Festivals Books

Once again, Debra Frasier has combined a vibrant portrayal of a child's sense of magical possibility with useful and insightful lessons about our amazing world. Like On the Day You Were Born, this book reminds young readers that their lives are part of the grand and important movements of the universe. And like Miss Alaineus, this book teaches us all that fun and insight are often a matter of how you see things. Hats off to Debra Frasier for another wonderful book.

A Birthday Cake Is No Ordinary Cake is a cake recipe, science lesson, appealing children's book, and perfect birthday gift all rolled into one. I really enjoyed it. Debra Frasier's colorful illustrations seem to jump right off the page. The book unfolds as an interactive cake recipe listing all the things that you will need to collect in one year to make a birthday cake, including the first sunrise after your birthday and continuing through an entire year of natural phenomenon. Children learn about the seasons and about the earth's rotation around the sun while celebrating all the fun of birthdays and cakes. Kids love this book, and best of all it's perfect for bringing to birthday parties.

I believe that all the Biscuit books are written very well and I know that my child loves them all. This book shows how the little girl and her dog Biscuit prepare for Mother's Day. It is written very well and I would recommend it to anyone with small children.

Another Biscuit holiday flap book that gets right to the point. This time it is Mother's Day and The-Girl-In-Purple-Sneakers and Biscuit are going to make it a special day for Mom and show how much they care. Gifts are made, Mom seeps in, and a special breakfast in bed are just the beginning of Mom's special day.

The book is packed with the typically adorable artwork that has been a backbone to the Biscuit series. The end flaps reveal what Biscuit is up to in his usual puppyish ways. All in all another good holiday book that is attractive and fun to read.

"Blue's Big Parade" is Blue's Clues book #17, once again featuring a new story style in which Blue and the other dog characters can talk. The new format seems to be working well.

It's the start of summer and Blue comes up with the idea of a summer celebration parade. They have one week to prepare and Tickety Tock is around to help keep track of the time. Kids will learn about time management and preparation as the characters ready instruments, parade floats, a song routine and more.

The pages are for the most part fully colored and the cover art is particularly great. This is a fun book for summer or any time of the year.

Summer has arrived and Blue, Joe, Magenta, Periwinkle, Green Puppy, and Purple Kangaroo are all excited about the town's upcoming summer celebration.

Blue gets the idea that they could celebrate by having their very own parade. Tickety Tock, Mr. Salt, Mrs. Pepper and the rest bring out a calendar to count the days until the celebration. They also use the calendar to decide which projects they need to accomplish before the parade, which is 5 days away. These include making hats, using wagons to make floats, and practicing their marching.

This delightful story is #17 in the Blue's Clue series published by Simon Spotlight/Nick Jr. By using the calendar, children can learn the days of the week, planning for future events, and breaking up large projects into manageable tasks.

Blue's Big Parade is an extra-colorful book which ends with a spectacular fireworks display. My son enjoys it very much, and I feel it's a wonderful book to celebrate summer, teamwork, planning, and accomplishing taks.

My daughter, who is now 10, used to LOVE this book. I would have to read it over and over. My son, who is now 6, also loves this book. We know this book pretty much by heart, but they love looking at the pictures. They think the mice are so cute! It is still one of our favorites!

A gift from my sister to my twins... from 9 months old they listened to every word - soon they knew it by heart! They learned how to "guess" and how to "tease" from this book. It's still a favorite, and they are almost 3.

This box set lists as "both Snowmen books." Not very helpful. The two books enclosed are Snowmen at Night, and Snowmen at Christmas. So don't make the mistake of ordering Snowmen At Christmas through amazon's "deal" portion of this webpage!

Anyhoo, these two books are WONDERFUL. The artwork is absolutely enthralling, and the rhyming stories are adorable. It tells the story of what snowmen do, after you go to bed, and after you go to bed at Christmas. The paintings are stunning, and include Mark Buehner's signature "hidden figures," ie, there are Santas, bunnies, and dinosaurs hidden in many of the paintings. This adds a fun dimension to an already wonderful set of books.

I highly recommend these two books, because they will captivate your child, and you will love to read such beautiful books to your child.

Truly a treasure.

I'm glad I read the review because I was hoping that it was a new "snowman book". I already have and absolutely love "snowmen at night" & "Christmas".i wish they'd write more! the illustrations are so beautiful.

Grace Lin's BRINGING IN THE NEW YEAR tells of a Chinese family who sweeps out the old year and brings spring-happiness poems, lanterns and celebrations in for the New Year. Lively color drawings bring to life the customs of one family's Chinese New Year celebrations.

This is a beautiful book with colorful illustrations. The text is simple and makes this a quick, informative story. Being a teacher, I could use this story in a preschool class or with older children. Grace Lin is a very gifted illustrator. My daughter and I enjoy all of her books.

My grandson wants this book read to him every time he visits my home. It is a charming little story!

A wonderful, fun and simple to read story for my 3 year old son. He can't wait to go to a pumpkin patch to pick his own "bumpy little pumpkin".

My 22 month old daughter loves this book! I read every book before reading it to my child - some books are not age appropriate, and others are simply not very well written. My daughter loves this book and she insists we read it every day - the illustration is great, the rhyming poem is cute, and the book is simply fun.

My son is totally facinated with Elmo, so he instantly took to this book. Don't let the cover fool you, however. This book includes most of the Sesame Street characters, including, in part, Bert, Ernie, Cookie Monster and Grover. There were also two characters included who I am not as familiar with- Hoots and Prarie Dawn. The characters keep finding bunny rabbits all over the place, and they don't know the source of the bunnies. At the end, Big Bird tells his friends his bunnies have run away, and then he realizes that his friends have found his bunnies. The last two pages are great and show all of the characters in the book at one time.

This is a very quick book, and you can read it to your little one in less than 2 minutes.

This is my 14 month old son's favorite book and has been for months. He loves to push the button to make the kissing sound. We read this book at least once every day and the button still works! Every page has something to feel. The first page has a curtain to pull up and another page has a little blankie. We have many many books and he always chooses his Pat the Bunny book. I highly recommend it.

My one year old daughter loves this book!
It is very sweet story with cute interactive kissing button!

My only regret about this book is that I found it tucked away in a young reader's section--after this year's Chanukah celebrations had ended.

It's a lovely story for mid-level young readers who love adventure and enjoy learning Jewish stories.

This one is the classic story of Judah Maccabees's victory, against all odds, in the ancient battle for Jerusalem and the First Temple, against the Greek conquerors lead by Antiochus.

What makes this rendition so special is the way in which two modern Israeli children, living within 12 miles of Modi'in, are transported back through the centuries, and find themselves participating in the battle with Judah Maccabee, saving lives, defending their faith, and learning first hand the importance of fighting for religious freedom, and their people's survival.

I bought the book for a mid-level reader, of course, but found myself tearing through the story one night. It's pure magic, and brings to life the glow of Chanukah's miracles and the story of the Festival of Lights.

--Alyssa A. Lappen

This book would be fun to read any time of the year...but especially in the weeks before Chanukah. It is funny and exciting but also serious in some parts. A boy and a girl travel back in time to the time of the Maccabees. They are spies for Judah Maccabee. The kids learn a lot about the true meaning of Chanukah. There are battles and soldiers on elephants, friends and enemies, poisoness snakes and slave traders, suprises and miracles, angels and secret hiding places. The whole story of Chanukah is told in an exciting way. Our mom liked it because God is mentioned often...Judah prays and the kids talk about Torah and God and why it was so important to get back the Temple. Our Mom read two chapters every day to us ... but the words were easy enough that I could have read it by myself ....