Children's Book Reviews
A Hat For Minerva Louise
Written and Illustrated by Janet Morgan Stoeke
Dutton 1994
Minerva Louise is back! That ever-curious hen is determined not to spend the winter in the chicken coop but she finds feathers just aren't enough to keep out the cold. In her search for suitable clothing, she rejects a garden hose as a scarf (too long), gloves as winter boots (too big) and a flower pot as a hat (too heavy). At last, she finds the perfect winter attire -- a pair of mittens that she uses as a hat for her head and a hat for her tail. Suitably bemittened and snugly smug, the fashionable fowl struts off into the snowscape.
Stoeke's humorous snowflake-dotted illustrations are the perfect vehicle for this engaging winter's tale. With its bold colours, uncluttered layout and short, easy-to-read text, A Hat for Minerva Louise will be a popular selection for group as well as family storytimes. A worthy sequel to Minerva Louise (Dutton, 1986), this book is guaranteed to chase away the lost-mitten blues.
Gifts
Written by Jo Ellen Bogart
Illustrated by Barbara Reid
North Winds Press 1994
"My grandma went to Africa, said: `What would you have me bring?' `Just a baobab seed -- that's all I need, and a roar from the jungle king.'" As grandma's wanderings take her around the world -- on foot, in a jeep and in a wheelchair -- grandma presents her growing granddaughter with everything from a "sunrise kissed by the morning mist" to "an iceberg on a string." But the best gift is yet to come. On the last page, two new travellers set off on their own quest: her grown-up granddaughter and brand new baby.Gifts is a verbal as well as visual romp around the world. Four- to seven-year-olds will be intrigued by such wishes as "billabong goo" and "a sitar's twang and zing." As in Ten for Dinner and Sarah Saw a Blue Macaw, Jo Ellen Bogart tells her tale in rhyme with no more than 30 words to a page. Barbara Reid's plasticine creations (The New Baby Calf, Two by Two) need no introduction. From peripatetic grandmothers bestriding the globe, to Mayan pyramids and Indian bazaars, her illustrations will send everyone, if not around the world, at least to the nearest play dough pots to create their own "plasti-scene." A great gift for home or school!
Winner of the 1995 Amelia Howard Gibbons Award, given by the Canadian Association of Children's Librarians to the best illustrated Canadian book published for children.
Marina Lamont is a librarian in the Children's Department of the Ottawa Public Library.
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This article first appeared in Interaction published by the Canadian Child Care Federation, Spring 1996. |
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