the sandwich is laid out on a giant green and white checkered picnic cloth. The author doesn’t say where the enormous amounts of butter and strawberry jam come from, but by this time most kids will be more worried to see if the wasp lure works. The trap works and the villagers don’t even have to worry about carting the sandwich away – a flock of birds carried off their feast, which as the story says will last for a hundred weeks.    

If your young reader likes this story, be sure to check out Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and its sequels by Jill Barnett, or some of the picture books by Chris Van Allsburg, especially Just a Dream.

You can get the book reviewed here and more great titles to watch, read, listen to, or play with at the Port Library at 1718 N. Hersey in Beloit. 

Hi!  This is Rachel Malay, director at the Port Library in Beloit.  

If you find your little ones are zooming around at home, you might want to try this picture book for a fun (if quick!) story time. Hot Rod Hamster by Cynthia Lord and illustrated by Derek Anderson tells the tale of a young ambitious hamster who wants to race with the big dogs, literally. He heads over to the junkyard where he finds a friendly bulldog and his rat assistance willing to help him choose a car, wheels, an engine, and a paint job to get ready for the big race. When the day arrives, will our hamster hero be able to compete with all the other big noisy race cars driven by scruffy looking and scary sounding dogs?

This story is told in rhythmic rhyming double lines on each open page, with either an addition in speech bubbles from the characters or a question to the listener of the story, forcing a fun interaction with the hamster’s choices for his hot rod each step of the way. You can almost hear the hamster’s squeaky little voice demanding more speed, tires that burn rubber, and a blazing hot paint job on his little car. The pictures are bright, painted with broad strokes and bring each unique character to life. The last choice of the book is which trophy to take home, naturally, but the answer may not be as predictable as the others in the book.

This title is not newly published but is newly available at the Port Library along with others in the Hot Rod Hamster series that have been recently published. Hot Rod Hamster: Monster Mania! covers monster trucks, while Hot Rod Hamster Meets His Match! is an early reader book with a new competitor for Hot Rod Hamster to race.

You can get the book reviewed here and more great titles to watch, read, listen to, or play with at the Port Library at 1718 N. Hersey in Beloit. 

​Hi!  This is Rachel Malay, director at the Port Library in Beloit. Happy Independence Day everyone!

Beautifully illustrated in graphite pencil and inks, The Night Gardener by the Fan Brothers is the author and illustrator’s debut work.  The Fan Brothers are comprised of illustrator Terry Fan and writer Eric Fan who make their home in Toronto, Canada. The Night Gardener follows a young boy, William, and his home in Grimloch Orphanage on Grimloch Lane. William is the first to notice a new topiary in the shape of a giant owl that is created overnight in front of the orphanage.  The next night down the street a cat appears carved out of two trees right next to each other.  Each night a new masterpiece appears and the townspeople begin gathering together to celebrate this public art.  William stays up very late one night at a neighborhood party when he spies the night gardener, heading off for his night’s work.  He could use William’s help as the next project is to transform all the trees in the public park.  And although the leaves change colors and fall later in the year, by the next summer the feeling of community togetherness lingers and the town is never the same. Neither, it turns out, is William.

The artwork in this book tells as much of a story as the sparse text does.  The first page shows a sepia toned street in the town, with all the townspeople looking down and going about their business alone. The night scenes contrast beautifully in deep and calming blues and greens.  The first topiary stands out in the daylight, not only because of its unusual shape, but because it’s the only colorful part of that page’s illustration. As expected, the town is rendered in more and more color as the people come together until the last page, which is shown at night again with William tending to his own small creation.

You can get the book reviewed here and more great titles to watch, read, listen to, or play with at the Port Library at 1718 N. Hersey in Beloit.