pre-k | 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

This is a School will be a staple in elementary school libraries

This is a School is a picture book that seemingly every school librarian and teacher was talking about during the start of the school year. Starting the process of going to school can be quite scary for those young students. Going to school can also be a very exciting time. Sometimes, when the emotions of ‘scared’ and ‘excited’ combine it creates a troublesome experience for educators and parents called chaos. This is a School is a gentle, go-to picture book that introduces elementary school for those ages who are young enough to envision it as a mysterious place of wonder.

This is a School is a picture book that introduces pre-k kids and those slightly older to the wonders, fun and routines that makeup the school day.

This is the pre-k, intro to school book that you’re looking for

Roto and Roy, Helicopter Heroes is just the ticket for your emerging reader

Kids of a certain age love rhyming books. These kids are mastering the art of walking, phrasing things like a big kid, and working on not having accidents. The books are those clever, heavily illustrated ones that have the goal of making pre-k through third graders as happy as clams. Author Sherri Duskey Rinker has been accomplishing that since 2011 with her illustrated book classic, Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site. It was then turned into a juggernaut of a book series incorporating any massive vehicle that could move dirt or pick up things. Her newest series of books is Roto and Roy, the first book is Helicopter Heroes and has a can-do, positive, attitude that ages four through eight will gleefully embrace with a smile.

Roto and Roy, Helicopter Heroes, is the start of a beautiful illustrated book friendship for pre-k through early elementary action readers.

Good, action-oriented rhyming fun for ages 4-8

Puppy Bus, a wonderfully goofy book about going to school amidst change

It starts in late June for us. The department stores start to display their back-to-school supplies, I’ll jokingly call it my favorite time of year, and my kids will roll their eyes in dad joke disdain. There’s also a wave of books that come out to comfort kids as to the new schedules, expectations and routines that many of them will experience for the first time. Puppy Bus is a silly picture book that pokes fun at the changes or new routines that those younger ages will go through by imagining that the human student gets on the dog school bus.

Puppy Bus is a lighthearted, fun picture book that’s aimed at ages four through eight and shows them that change at school is OK.

Let the cute back to school books begin

Mermaid Dance, a well built interactive board book that moves and charms

Who is the king of interactive board books? It’s not like there is a fiefdom of illustrators and authors battling it out for supremacy a la Survivor. There is no tattooed ringleader with their arms outstretched asking the world whose house this is. These are interactive board books, the kind that toddlers, crawlers and pre-K kids love to paw over, pull their levers, wonder how the object on the page moves, and try their best to make the book unusable for future generations. Mermaid Dance is by the husband and wife team of Matthew Van Fleet and Mara Val Fleet. Matthew is the #1 New York Times Best Selling Author, behind Tails and Dog, as well as the Oscar the Octopus, Chomp Goes the Alligator, Dance, and more.

Mermaid Dance is an interactive board whose quality and durability is equaled only by its enjoyment by those young readers.

hardened souls who dislike all, Resistance is futile to this book

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

Quackenstein Hatches A Family, now in groovy 8 x 8 size

From the perspective of a bibliophile, Quackenstein Hatches A Family is one of those illustrated books that you’ll discover in K or early elementary classrooms that’s been read in brutal fashion. The spine is cracked in several locations. Multiple pages are dog-eared. The front cover has a dozen (or more) crayon scribbles on it. It’s also one of those books that young readers will seek out and immerse themselves in during silent read time.

Quackenstein Hatches A Family, now available in 8 x 8 format and a lower price-with the same go-to read that ages 4 and up love.

Even if you don’t have kids between 4-8 you’ll want to read it

Share Some Kindness, Bring Some Light-teaches softly and fun for 4-9

I’m a firm believer that the answers to the problems that you’re currently having are usually right in front of you. In the case of our nine-year-old, he’s reading Share Some Kindness, Bring Some Light. He’s on the tail end of the reading level for this book. The book’s key audience is pre-K through third grade. However, this is one that he can easily read for the most part. For him, it’s more about the message and the soft lesson that the book is illustrating.

Share Some Kindness, Bring Some Light is a great good-night book that shows selfless giving and how to make friends the right way.

disarmingly sweet, lovingly crafted and a great message