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Make Way for Ducklings

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Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey, 1941.

Mr. and Mrs. Mallard are looking for a new home where they can raise their babies.  After trying several places, they finally find a place that seems right on an island in the Charles River, not far from the Public Garden where people fed them peanuts.

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Then, one day, Mr. Mallard decides to take a trip to explore the river, leaving Mrs. Mallard and their ducklings on the island.  The two of them agree to meet again with their ducklings in the Public Garden in a week.  However, the journey from the river to the garden is perilous.  Mrs. Mallard and her ducklings need the help of some friendly policemen to make it safely through the city!

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The classic children’s picture book is cute and gentle with a happy ending for the Mallard family. This book is a Caldecott Medal winner and the Official State Children’s Book of Massachusetts.

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The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).

Posted on by TracyC · 1 Comment

Ginger’s Upstairs Pet

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Ginger’s Upstairs Pet by John Ryckman, 1971.

This is a cute picture book about a little girl named Ginger and the mysterious new “pet” she’s found.  At first, her mother doesn’t believe that Ginger has a pet, but Ginger keeps running downstairs from her room to ask for more food to feed her pet.  First, it’s cake.  Then, it’s apples.  Ginger keeps coming back down stairs with more requests for food.

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Ginger’s mother thinks that Ginger is eating the food herself until Ginger comes downstairs with an especially strange request.  Then, her mother decides to see Ginger’s mysterious pet herself.

What kind of pet does Ginger have?  More importantly, how did she get it?

My Reaction and Spoilers

If you don’t want to know what pet Ginger has, don’t look at the pictures below!  I don’t mind giving spoilers, though, because this isn’t a very common book these days.  It isn’t on Internet Archive, although it’s possible to buy it on Amazon.  I won my copy in a drawing back when I was in first grade, and the school library was raffling off books they were getting rid of.

It’s a fun, light-hearted story about a strange day in the life of this family and the unusual “pet” that little Ginger temporarily acquires without even leaving her upstairs bedroom.  It’s a calm but humorous story that has enough reality to it to be believable.  Ginger’s pet and the way she found it are unusual enough that it would be unlikely that anything like this would happen to any real child, but not so far out and crazy to be completely unbelievable or too cartoony, and the situation is resolved realistically, after which Ginger and her mom have some cake themselves.  There’s nothing serious or tense about the story at all, so it would make good bedtime reading.  It’s one of the books that I think would be nice to see in print again.

The drawings are cute, and they’re interesting because they only use four colors: black, white, red, and green.

Posted on by TracyC

Clues in the Woods

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Clues in the Woods by Peggy Parish, 1968.

While Liza, Bill, and Jed are staying with their grandparents, their grandmother starts saving table scraps to give to some neighboring children who have adopted some kittens but who don’t have much money to buy food for them.  Unfortunately, someone keeps taking the scraps when the grandmother leaves them by the back door.  The grandmother even tries leaving them inside the can by the back door to make sure that no other animals can get to them, but they still disappear.  Although it doesn’t sound as exciting to the children as solving their family’s old treasure hunt was, the Roberts children decide to take on the case for the sake of the poor kittens!

The kids try sitting up and night and watching from a window, but Bill’s impatience and temper keep them from seeing what happens at the right moment and causes them to accidentally break their grandmother’s lamp.

They adopt a puppy from a neighbor and keep him on the back porch, hoping that he’ll bark if anyone trespasses out back, but the puppy suddenly disappears!  Can the children find both the scraps thief and their poor puppy, Jelly Bean?

Just when the kids think that they have everything figured out, they learn something surprising that changes everything!

This book is part of the Liza, Bill, and Jed Mysteries series.  It is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.

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Posted on by TracyC

The Eleventh Hour

The Eleventh Hour by Graeme Base, 1989.

Horace the elephant is turning eleven years old, so he’s invited all of his animal friends to his house for a costume party.  The best part will be the extraordinary feast that Horace has created himself with all kinds of cakes and pastries and other desserts.

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But, Horace refuses to let his friends eat any of the goodies until after they’ve played the party games. The guests have a lot of fun, but through all the games, they’re still thinking about that glorious feast. Only, when they finally go to eat, the food is all gone! Who could have taken it?

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.

My Reaction

This picture book is actually a puzzle book, with puzzles difficult enough to even challenge adults.  Hidden within each of the large pictures taking up the entire page of each page in the book, are secret messages that hint at the identity of the thief, who is one of the party guests.  Some of the messages are in code.  Although a young child might enjoy the pictures in the book and the rhymes of the story, it would take someone older to be able to solve the puzzles.

There is a way to find the thief without finding the hidden messages or solving any codes, but it still requires attention to detail. There is a section in the back of the book that explains everything, pointing out all the secrets that you can find in the pictures, including the names of one of the giraffes and the swan, whose names are not given in the story itself.

But, don’t skip straight to the answers.  As Base himself says at the beginning to the section of answers, “the getting of wisdom is no match for the thrill of the chase, and those who choose the longer road shall reap their reward!”

Posted on by TracyC

The 123 Zoo Mystery

eeezooThe 123 Zoo Mystery by Susan Pearson, 1991.

Ernie’s class at school, Room 123, has some fun class pets. They have a duck, a boa constrictor, a pair of hamsters, a toad, a rabbit, and a worm farm. Mrs. Lettuce, the pet rabbit, is going to have babies soon, and everyone is excited about it.

After a new girl, Hisako, joins the class, strange things begin happening. Someone lets all the pets out of their cages, and some toads appear in the classroom. Ernie wants to figure out what is going on because she’s worried that all the chaos will upset Mrs. Lettuce when she should be resting.

At first, suspicion falls on Hisako, who really likes animals, but Ernie soon realizes that there’s another explanation.  William is the one who finds the clue that Ernie needs to figure out the mystery.  Part of this story is about the lengths that someone would go to for the sake of a friend.

This book is part of the Eagle-Eye Ernie series.

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Posted on by TracyC · 1 Comment

Basil of Baker Street

BasilBakerStreetBasil of Baker Street by Eve Titus, 1958.

Some people may recognize the title character from Disney’s The Great Mouse Detective.  This is the original book that the Disney movie was based on, although the movie was very different from the original book.

The part that is the same is that Basil is a mouse who lives in the house of Sherlock Holmes at 221 B Baker Street. He and some other mice have built a little town they call Holmestead in the cellar.  Although Sherlock Holmes is unaware of Basil’s presence, Basil studies his methods and copies them, becoming “the Sherlock Holmes of the Mouse World.”  Like Sherlock Holmes, Basil also has a narrator for his stories, his best friend and fellow mouse Dr. Dawson, and they solve cases for their fellow mice in trouble.

BasilBakerStreetPicIn this book, Basil’s skills are put to the test when he is hired by his mouse neighbors to find their two missing daughters, a pair of twins named Angela and Agatha.  The twins have been kidnapped, and soon, a note arrives, saying that all the mice in Baker Street have only 48 hours to evacuate their home if they ever want to see the twins again.  A gang called The Terrible Three want to use Holmestead as their headquarters.  With only two days to solve the case, Basil and Dr. Dawson set out to find the gang and rescue the twins so that they can keep their wonderful home!

Basil of Baker Street is actually the first book in a series about Basil’s cases, and I think it’s really the best book in the series.  It is currently available online through Internet Archive.