Abrams Appleseed | Daddy Mojo

Ride, Roll, Run Time For Fun!, big, geometric kids playing in the city

We recently got back from a weekend trip to the city. It felt odd simply calling it, ‘the city’ because there are thousands of cities and to give it such a distinctive article makes it seem like it’s special simply by its size. These are some of the random things that puddle through my mind. Ride, Roll, Run-Time for Fun! is a picture book that features bold, geometric shapes and a group of kids playing in a big city. This is rhyming picture book fun that’s going to hammer down enjoyment to pre-k kids through kindergarten.

Ride, Roll, Run Time For Fun!, a picture book for pre-k kids on action and movement, with a potentially mixed message.

Body positivity on kids movement with happy rhyming text

The Power of Yet, picture book fun-with something to say

I spent most of the 2022 school year in a classroom where “Yet” was in large poster board letters on the wall. Then surrounding that word were several short statements encouraging students like “I can’t do that”, which led directly to that large word. The Power of Yet is a picture book by Maryann Cocca-Leffler for pre-K through second graders that primes them to the power of that simple, three-letter word.

The Power of Yet is picture book greatness that teaches young kids about positive thinking, without being preachy

Making storytime great for pre-k and K kids

What’s Up Construction Truck? melds the impossible into a board book

What’s Up Construction Truck? is a board book that flies in the face of expectations. It is a board book. It is an interactive/pop-up book to an extent. It’s the smart, buildable board book that you wish that you had when you were a kid. It truly is a great time to be alive, but it didn’t start out this way. When we first received What’s Up Construction Truck? it scared me because of its implied simplicity. I just want a board book, not a puzzle that will embarrass me in front of my 12-year-old, I thought. So, I gave the book to him and let him put it together.

What’s Up Construction Truck? is from the pop-up genius of Matthew Reinhart, this time creating a 3-D bulldozer from the pages of a board book.

You can do this. It’s simpler than it looks and your kids will love it

Doctor Strange and The Mighty Thor Marvel Books deal in classic comfort

Board books can take on many forms in children’s literature. These are the feel good, comfort food books that crawlers will learn to love. My Mighty Marvel First Book Doctor Strange, as well as My Mighty Marvel First Book The Mighty Thor are two board books that are loaded to the gills with classic art, blazing action and thick pages for those kids to chew on….if they need to.

My Mighty Marvel First Board Book The Might Thor and Doctor Strange, classic art from Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby with board book smarts for crawlers.

Enter the Marvel comics world, young true believer

Odd Beasts proves that board books have a life past pre-K

Hello, little sponge of knowledge. Would you like some food? Board books speak to crawlers in a variety of ways. The vast majority of them are silly, building block-oriented books that teach colors, numbers, or the alphabet. It works like that in whatever language you’re learning, as a matter of fact, reading board or illustrated books, in a second language is a great way to learn vocabulary and some grammar. Odd Beasts: Meet Nature’s Weirdest Animals is a smart board book that’s meant for crawlers, aged two and up, but also goes north to those first and lower second grade students. For those of you keeping score, that’s a board book that can be interesting to young readers for five years, which is a massive spread in the Range Game on The Price is Right.

Odd Beasts: Meet Nature’s Weirdest Animals, introduces ages 2 and up to strange critters in a board book that demos through second grade.

A board book on odd Animals that demos past crawlers and into 2nd grade

Spookytale, high quality board book narrative, with an Abrams Block twist

What if you had some delicious, baked potato chips that were sold in a can? They taste the same as the ones you’re used to eating, but they’re a little bit larger, the packaging is different and their shape is just a bit round, instead of oval. Spookytale is that board book. It’s by Christopher Franceschelli and has a young elementary spooky vibe that’s complete with the fold-out, die-cut aspects that his other Abrams Appleseed books deliver. It introduces Halloween-ish elements to those young ages via thick, durable pages and a fun, engaging story that’ll get them primed for October 31.

Spookytale, a board book that feels familiar, but has a story to tell to kids aged 3-6 that is in line with the Abrams Block Book Series that those ages love.

Taking a great thing and extending it to continued other great things

Vegetables In Halloween Costumes, dress-up mirth for crawlers

Jared Chapman potty trained my children. It’s not that author/illustrator, Jared Chapman has a side hustle wandering the country training toddlers about the virtues of going to the bathroom in the toilet. Among other books, he’s the author of Vegetables In Underwear. Vegetables In Halloween Costumes takes that theme, focuses on the carrot, and lets crawlers through pre-k kids loose with the laughs.

Vegetables in Halloween Costumes has the produce Jared Chapman has made famous and gives them the chance to dress up.

This is a great halloween board book to start the crawlers out with

School Is Cool!, a Hello!Lucky joint on school for the very new

Hello! Lucky, you get me. That’s what kids who are in pre-K through middle-elementary school say to themselves as they’re reading some of their books. Sabrina and Eunice Moyle have an energy and style to their brand of Hello! Lucky books that unmistakably speaks; and sometimes yells to ages four through nine. Through their neon colors and happy, yet not too juvenile rhymes their books bring up younger readers without making older readers feel as if they’re engaging in a baby book. School Is Cool! takes that same spirit and applies it to going back to or headed out on the big yellow monster for their first time.

School Is Cool! is a Hello!Lucky book from the Moyle sister that revels in its happiness and invites readers to enjoy it too.

Resistance to being happy whilst reading this is futile