Scaredy Squirrel is BACK! - and he's as scared as ever...

Imagine my thrill when walking past a cool little bookstore on Broadway near Chicago's Lincoln Park, when I look in the window and see "Scaredy Squirrel Has a Birthday Party." Daughter #1 and I proceeded into said bookstore to check it out. You may remember my love for Melanie Watts' Scaredy books. And this being a story about Scaredy attempting to throw himself a birthday party, the subject is near and dear to me. We sat on the provided red and blue kids chairs in the kids section and read a great kids book.

Scaredy attempts a birthday party where nothing can go wrong because no fun can be had. You see, he is scared of EVERYTHING. Eventually, the party is a huge success because all of Scaredy's plans fail and all his dog friends have a great time.

Also, the book is full of Scaredy's great check lists, plans and maps. IMPORTANT for parents interested in helping kids with reading - the push currently is for complex text structure applied to non-fiction. You will learn more about this from your kid's school as states adopt the Common Core State Standards. Anywho, when reading non-fiction kids will encounter "text features" and "domain specific vocabulary." Even though Scaredy Squirrel books are works of fiction, Watts incorporates a lot of great, interesting text features with the list, maps, and plans. Good stuff for beginning readers.

Book Review - New Classics and Big ideas

Does this ever happen to you?

You are so taken with a fine book or movie or CD or idea that you want and need to share it with everybody you love. You want to stock up on this book or CD and save it for birthdays or  Christmas. You want everybody to be as excited about it as you are.

Jon J Muth is a writer and illustrator who brings ancient teachings, stories and simple truths to children's books in a way that makes me want to purchase every copy in Barnes and Noble so that I can give them as gifts.

I have an affinity for books that contain beautiful ideas that are accessible to kids and that are also beautiful to look at. Zen Shorts and The Three Questions are exactly the type of books you should keep to share - with your kids, with your grandkids, with your nieces and nephews. Keep them up on a bookshelf and bring them down for special times.


Zen Shorts is a Caldecott Honor Book that introduces us to Stillwater, a giant panda who moves into the neightborhood and befriends siblings Addy, Michael and Karl. In turn each of the kids visits with Stillwater and shares there own concerns, worries, fears or frustrations. With each child Stillwater shares a story (I love a-story-within-a-story) that illustrates the child's dilemma from a different perspective and provides a short meditation on anger, luck, and giving. Stillwater's stories come from Zen Buddhist and Taoist tradition, but Muth makes them accessible to kids.

 The Three Questions is Muth's take on a Leo Tolstoy's short story of the same name.

"When is the best time to do things?"
"Who is the most important one?"
"What is the right thing to do?"

In Muth's version young Nikolai is searching for answers to these questions (and not getting answers that seem right for him) when he meets the wise turtle Leo digging in his garden. In turn Nikolai helps dig the garden, saves a panda and then her baby from harm. In doing so he has the answers to The Three Questions.

Muth combines his study of Zen, Leo Tolstoy, and his belief that learning through stories can help us all to create books for kids that are important.

And there is a reason that Zen Shorts is a Caldecott Honor Book. His artwork is sublime. I happen to love watercolor anyway, but the skill and beauty of these books is incredible. I want to frame every page and put them on the wall.

Get these books!

How to Change the World

I don't think there are many topics beyond the realm of children. It is never too early to start teaching kids how they can make a positive change in the world. Enter Weezer.

Weezer Changes the World is a great picture book by David McPhail that takes an every day dog who does every day dog things in his every day dog life and through a chance lightning strike (call it epiphany) becomes more interested in the human aspect of the world - like math, gravity, science, the arts, philanthropy, and of course world peace.

Weezer can't do it all by himself and eventually has to go back to being the simple dog who tinkles on the carpet. But Weezer has already changed the world and given everybody the right idea about making the world a better place.

This is a simple but profound little book that I want on the book shelf all the time to keep reminding our kids that they shape their world.



Weezer Changes the World 
Reading level: Ages 4-8 
Hardcover: 40 pages 
Publisher: Beach Lane Books; 1 edition (December 1, 2009) 
Language: English 
ISBN-10: 1416990003 
ISBN-13: 978-1416990000

Germphobic, compulsive, hypochondriac children have heros too!

Scaredy Squirrel
written and illustrated by Melanie Watt


The classics are great. Who can’t get into a little Dr. Suess, Brothers Grimm and Mother Goose (each of which are filled with much craziness in their own right). But being a member of Generation X, I find myself looking for the quirky, the fresh, the out-of-the-ordinary, the non-typical in all things. It’s why I rejoiced when bands from my college days like They Might Be Giants and Bare Naked Ladies started making music for kids. They took the genre to knew place and added wit.

This why the books by Canadian author and illustrator Melanie Watt are so fun – particularly her Scaredy Squirrel series which features a compulsive, germ phobic, arachnophobic, anal-retentive, hypochondriac  squirrel who spends all day and night in his tree on the look-out for anything that might harm him. Readers are even warned on opening the book to wash their hands carefully,

Did I mention that Scaredy is anal-retentive? He is the consummate planner and has complete steps and strategies to avoid harm and how to react in case of emergency. Step 1: PANIC!

He has a contingency plan for everything, but when a killer bee flies into his safe area he is so startled that he falls from his safe tree only to discover that he can safely glide to the ground. Once safely on Terra firma, Scaredy realizes that he is still in danger and takes the only course imaginable, he plays dead.

Not your typical book and not a typical telling. Scaredy’s situation is told through great illustrations that include diagrams, maps, daily routines and a full page of Scaredy doing nothing but faking his own death. Of course he makes it back to his tree to continue his adventures of being scared in Scaredy Squirrel Makes a Friend, Scaredy Squirrel at the Beach, Scaredy Squirrel at Night in which he shares his fears of walruses, rabbits, beavers, piranhas, Godzilla, pirates, jellyfish, lobsters, sea monsters, seagulls, falling coconuts, dragons, faeries, ghosts, bats, unicorns, and polka-dot monsters.

Of course there is nothing to be scared of. And a preposition is something you should not end a sentence with. BUT, that is really the point. There are a lot of real fears that we should take precautions against, but Scaredy goes overboard. Watt may not have had this in mind, but it’s a good lesson for kids anyway – especially if they tend toward the germ phobic and compulsive. Scaredy can be a lesson or a hero – or both.

Reading Strategies for Picture Books: Start with the pictures of course. Point and name and have children name the items on the page when they have verbal skills. This becomes really important as children see different images that are vastly different representations of an apple. How many different ways are there to draw an apple? Infinite. But kids being able to identify an apple even in abstract is an important developmental stage and gets kids ready to read.

I have to mention another Melanie Watt book too. (And I should point out that Watt first name is supposed to have a little accent mark over the “e” but I can’t figure out how to do that.)  

Have I Got a Book for You! is a rather silly, hilarious and almost pointless book in which the entire message is to convince the reader to purchase the book they are currently reading about buying the book which they are currently reading about a book they are currently reading about…..you get the idea. I think Charlie Kaufman would do the movie adaptation - starring Phillip Seymour Hoffman. If you have any sales experience - this books speaks to the Sisyphian nature of the world.

Watt is original, funny and witty. She puts a great twist on storytelling.


Scaredy Squirrel
written and illustrated by Melanie Watts 
Reading level: Ages 4-8 
Hardcover: 40 pages 
Publisher: Kids Can Press, Ltd. (February 1, 2006)
ISBN-10: 1553379594 
ISBN-13: 978-1553379591