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Originally published: 1995
Author: Lloyd Moss
Illustrator: Marjorie Priceman
Genre: Fiction

Summary and Annotation

This picture book is a beautiful depiction of how music is made and shared among musicians. On each two-page spread, the reader discovers an instrument, the sounds it makes and what the grouping is called. As the pages turn, instruments are added and the excitement builds. The illustrations, although somewhat frantic and chaotic, tie in beautifully as the musicians seem to flow and dance across the page. Even the dog, cats and mouse race around and explore the stage along with the musicians.”

Zin! Zin! Zin! A Violin is an enthusiastic accolade for old style music and the performers who play it with such enthusiasm. Energetic stanza, interesting characters, and alliterative sounds guide pursuers through distinct instruments in a symphony. Attempt this one with your children and free them up to the universe of symphony music.

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Originally published: 2007
Author: Mo Willems
Illustrator: Mo Willems
Genre: Fiction

Summary and Annotation

A man and his young daughter Trixie go to a laundromat. On their way home, Trixie realized something and said to her father “Aggle flaggle klabble,” to which the father responded, “That's right, we're going home.” But again, Trixie said “Aggle flaggle klabble,” then “Blaggle plabble! Wumby flappy?! Snurp.” Although her father tried to calm her down, Trixie started to cry. When they got home, Trixie's mother asked about Trixie’s favorite stuffed animal, “Where's Knuffle Bunny?” Realizing that they had forgotten it at the laundromat, the entire family went back to find Knuffle Bunny. At first they couldn't find it. After looking harder, Trixie's dad eventually found Knuffle Bunny. When he did, the story tells us, Trixie said her first words, “Knuffle Bunny!!

Person against person is the story's fundamental conflict. Trixie is furious when Sonja has the same Knuffle bunny as Trixie, who thought hers was unique. They squabble all day at school, and their bunnies were taken away.

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Knuffle Bunny Too | Interactive Read Aloud | Bedtime Story

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Originally published: 1972
Author: Arnold Lobel
Illustrator: Arnold Lobel
Genre: Fiction

Summary and Annotation

When Toad sees Frog’s beautiful garden, Toad decides that he too would like to have a garden. Frog tells Toad that a garden is hard work, and gives Toad some flower seeds to plant. After Toad plants the seeds, he tells them to start growing, and when they do not do so immediately, he shouts to the ground that the seeds should start growing—but this still doesn’t work. Frog suggests that Toad is frightening the seeds with all the shouting, and tells Frog to leave the seeds alone for a few days. That night Toad observes that the seeds have still not begun to grow, and he worries that they are afraid of the dark. Toad begins experimenting with reading stories and poems to the seeds and playing music for them. Still, the seeds do not grow. Eventually, Toad falls asleep, and when he wakes up he sees that the seeds have started to grow. He is very happy that his "seeds have stopped being afraid to grow." Toad then reports to Frog that Frog was right, growing a garden is “very hard work.”

Frog and Toad are an odd couple since they are two massively different characters. Their friendship represents the multiple highs and lows of attention and affection, while also touching on fundamental truths about life, philosophy, and human nature.

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Frog and Toad Together (part 2) by Arnold Lobel | Read Aloud

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Originally published: 1944
Author: Eleanor Estes
Illustrator: Louis Slobodkin
Page count: 80
Genre: Fiction

Summary and Annotation
The story is told from the perspective of one of Wanda's classmates, Maddie, who is the best friend of the main player in the daily taunting and teasing. After Wanda is absent for a few days, her classmates learn that her family has moved away to the big city where they will not be mistreated for being different. Maddie begins to wonder about the girl she and her friends used to constantly tease, and realizes that she knows very little about her. She begins to wonder why they started teasing her in the first place and is overcome with guilt for making fun of her simply because she is poor and has a funny name and is different from them. Maddie knows that she should have stood up to her friends and defended Wanda. She feels guilty for not speaking up, for standing by and allowing her friends to tease Wanda.

Maddie and her friends later discover that Wanda is a very talented artist, and that her  drawing of one hundred beautiful dresses has won the school's art contest. The girls realize that they misjudged Wanda, and feel incredibly guilty for never believing her stories of her "one hundred dresses." In the end, the girls write a letter to Wanda, hoping to make amends, and they are pleasantly surprised by her willingness to forgive.

This story shows us that we should never make fun of our fellow individuals' distinct differences. We should make some effort to accept them as they are and engage with them.

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The Hundred Dresses (STMA Theater's Production 2021)

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Originally published: 1928
Author: Wanda Gág
Illustrator: Wanda Gág
Page count: 32
Genre: Fiction

Summary and Annotation

An old couple faces the very difficult problem of finding the world’s prettiest cat. But when the old man looks out across the land filled with millions of cats, he decides he simply must take them all home because he cannot decide which one is prettiest. The old woman argues that the cats might be better judges of their own prettiness. When the cats prove incapable of picking one cat, they eat each other up, until only the homeliest kitten is left. The ugly kitten turns out to be the prettiest cat in the eyes of the old couple.

Millions of Cats is interested with the ambiguous nature of beauty and the relationship between beauty and happiness.

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Millions of Cats By Wanda Gag | Storytime With Sam

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Originally published: 1964
Author: Shel Silverstein
Illustrator: Shel Silverstein
Genres: Fiction

Summary and Annotation

The lives of an apple tree and a boy, who develop a relationship with one another. The tree is very "giving" and the boy evolves into a "taking" teenager, a middle-aged man, and finally an elderly man. Despite the fact that the boy ages in the story, the tree addresses the boy as "Boy" his entire life.

The goal is to demonstrate to children what happens when they are selfish. It's about the unwavering affection that most parental-type adult figures have for their children. Since they are children, kids ask for things. However, if they do not learn to realize the gifts of others as they get older, they will continue to take and take.

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Originally published: 1894
Author: Rudyard Kipling
Illustrator: John Lockwood Kipling
Genre: Fiction

Summary and Annotation

The book consists of 14 chapters or stories about a boy named Mowgli who got lost in a jungle when he was just a little boy. When mother wolf found him and accepted as one of her own calves, Mowgli was brought up and raised among animals who were taking good care of him and taught him the laws of the jungle. He was living happily and carefree, only the tiger Shere-Khan was spreading the fear among the jungle animals, scaring Mowgli as well.

In this book animals are personified, becoming intelligent as humans, caring and emotionally attached to the little boy like he was the one of their own. Mowgli is capable of talking to them, as they were given the knowledge of human speech or Mowgli somehow succeeded in learning  their way of communication.

As in the life of Mowgli, which echoes Kipling's own background, a prominent topic in the book is desertion followed by fostering. The triumph of protagonists like as Rikki-Tikki-Tavi and The White Seal over their foes, as well as Mowgli's, is mirrored in this theme.

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The Jungle Book Official Big Game Trailer

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Originally published: 1952
Author: E.B White
Illustrator: Garth Williams
Genre: Fiction

Summary and Annotation

After a little girl named Fern Arable pleads for the life of the runt of a litter of piglets, one spring morning, her father gives her the pig to nurture, and she names him Wilbur. She treats him as a pet, but a month later, no longer small, Wilbur is sold to Fern’s uncle, Homer Zuckerman. In Zuckerman’s barnyard Wilbur yearns for companionship but is snubbed by the other animals. He is befriended by a barn spider named Charlotte, whose web sits in a doorway overlooking Wilbur’s enclosure. When Wilbur discovers that he is being raised for slaughter, she promises to hatch a plan guaranteed to spare his life. Fern often sits on a stool, listening to the animals’ conversation, but over the course of the story, as she starts to mature, she begins to find other interests.

Wilbur's approaching death is the fundamental dilemma that drives Charlotte's Web's storyline. There are also minor difficulties, such as Fern's maturation and Wilbur's acceptance of life's impermanence. When Wilbur learns that he is about to be butchered, the other animals band together to try to save him.

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Charlotte's Web by E.B. White (Book Summary) - Minute Book Report

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This is a quick book summary of Charlotte's Web by E.B. White. This channel discusses and reviews books, novels, and short stories through drawing...poorly. Transcript: This is a story about a pig named Wilbur who is born on the Arable farm.

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Originally published: 1945
Author: Lois Lenski
Illustrator: Lois Lenski
Genre: Fiction

Summary and Annotation

Strawberries—big, ripe, and juicy. Ten-year-old Birdie Boyer can hardly wait to start picking them. But her family has just moved to the Florida backwoods, and they haven't even begun their planting. "Don't count your biddies 'fore they're hatched, gal young un!" her father tells her.

Making the new farm prosper is not easy. There is heat to suffer through, and droughts, and cold snaps. And, perhaps most worrisome of all for the Boyers, there are rowdy neighbors, just itching to start a feud. The land was theirs, but so were its hardships.

Teachers, grandparents, and homeschooling families continue to reach for Lois Lenski's Strawberry Girl. As one fan commented, a reason for its continued success is that it's "a touching, realistic tale of the power of neighborly love and kindness.

This is a novel full of adventure, humor, and the thrills of everyday living in this fascinating section of the United States. Lois Lenski has a knack for capturing the flavor and drama of life in a far-flung part of the United States.

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Originally published: 1867
Author: Mark Twain
Genre: Humor

Summary and Annotation

If at any time you find it necessary to correct your
brother, do not correct him with mud—never, on any account, throw mud at him, because it will spoil his clothes. It is better to scald him a little, for then you obtain desired results. If your mother tells you to do a thing, it is wrong to reply that you won’t. It is better and more becoming to intimate that you will do as she bids you, and then afterward act quietly in the matter according to the dictates of your best judgment.

The story provides six topics, including selectively obeying parents, respecting superiors, going to bed and rising early, lying, handling firearms, reading good books, and remaining sexually pure.