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Charlotte’s Web is is one of the best-selling children’s books of all time. It is about a barnyard pig named Wilbur that can talk, a barn spider named Charlotte that can write, and a young girl named Fern that stands up for her beliefs.

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Turkey Trick or Treat Written by Wendi Silvano Illustrated by Lee Harper Two Lions    8/11/2015 978-1-4778-7503-2 32 pages       Age 4—8 “Everyone loves Halloween candy—even Turkey. But how can he and his barnyard friends get any when the farmers only give it out children? With a costume, of course! As his pals …

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This edition of the Picture Book Roundup features three funny books, a hilarious cautionary tale, and a sweet bookish story to melt your heart. Enjoy!

Review copies of Night Animals by Gianna Marino (Viking, 2015) and In! Over! and On! by Ethan Long (Penguin, 2015) were provided by the publishers at my request. The Good Little Book by Kyo Maclear (Tundra, 2015), Everyone Loves Bacon by Kelly DiPucchio (Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 2015), and Ragweed's Farm Dog Handbook by Anne Vittur Kennedy (Candlewick, 2015)

If you can't access the slide show with reviews below, you can see it on RiffleBooks at this link. [https://read.rifflebooks.com/list/185319]

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These adorable muddy pig paintings were created by preschool art masters!

We learned all about pigs and then created these ‘muddy’ collage paintings. They turned out SO cute!

The post Preschool Art Muddy Pig Paintings! appeared first on Scribble Kids.

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Cock-a-Doodle-Oops!

by Lori Degman & Deborah Zemke

Creston Books   5/13//2014

978-1-93954-07-1

Age 3 to 9   36 pages

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“When the rooster is away, who is there to ring in the day? Cock-a-Doodle Oops! is the humorous tale of a community of farm animals who band together to help out a rooster who is badly in need of a vacation. How hard can it be to wake up a sleeping farmer? While the rooster is gone, the pig, cow, sheep, and other farm animals attempt to rouse Farmer McPeeper with “cock-a-doodle SQUEAL,” “cock-a-doodle MOO,” and “cock-a-doodle BAAAA,” with hilarious results.”

Opening

“Farmer McPeeper was such a deep sleeper, not even an earthquake could shake him.

A poke or a pinch wouldn’t budge him an inch, ‘cause only his rooster could wake him.”

The Story

Rooster had planned a beach vacation and the time had come to leave. He was excited to be able to sleep as late as he pleased. All the animals were worried.

“If you go, who will crow?”

Rooster had a plan. Each animal would take over one morning and waking up Farmer McPeeper. On Monday, Pig knew he could do it and with the others looking on Pig gave his best.

“Cock-a-doodle-SQUEAL!”

On Tuesday, Sheep took her turn. Wednesday Cow, with much ego, told the others to step aside as he gave a morning wake-up for Farmer McPeeper. Chicken, also sure of himself—he and Rooster were birds of a feather. She stood atop the fence and gave her very best, which wasn’t very good. Chicken blamed it on the weather. Mule filled in on Friday and Goat did his best on Saturday. Finally, Owl, with much confidence, tried to wake up Farmer McPeeper. When Rooster arrived home, all the animals gathered around urging him to wake the farmer. But something was wrong .

Review

Cock-a-Doodle Oops! had me laughing starting with page one. Poor Rooster, worn out from his morning job, he needs a vacation. For one week, Rooster is going to the beach and someone else will have to wake up Farmer McPeeper. Every page will delight kids. Those reading will enjoy all the opportunities to sound like a cow, or a mule, or a sheep. Storybook hour will explode with laughter.

The illustrations deftly show the animals cock-a-doodle-doing their hearts out for Rooster and Farmer McPeeper as the other wide-eyed animals look on. The animals take on a life of their own as they spew out their wakeup calls. From the farmhouse a short ways away, all that one can “hear” are the z’s of McPeeper’s sleep. Even his dog stays by his side, asleep, waiting for the Rooster to arouse him and his master. Just getting through the week of substitute morning calls will delight the children. But there is more. There is an unexpected twist, or rather, a double-twist!

I know young children will love Cock-a-Doodle Oops! The fresh story has a cartoon flare and the illustrator makes sure the delightful story stands out from the crowd. The ending is cartoon-comical. I want so badly to tell you the crazy twists, but no endings here.* The rhyming story is easy to read, which is good since kids are going to want Cock-a-Doodle Oops! read to them nightly. And don’t forget those voices. Your kids definitely will not. Find a home on a shelf for Cock-a-Doodle Oops! It’s a keeper.

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Find out more about Cock-a-Doodle Oops! HERE!

Laugh at the wild ending after you get a copy at Amazon—B&N—Creston Books—your neighborhood bookstore.

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Meet the author, Lori Degman at her website: http://www.loridegman.com/loridegman.com/Home.html 

Meet the illustrator, Deborah Zemke at her website:  http://www.deborahzemke.com/

Find more great books at Creston Books’ website: http://www.crestonbooks.co/ 

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COCK-A-DOODLE OOPS! Text copyright © 2014 by Lori Degman. Illustrations copyright © 2014 by Deborah Zemke. Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Creston Books, Berkeley, CA.

ALSO BY LORI DEGMAN

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– Won 2010 Cheerios New Author Contest

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ALSO BY DEBORAH ZEMKE

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Filed under: 5stars, Children's Books, Favorites, Library Donated Books, Picture Book, Poetry Tagged: children's book reviews, Creston Books, Deborah Zemke, farm animals, Lori Degman, rhyming text, Rooster, waking up

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Reading level: Ages 3-6

Add this book to your collection: The Chicken Problem by Jennifer Oxley

Video courtesy of RandomBooks: Full of humor, refreshingly original characters, and math problems that young readers will be clamoring to help solve, The Chicken Problem is an ideal addition to the home or classroom. Left-brained Peg and her right-brained pal, Cat, are enjoying a picnic on the farm with Pig. However, when someone leaves the chicken coop open and the chicks run-a-muck, it’s up to Peg and Cat to use their math skills to help solve their poultry predicament. 

Learn more at: http://www.randomhouse.com/book/212872/the-chicken-problem-by-jennifer-oxley-…

Original article: The Chicken Problem by Jennifer Oxley – Book Trailer

©2012 The Childrens Book Review. All Rights Reserved.

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BOOK OF THE DAY-June

Plan in advance for father’s day! The month of June is dedicated to books for dads and boys…don’t worry, a few dads & daughter books thrown in too! Good list for reluctant readers as well as summer vacation. Enjoy!

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BOOK OF THE DAY-May

In celebration of Mother’s day, moms, women and daughters, recommendations span ages and areas of interest. Great for summer vacation reading too!

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BOOK OF THE DAY-April

The full April list is here. Get a sneak peak at the 2nd half of the month and stock up for summer vacation too!

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WELCOME to the WORLD of BOOKS Peepsqueak!  Today is your day!  Today your book has been released for kids of all ages to see!

Harper Collins has been a wonderful partner in the production of Peepsqueak’s first book. I am including links to Peepsqueak’s page at Harper Collins in this blog post.  There are fun activities for the kids, and an awesome trailer!  I hope you all enjoy the new “Peepsqueak” book. I must say, he inspires me to always keep MOVING!!!

http://www.harpercollinschildrens.com/books/Peepsqueak-Leslie-Ann-Clark/?isbn13=9780062078018&tctid=100

http://www.harpercollinschildrens.com/books/Peepsqueak-Leslie-Ann-Clark/?isbn13=9780062078018&tctid=100

Filed under: Peepsqueak!

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Baby anything is cuter than its adult version. A blanket statement, I know, but I’m really hard-pressed to think of an exception. Kittens, puppies, tadpoles, lambs--all more precious than the bigger model. Even double chins, chubby thighs, sparse hair and drool are adorable if the person sporting them is still what my grandparents would call knee-high to a grasshopper. Almost every creature seems to have a tender spot for new ones. This is probably nature’s way of keeping often annoying, frustratingly dependent beings from being eaten, I’ll wager. Baby things particularly register with me. Perhaps it’s from being a big sister, or growing up in a religious tradition where women are assigned value based exclusively on motherhood, or maybe even a natural immaturity, but whatever caused it did a bang-up job of making an impression. One of the most enduring pictures in my head of a cute baby thing is an early illustration in the paperback version of Charlotte’s Web where Fern is bottle-feeding a newborn, newly-rescued Wilbur and gazing at him adoringly. How could you not save such a ridiculously darling baby thing? I doubt her zeal would have been as…um…zealous if he had been a full-grown, tusk-wielding boar, but tiny piglet Wilbur is another story. In the Little Golden Book Classic Baby Farm Animals, each youngster is shown at its most endearing. I’m not much of an outdoor girl, but these illustrations make me want to at least visit a farm. Someday. If we don’t stay too long.

http://www.amazon.com/Baby-Animals-Little-Golden-Classic/dp/0307021750

http://www.randomhouse.com/golden/lgb/timeline.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garth_Williams

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In my first year of college at Cal State Los Angeles, some kitchen mishap made our dorm apartment reek. As we opened the windows to get rid of the stench, I sputtered something about the smell being worse than a skunk. One of my roommates, a born and bred Angeleno, gasped back that she wouldn’t know because she had never smelled a skunk. Even having been metropolitan-born myself, I could not believe such a thing. Never smelled a skunk? Ever? To what do you compare all bad smells (other than Long Beach)? And then it got more bizarre: she’d never seen a cow either. My mind still reels all these years later. This young woman had reached pre-med student adulthood but had never been to a petting zoo, for heaven’s sake? How is this possible? My kids have been very fortunate that they have always had a local working farm and pumpkin patch to visit where they experience the animals, from newborn to retired, up close and personal. The farm shut down as a public entity this year, but I have twenty years worth of petting, feeding, and hay riding pictures as proof that I at least tried to broaden their suburban horizons. Annie North Bedford’s The Jolly Barnyard shows an idyllic picture of farm animals brainstorming what contributions they can make to the farmer’s birthday celebration. Maybe there’s some rich Southern California doctor that would pay for them to take their show on the road to the inner city.

http://www.amazon.com/Jolly-Barnyard-Little-Golden-Book/dp/0375828427

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/585620.Annie_North_Bedford

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I painted this one with cut up sponges (except the vampire). I painted the vampire with brushes to set him apart from the rest of the class. I thought the texture would be fun, and it is, except that the painting was too small (8.5 x 11) or the sponges were too big to make it look the way I wanted it to. Still, it's something I might play around with again in the future, or use brushes to try to re-create the texture. 

Eddie was out sick the day Ms. MacDonald's class decided to dress up as farm animals for the class party. Everyone forgot to tell Eddie when he came back.

 The chicken costume is my favorite. 

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I painted this one with cut up sponges (except the vampire). I painted the vampire with brushes to set him apart from the rest of the class. I thought the texture would be fun, and it is, except that the painting was too small (8.5 x 11) or the sponges were too big to make it look the way I wanted it to. Still, it’s something I might play around with again in the future, or use brushes to try to re-create the texture. 

Eddie was out sick the day Ms. MacDonald’s class decided to dress up as farm animals for the class party. Everyone forgot to tell Eddie when he came back.

 The chicken costume is my favorite.

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Great interview with Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, author of The Face on Your Plate. I’m already sold (since I had to do tons and tons of research for the new novel that’s coming out, and came to these same conclusions), but how about the rest of you? Do any of his points have an effect on [...]

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Here's another from the archives. For the babies post, this is "Pig pile".
Deb

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In the farm, all is well until the naughty fox decides to stop for a little visit... well, a little visit that translates into bullying and terrorizing the little innocent ducklings. Luckily, Janoose the Goose is there to defend the duckling and chase the fox away. Impressed by the goose's bravery, the other farm animals decide it would be great if Janoose could stay at the farm and keep order, but Janoose is supposed to fly away soon, and besides, there are no jobs available for her at the farm. But if Janoose leaves, who will defend the other animals against the fox? Will Janoose be able to stay, after all?

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Things have been so busy lately. I have three deadlines for work, and we have lots still going on with the home. I am still obsessed with fixing up our house, and while doing things I figured out some useful things, so I thought I would write about it.

Our front room has so many things in it that I've been trying to simplify the decor a bit and make it look less cluttered. I've been wanting to add fabric to the inside of the cd case but as usual I have these ideas then no idea how to do them. So I spent a long time looking for hardware to do this, or possibly small tension rods. I finally found some simple white curtain rods with little brass attachments, and believe it or not they stay on with double-sided tape which means I didn't have to drill any holes which I didn't want to do. So now there's a pretty grey floral panel of fabric inside the glass door. Here's a detail:
To improve the lighting in the room, I've added sheer curtains to the front window. The big find there was a bay window rod from Umbra. I found it at their new shop on John St. just up from Queen West. I didn't even know these existed until recently, but they're brilliant - each side telescopes so you can adjust the size, and the corners are bendy so you can match the rod to the curve of your window. This way you don't lose the extra space in a bay window and you don't have several rods and hooks cluttering up your window. The next step is to paint out that dreary wood! Then I went to IKEA and found some plain white linen lampshades for two new lamps that we have at the corners of the sofa. This extra lighting has made the room much cosier and well lit. The lampshades were from Goodwill and had terrible shades, which it turns out are harder to find replacements for than you might think. A lot of stores only sell the lamps and shades together. Also these called for an "uno" shade style which most stores d0n't have at all (uno describes the way the shades are attached to the lamp).

Anyway while I was at IKEA picking up my $8 shades I found some great fabric in the "as is" room. This inspired me to make matching cushions that go with the grey in the cd box fabric panel and the beige of our couch. All these little changes have created a nice soft colour scheme in the room: cream, white, and grey. Still working on those cushions (the right side is tan coloured linen):So the other big reason we're so busy is that we were planning to retile the bathroom - I had picked out a lovely porcelain white hexagonal 1" mosaic tile (it has that vintage look, and it's nice and fresh and light.) But what we realized when we considered how we could install them is that we have vinyl tiles with older tiles underneath, and it turns out those older tiles have asbestos in them.

Apparently this is very common, we have an old 1930s house and it seems that decades ago they put asbestos into everything - stucco ceilings, tiles, insulation. But the asbestos in tiles is not too much to worry about because it isn't something that will get into the air unless you try to sand the tiles or break them up a lot. But suffice it to say it became a job for a professional. They're planning to take out the entire old subfloor.

Anyway our tiler had a cancellation and is available to do the work starting next week which is sooner than we expected (but nice to get it done) so we've had to hop to it and clear things out. The whole kitchen area has the old tiles, as does two closets, so we decided to redo the whole area at once. This means making all that floor space clear so that the work can be done. They are even planning to move the kitchen cabinets to do the floor underneath. In a tiny home there aren't a lot of places to put things but I think we can work it out. A fridge in our living room, the stove on the deck - ahhh renovating..

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