Picture Book Month - Day 23

A new favorite author is Michelle Knudson, author of over 40 books for children.  Two of her picture books are favorites of mine.

Library Lion is a book that I have read aloud to children in grades kindergarten through 3rd on school visits.  Of course the theme of the book caught my eye immediately!  It is a wonderful story about a lion who comes into a library and is welcomed, as long as he follows the rules.  He joins the children for story times and becomes a favorite of the head librarian, Miss Merriweather, as he helps out around the library - "He dusted the encyclopedias.  he licked envelopes.  he let small children stand on his back to reach books on the highest shelves.  Then he curled up in the story corner to wait for story hour to begin."  The children love to help me with the lion's very loud roar - it's so fun to be loud in the library isn't it?  From the first class I read this to, I knew it was a hit.  The illustrations are beautiful and the story really holds the children's attention - imagine a lion in our library!  It so happens that I have a ceramic lion on a bookshelf in the chidlren's room that looks a lot like the lion in the book.  After reading the book aloud, I will tell the students that they should visit the library and see if they can find our "library lion."  They love this!

I was very excited when Argus was published -I have found another wonderful read aloud for older children.  In this story, Mrs. Henshaw's class are hatching chicks for a science project.  Sally notices that her egg looks different, but is told not to worry.  When the egg hatches, we meet  her chick, Argus: "It was green. And scaly. And it had big yellow eyes."  It seems that Argus is not a chick, but a dragon.  Sally doesn't like having a dragon - she wants a chick like all of the others.  But when Argus getrs lost, Sally realizes that she loves this unique "chick".  A wondeful story about being different and being proud of what you are!  It has been another hit with the older children.

Check out these 2 wonderful books by Michelle Knudson and like me, you'll be awaitng her next!