Please allow my lovely assistant Ivy to show you one of her (and my) new favorite children’s books.

Here you see her posing with the cover of the book.

It’s a pretty cover, after all it is a Caldecott Honor book.  You’ll know when you see it at your library because it’ll be the one with the panda with the red umbrella on the cover.

Here you see Ivy showing off more of the illustrations. Wonderful, beautiful, some of my very favorite ever, illustrations.

In addition to the gorgeous watercolor ink paintings (have I mentioned that I really like them?) the book has three “zen shorts” within the main story.  According to the author’s note at the back, ” “Zen shorts” are short meditations – ideas to puzzle over – tools which hone our ability to act with intuition. They have no goal, but they often challenge us to reexamine our habits, desires, concepts and fears. ”

It sounds all scary and woo woo and heavy but I promise it’s not.  It’s just wonderful.

Would I recommend it? Yes, and so would Ivy.

Did you know that Ivy loves horses?

She does.  Really, really loves them.

Sometime last winter her Grandma Mary happened to say, “Ivy, what would you do if Santa brought you a horse?”

Bad idea Grandma Mary, bad idea.

After a few weeks when it became obvious that Ivy was convinced Santa was bringing her a horse I called up my Mom and yelled at her.

In effort to fix the situation she told Ivy that winter isn’t a very good time to get a horse. Ivy accepted this explanation and our conversations turned to, “…when it’s spring and I get my horse…” which was a problem, but I was hoping she would forget.

Of course she did not forget.

We still don’t have a horse and Ivy still wants one, so when the librarian showed her this book at the library I must have got a bit of a wide eyed panicked look because she quickly assured me it would be perfect.

The girl in the story wants a horse for her birthday,

instead she gets a bicycle.

The bike turns out to be a great pretend horse for the “cowgirl,” the last line says: “Yes, sir, I’m a cowgirl from head to toe, and all a cowgirl really needs is a horse…

…and I do have that.”

It did seem perfect for the little girl who really wants a horse but isn’t getting one even though, as she has pointed out, it is spring now.

Ivy listened to the book.  When we finished she pointed at the last page and said “But Mom, that’s not a horse that’s a bike.”

So much for that idea.

Would I recommend it? Yes, while it did nothing to temper Ivy’s horses wishes we did read it approximately 16 million times and she only pointed out the bike/horse discrepancy 14 million. I’m calling it progress.

We are once a week library regulars, we know the librarians, they know us and 95 percent of all children’s books are returned the next week. Even good books are hard to read every day multiple times for more than a week, but Duck Soup was an exception.

It’s a funny book, best read with a bit of flair (we did lots of yelling) and  guaranteed to be kept from the library longer than usual without being lost under the couch!

Would I recommend it? Yes, we’ve also had Duck at the Door and enjoyed that one as well, but this one is better!

Scieszka and Smith have written many other classic children’s books( maybe not, but they should be) such as The True Story of the Three Little Pigs and The Stinky Cheese Man.

I also hear that these two have a fairly well known book called Math Curse. But because the word “math” is in the title I have never touched it.

Science Verse now that’s a whole different ball game.

A funny ball game.

Here is a little excerpt:

Mary Had A…
Mary had a little worm.
She thought it was a chigger.
But everything that Mary ate,
only made it bigger.

It came with her to school one day,
And gave the kids a fright,
Especially when the teacher said,
“Now that’s a parasite.”

Would I recommend it? Of course! It has parasites, water cycles, states of matter and black holes all set to vaguely familiar rhymes and poems.