Elementary school | Page 7 of 28

Pirate & Penguin: A Hilarious Adventure for Young Readers

The sofa cushions. It was between, under or even down in that crevice on the sides of the sofa where the cushion meets the 2 x 4. It’s the area where you realize that a sofa is just a piece of furniture combining lumber, fabric and springs, but also sucks in things that you didn’t know you didn’t want to misplace. Pirate & Penguin was in our metaphorical sofa cushion, except in our case, it’s a real, physical object in the form of a bookshelf. It’s worth mentioning now, even though it’s been stuck in the sofa cushions for a year and a half, because this is the book my six or seven-year-old self would’ve gone mental over.

Pirate & Penguin is an illustrated book that satisfies all of the needs that pre-k through second grade boys didn’t know that they need.

This is the beginning of a late, but beautiful friendship

Don’t Cause Trouble is graphic novel effortless fun for elementary boys

Elementary school-aged boys don’t want to not read. I realize that’s a horrible sentence, but stay with me. Reluctant readers (mainly boys) in third through fifth grade know that they need to read, but don’t because they’re shy, distracted by technology, unable to, or simply read slower than other students. In school that second one doesn’t carry any weight because those ages aren’t going to school with a phone or an ironically named smart watch. The reluctant reader in elementary school has many great options for things that they can read on their schedule. These are the books that they need to bring with them for reading time and is something that they should want to read. Don’t Cause Trouble is a graphic novel like this.

Don’t Cause Trouble is a graphic novel that speaks to grades four through seven in a direct, funny and realistic way that those ages can smell.

This speaks to boys aged 8-12

Just One Wave: A Picture Book, lazy summer dreams on beach anticipation

Just One Wave: A Picture Book is the illustrated book result of a child’s frustration, and creativity about going to the beach when there aren’t any waves. Kids want big waves, but they’re rightly scared of them. However, if the waves are too small, or non-existent, then it can act as fuel for a child to act out or complain. This is especially true for those who go to the beach at a lake. Just One Wave’s author is Travis Jonke who lives near Lake Michigan, and it’s a logical leap to imagine that the body of water in this book is in his backyard.

Just One Wave: A Picture Book lives in the soul of a four-year-old kid and their joys, frustration and happiness in a day at the beach.

Kids will relate. Adults will remember.

Why Kids Will Love The Mighty Bite: Hog-Rocket Ruckus

I love Phineas & Ferb. I’m convinced that a generation of scientists will reference it as a main inspiration for their endeavors and inventions. I also enjoy Ren & Stimpy. What if the former had a tiny sprinkle of the rudeness and over-the-top insanity of the latter? The Mighty Bite: Hog-Rocket Ruckus is the graphic novel representation of this idea. It’s incredibly smart. It’s also incredibly silly. At times, it’s just a little bit rude and noisy, but never enough to make parents or librarians lower their brows. Hog-Rocket Ruckus is the second book in The Mighty Bite book series that we’ve read, and the third overall. There’s something about Hog-Rocket Ruckus that will speak to some upper-elementary and older readers.

The Mighty Bite: Hot-Rocket Ruckus is slapstick silly, but also very intelligent, in this graphic novel series that speaks to audiences via flying pigs and viral videos.

Unique, awesome, funny, entertaining for mid-elementary up

Here is a Book, lush, easy and calm for story time chill

Illustrated books are a genre whose entries have certain roles. Here is a Book has the role of calming elementary-aged students down. It’s the ASMR video students watch to make them realize that everything is ok. This is the book teachers will bring out when the class needs to chill out. The carpool line is forming. Kids are certain that they can see the front-end of their dad’s car, and the teacher is simply trying to get them to sit down. Here is a Book is the story of a book’s journey from quaint country farm with an ocean-view, to purchasing the book or reading it at school.

Here is a Book, a lush, lyrical story about the process on physically creating a book is a satisfying, chill, read aloud for young elementary.

A read aloud

Bearsuit Turtle Makes a Friend, a funny, absurd, instant classic

From the moment adults catch a glimpse of Bearsuit Turtle Makes a Friend they’ll suspect it’s a timeless illustrated book. The ‘bear’s’ mouth is black and glossy, begging for fingers and hands of any age to run across it. You are an adult, with a “real job”, decades past the enjoyment of such illustrated books, yet you just felt the book’s cover. Now you’re doing it again. The oversized, orange bear suit is stiff and is hosting an animal who is pretending to be a bear. Meanwhile, a friendly looking turtle, who is the same height as the green creature inside the bear suit, is looking at the bear with a dubious look on his face.

Bearsuit Turtle Makes a Friend melds absurd humor, turtles and bear behavior for an instant illustrated classic.

Can’t. Handle. The. Cuteness. or. awesomeness. of. this. book.

Waiting for the Dawn, gorgeous art and presentation via a fire lens

I love contrasting colors. The visual train wreck of colors that exist in negative space. It’s the canvas that’s blacker than a thousand midnights, with only the occasional blinking of some of the thousands, out of the millions, of stars and planets that you’re able to see. Waiting for the Dawn is a book that’s built for kids who think like that, but have a more Earth-centric perspective. It’s a question or thought that every elementary age kid has, and that’s what happens to the animals who live in the forest when there’s a fire?

Waiting for the Dawn is a gorgeous illustrated book that uses (mainly) duo-chromatic colors to tell the story of a fire, the forest and its rebirth.

Fire, let me stand next to your fire

All About Brains: Engaging Kids with Neurodiversity

It would be glib to talk about this book around Halloween and have a zombie doing the narrating. Granted that could certainly draw in more curious readers than the actual topic about All About Brains. It’s an illustrated book that looks at brains the way that early to upper-elementary can relate to, if they wanted to read a book about neurodivergence. Woah, easy there elementary school reader, do you mean that this is a fun book about the very broad field of neurodiverse kids? In a way, that is correct, All About Brains takes a macro look at some of the differences in that field. It starts with a young girl as she starts her day with medicine and her younger sibling asking to have some of her medicine that helps ease her ‘brain sparkles’.

All About Brains: A Book About People, an illustrated book that lives in the world of edutainment on pediatric neurodiversity. It’s more fun than the name sounds.

Educating AND entertaining