Big Bad Bunny, by Franny Billingsley

This delightful story for very young children combines a scary story with the reassurance that mama will always be there. The story begins with a horrible bunny monster roaming the countryside. When mama mouse discovers that her youngest child is missing at bedtime, she combs the land until she finds her baby pretending to be the Big Bad Bunny. The baby declares that she isn't a baby anymore and demands some respects, but is very happy to go home with mama to her safe bed. The reader has to go back to the beginning illustrations to see if the clues are there, to realize that the Big Bad Bunny was wearing a costume. This will be a good one for lap reading or pre-school storytime. Children will want to "help" with the bunny's shouts after the first reading.

A Kitten Tale, by Eric Rohmann

Four kittens are waiting for their first snow through the other seasons. Three of them are timid, but the fourth kitten is excited and can't wait to see snow for the first time. The artwork is very simple, showing the fourth kitten always trying new things, while the others just sit back and watch. This book if for very young children who also may be afraid of new things.

Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman by Marc Tyler Nobleman; Illustrated by Ross MacDonald

When you read this book, I believe you will know just the hands into which you will put this story. It tells the tale of the two dweebish outcasts – Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster – whose fascination with pulp fiction and comic strips helped them escape from their Depression era teenage lives of unheated homes and missing parents. The two used their talents – Jerry’s imagination & writing and Joe’s imagination & drawing – to create a character that helped others through the end of the Great Depression, through a world war and continues to offer entertainment and escape for people today.

There is a long note at the end which offers facts about the legal battles between Siegel, Shuster and DC Comics, a bibliography at the end and a note that all dialogue between the two came from interviews.

The illustrations by Ross MacDonald are fabulous – done in the style of the era and genre.

As Good as Anybody: Martin Luther King, Jr. and Abraham Joshua Heschel’s Amazing March Toward Freedom by Richard Michelson; illustrated by Raul Colón

There are good read aloud picture books about the American Civil Rights movement and good read aloud picture books about the Holocaust, but this is the first title that I’ve seen that draws a simple but effective comparison between the two events for children.

A two part narrative first tells the story of King’s childhood experience with discrimination and then adulthood determination to challenge it, ending with his call for “…all God’s children” to join the movement. The story then moves to Herschel’s childhood in Europe and experience in Hitler’s Germany and Poland, his move to America and his answering of King’s call. The two marched together from Selma to Montgomery in 1965 and were apparently admirers of each other.

There is also a good lesson on self-esteem to be learned in this title - both men were raised by strong, loving fathers who instilled their sons with self-esteem. I really like the way the men's lives were shown to parallel - one father tells a son to look up instead of down when he walks, another tells his son to walk like a prince, not a peasant. Both end up following in their father's footsteps - King becomes a preacher like his father, Heschel a rabbi like his father.

A short note at the end tells of the events after the march, to King’s assassination and Heschel’s death a few years later. Raul Colón’s illustrations during the first half are warm & earth-toned, the second half cool & blue-toned – the illustrator is quoted in a book review as saying he did so to evoke the old blue-toned black & white newsreels from World War II.

Recommended for grades 2 - 5