Siblings Books

i bought the book when my second child was born. When he was one I gave the book to my daughter who was 3 at the time. It was just amazing to see her face when looking at the book and seeing that she was doing the exactly the same things like the story was telling. Perfect book for first time brother or sister.

My 33 month old son is not very interested in books but for some reason this title caught my eye and I tried it with him. He loves this book. He loves the illustrations and I think it captures his heart because of the relationship between the brother and sister. We have a daughter a year old and I think he relates to the pictures of the two mice playing together. He asks me to read it at least twice at a time when we pull it out. I definitely recommend this for new big brothers or sisters.

Told from the perspective of a baby, this ode to older siblings is a great antidote for the older sibling who is feeling neglected or otherwise having difficulty adjusting to their younger sibling(s). For the younger sibling, it also reinforces the value and benefits of the attention and love provided by an older sibling(s). Here, a pre-verbal young mouse "talks" to herself about all of the things she wants to say to her sister when she learns to speak understandable sentences. Pictures show the older sister patiently, sometimes reluctantly, helping her younger sister in a number of ways while the younger one "talks" about them gratefully. This includes the older sister feeding the younger one, sharing toys and treats, entertaining and playing with her, helping her learn to walk and sing songs and protecting her. The younger sister wants to more than merely thank her sister for all these things. She also plans to apologize to her for all of the mischief and trouble the she has caused her. Again, these misadventures are shown in accompanying illustrations. Told in very sparse text set against simple, comical illustrations, the pages leave lots of blank space for resting young eyes. Recommended for all children aged 2 to 6 and highly recommended for those with younger siblings.

My mom gave my first-born this book before I had my second baby. I was nervous about the title, since you dread having your child show signs of regression when a new baby enters your family. However, this book is wonderful!! It does a great job pointing out how unhappy a child would be if they truly did become the baby again, and how great all the things are that an older child can do. My son loved it - and the way the text rhymes is a hit.

A long-time favorite in our family, and my tried-and-true second-child-shower present. My kids have all loved it and read it over and over and over.

My mom bought it for me when she was pregnant with my brother, so I was prepared for any surprise. :-)

"If I Had a Dragon" is great fun for the whole family. My sons have read it every night since we received it and laugh every time. The illustrations are top notch and I hope to see more books from the authors very soon. Highly recommended!

"If I had a Dragon" is a humorous and imaginative story that is easily understood and enjoyed by children. The vivid, colorful illustrations tell the story (perfect for the rather short attention spans of young children). The story is sweet and funny, while delivering a valuable lesson. The illustrations are expressive and full of the action and humor that young children love. The large type and few words per page are perfect for the "bedtime story" and also for the beginning reader. I loved the way a short, and sweet lesson about sibling relationships is conveyed in a humorous and yet easily understandable way. This is a terrific book that will be enjoyed by both children and the adults who read to them. As a teacher, I can imagine many "spin-off" learning activities including both character building and creative writing activities. It is the perfect set-up to introduce "if---then" concepts (predictability). Buy this book for your own children, grandchildren, your school class or the perfect gift for any child's special occasion or just because... I would recommend this book for children ages 2 to 7 or 8. Teachers target would be KG.- 1st.

I liked the text, the message and the illustrations in this one. It is in English with Hispanic text corresponding with the English, a trend of late I find quite encouraging. This is the story of a little boy to imagines what it would be like to have a dragon as a friend and someone to hang out with. The room for the imagination to run here is endless. This is a good one to not only read with your child, but if you are a teacher, it is a great class read. I have read this one to several of my classes and the kids all seem to enjoy it, which, if you think about it, is a pretty good indorsement for a kids book. Highly recommend this one.

I got this book at the library and fell in love with it. Our daughter was 3 when our son was born, and this book is perfect for her, to establish an idea of what a "good sister" is all about. The book chokes me up - I love it.

Acclaimed illustrator Mark Graham's trademark soft impressionistic oil paintings perfectly convey the narrator's struggle to express her own vibrant imagination and will from within her constraining, but comfortable, relationship with her little brother. His granted status gradually moves from that of queen's subject to maybe, sometimes, her king. Graham's work is also showcased in the popular children's books Charlie Anderson and My Father's Hands.

A sweet, imaginative story in which an older sister fantasizes about what wonderful, magical things she would do if she were queen of the world. But more than what the title would suggest, is the true message of the story- her love for her little brother, as she never forgets to include him in each and evey thought and fantasy that she creates along the way. The love, patience, and compassion that she feels for her brother shine through, even though she remains very much a little girl and typical big sister through and through. My daughter and son loved holding hands while I read to them. I didn't mind being asked to read it again and again.

I've been trying to think of unique ways to describe this graphic novel without using "visually stunning" and "breathtakingly beautiful," but I can't do it. Every panel is a work of art. The scenes where the lava meets the ocean are perfect. It's just ink on a page, but Wood captures the light, the hiss, and the heat. The graphic novel not only stands up to artistic scrutiny, but also has a gripping story.

It's a mystery, adventure that appeals to a younger audience, but I found myself engrossed. Brothers, Sumo and Duffy, are pulled out of class unexpectedly by their father to be shipped off to an island with a mysterious cousin they've never met. The whole enterprise is shady, and when the boys meet Auntie, it gets even more suspicious. The book twists and turns, so the reader is never quite sure who's good and who's bad. The boys have to do some self-reflection.

Wood's artistic portrayals of the characters captivated me. I was shaken by overweight Auntie with her greenish-pink skin and broken foot. I immediately knew something wasn't quite right with her. You can almost smell her. The boys have a pugish Hawaiian look, which made me not fall for them right away. That's a good thing. Most books aimed at younger audiences try to win the reader over to the protagonist's side with sentimentality too soon. Wood's style and scope gives the book a cinematic depth that I have rarely seen in graphic novels. One panel you're in the boat with the characters, waves pounding; the next you have a bird's eye view. It sets a fast adventure pace that young readers will love.

Overall, I'll be shocked if Into The Volcano doesn't win some awards.

Wow. Don Wood's Into the Volcano is one powerhouse of a graphic novel that you won't want to miss. In fact, as far as missing goes, I almost missed my bus stop so engrossed was I in this totally wild adventure in and under and around an erupting volcano. The word gripping is completely apt for this (here comes another trite but accurate word) roller coaster of a read. Wood grabs you on the first page as brothers Duffy and Sumo are called out of their classroom to meet their father who immediately turns them over to a cousin they have never met before, the burly Come-And-Go. Before any of us can take a breath, the two boys (who appear to be between 8 and 12 years of age) are flying off to their just-learned-about mother's home island of Kocalaha. Once there they and we are thrown into an extraordinary adventure involving questionable people (are they good or bad?), an erupting volcano, secrets (of every sort), life and death circumstances, heart-stopping moments (many of them!), and family ties. A truly brilliant work.

Look, I hate to burst your bubble but not every picture book illustrator born is necessarily cut out to write his or her own graphic novel. It's an entirely different set of muscles, after all. Melding text and image well enough to sustain a story means having a firm grasp of what does and does not work as a comic. So I know you might have gotten all excited when you heard that Don Wood had written a graphic novel, but don't be happy because a great Caldecott-winning illustrator has dipped his toe in a new format. Be happy because the man is good at it. Crazy good. He may have amused you with King Bidgood's in the Bathtub or entertained your children with his The Napping House but sister you ain't seen anything like to compare to his breathtakingly beautiful Into the Volcano. The past ten years have seen incredible strides in graphic novels for children. Into the Volcano appears to be the next logical step in the process. A full-color adventure with double crosses, death-defying escapes, and personal growth, it has no equal.

The Pugg brothers Duffy and Sumno are just sitting in their classroom in the dead of winter one moment and the next they're being whisked off to the island nation of Kocalaha. It seems their Aunt Lulu has been longing for a visit from her nephews and Duffy, for one, is thrilled. Sumo's far more reticent and likely to complain, a quality that doesn't serve a person well in Kocalaha. Soon they meet their cousin Mister Come-and-Go who disappears and reappears without a warning. They meet the beautiful Pulina, her boyfriend Kaleo, and Mango Joe, a fellow in the witness protection program. But not all is right on this beautiful island. Why won't Auntie let the boys talk to their dad on the phone? Why is everyone so gung-ho certain that the boys should go on this "expedition" that they're told is done for all the tourists but seems to mask a sinister plan. Before Duffy and Sumno know it they're dodging lava streams and spelunking in dangerous territory. But in a world where no one is what they seem, people of seeming weakness can find the strength to do what must be done.

I've been saying for a while that at some point an artist is going to create a graphic novel so visually stunning that the American Library Association will either have to start handing Caldecott Medals over to comic books or create an entirely new award for them. We've come close in the past. Mouse Guard was beautiful, but the story didn't hold up its end of the bargain. The Arrival would have been ideal, but the book wasn't originally published in America. Into the Volcano, though... now here's a title with potential. The entire enterprise is so lush you find yourself just poring over the images for long periods of time. Honestly, I could see a real push put to have this considered as the very first graphic novel worthy of a major children's award. Yet in many ways, it may come down to the way in which it was drawn. According to Scholastic's press material, Mr. Wood drew AND colored this entire enterprise on the computer. No fully computer created children's book has ever won a Caldecott, and perhaps none ever will. If there was a candidate, however, this would be it.

At the beginning I found Wood's boy heroes off-putting. With their snub noses and blunt faces, they resemble nothing so much as a pair of kids that could have jumped out of a Maurice Sendak book. Maybe We Are All in the Dumps with Jack and Guy. Wood utilizes the grotesque in a variety of ways. Sumno is a dislikeable character in a lot of ways so the book makes him the more unattractive of the two, both personally and physically. Aunt Lulu's sheer mass, weight, and injured foot will focus on her entirely one moment and then close in on her long grotesque toenails. Yet everything that I initially found off-putting in this book eventually grew on me. My resistance must have fallen apart entirely when I got to Chapter Seven: Lava in the Water. Trust me.

It takes skill to build the kind of excitement and tension Wood conjures up here. I wish I could get a sense of what comics Mr. Wood looked at before writing Into the Volcano. He's said in the past that he's a Carl Barks fan, but that doesn't explain what I see here. How did he learn to draw these action sequences? Who were his other influences? His references? Because when push comes to shove and people are fighting nature (lava, earthquakes, tides, and waves) you can't help but be sucked in. Reading Into the Volcano you have no sense that this is the man's first book of this kind. Clearly there are years and years of work in this pup. The biography in the back says five. It shows.

And take a close look at Wood's style here too. The sheer range of artistic styles and impressions... I mean this man has scope. There's a weight and a breadth to his art that we just haven't seen in graphic novels for young readers before. And just look at his ability to play with light and textures. As one of a million examples, take a close look at the sequences where the small boat is trying to navigate the rapids past streams of hot lava. Wood has managed to draw or illustrate the effect of hot orange light beneath water and steam. Now look at Aunt Lulu in all her full fleshy glory. You can practically feel her sweat and smell her moist possibly perfumed body. I mean this woman has a physical presence that seems to extend beyond the page. And look at how he changes angles in his panels. We're constantly looking at each scene from every possible viewpoint. It's as if Wood had a camera and he's using it to swing around his action, now below in the water, now up above.

I should probably talk about the story too, eh? Certainly Into the Volcano hits on all cylinders in terms of visuals but how does the writing itself stand up? Well, it's complicated. The story concerns the boys Sumo and Duffy and we watch as Duffy accepts and enjoys everything new while Sumo cowers and questions. For much of the first half Duffy is clearly the stronger, braver kid but as time goes on Sumo's suspicions appear to be well founded. Some younger kids may have a hard time figuring out who's a good guy and who's a bad guy from moment to moment. Sometimes you think you're rooting for the heroes and the next minute they appear to be villains. The plot requires a close reading, but it holds up (particularly on subsequent re-readings, which is crucial). In a way, this title is perfectly positioned to appeal to younger kids in terms of its danger and heroes and to older kids who need a complex story to bite into.

I'm the kind of person who wants to label everything. To slot every book into a neat little category, even if I didn't know the category existed before I read the book. For example, name me the greatest children's book out there about volcanoes. They exist. I know they do. But until now I've not seen or read a book that really worked factual information with a breakneck plot as seamlessly as Into the Volcano. And more to the point, I've never seen a graphic novel written with a child audience in mind that was as out-and-out beautiful and gripping as this puppy here. Read it cover to cover and you will find a title like no other that is sure to make a few waves when it hits bookstore and library shelves. A true original.

If you want an easy-to-read short story that really helps children understand the dangers of smoking, then Jimmy Boogie Learns About Smoking (second edition) is for you. Addiction can be a very difficult concept for children to grasp. This story is so simply written kids will quickly comprehend the message. And the book's colorful illustrations really reinforce the message by holding their attention. I would highly recommend it to any parent or teacher who wants to educate their little ones about an addiction to smoking.

An excellent book for families of young children.
Jimmie Boogie and the kids invite you onto the playground for fun while teaching about the dangers of smoking and addiction. The messages age given through a multicultural group of friends with happy freckled faces, sibling support and possitive peer pressure to not smoke. The delightful coloring book images keep the attention of young readers. Children learn possitive messages about staying healthy,and ways people can get help to stop smoking. A friendly book,an important message written in a sensitive, caring way.

This is a very informative and entertaing lesson for a young person. This short book is well written and easy to understand. The illustrations are colorful and story-book-like in character, while retaining the goal of the important message about smoking. A must read for all young children in groups with teachers in school or at home with their parents.

Julep O'Toole is a great book! Julep is upset because she feels she is old enough to wear make-up and make her own decisions. Her mom isn't so sure. If you are a girl or a middle child you will really relate to Julep. I love how she finally solves the problem! She writes in a journal, too, and it is really funny.

I love this book because it tells about a great friendship between a mother and daughter. Julep finds her life to be complicated with none of the new styles and a weird mom. Julep never gets her way but when she finds out what its like to not even have a mom she changes and doesn't care if her moms cool or not. It takes place in a small town by Cloud Nine in our modern day. The theme of this story is Independence because the whole time she wants her mom to give her some Independence. That's why I thought this was my favorite book.

This was my favorite book because it was a story of friendship, true friendship. Julep hated he life because she got nothing she ever wanted unlike her older sister, Harmony who was aloud to have a phone, mini skirts, and most importantly freedom. Her mom only made matters worse by embarrassing her in public, a lot. They lived in a small town next to cloud nine in a modern day period. That's a few reasons I loved this book.

Poor Katie, whenever something goes wrong at home her older brother and sister say, "Katie Did it!" and Katie gets the blame. But at the end of the book Mom gets flowers and when she asks who they are from, Katie pipes up, "Katie did it!" So in the end, she triumphs over her older sibs. Good story, made better by the excellent illustrations for your young pre-schooler.

I like all the Rookie Reader books. They are just a great way to get a little pre-schooler started on his or her reading career. And an early start is so important in today's world. Children need every advantage they can get, so if you're a parent or guardian of a precious little one, I highly recommend Rookie Reader books. The dividends they will pay in the long run will be priceless.

this book is the best. i love it. katie certainly did it all. she helped the firemen. she helped the pilot people. katie is definately my hero. buy this book.

I was the youngest of 4 children in my family and this was one of my favorite books as a child. I got this book for my daughter whom incidentally I named Katie!!

Ramona Cecil's ability to make 1835 come alive is masterful. I could almost smell the wood smoke in the air as I traveled about the town of Larkspur. With characters who experience love, hope, forgiveness and a willingness to see past their own misconceptions, I didn't want to leave this lovely story. I hope to see more by this fabulous writer. . .

If you love a great historical, then you're going to love Larkspur. Larkspur

Becky Hale watched her nine-year old cousin, Teddy, die after three days of purging and bleeding. She has despised doctors ever since. Becky has studied Dr. Samuel Thompson's method of healing with botanical medicine and believes God has sent her on a mission to protect the citizens of Larkspur by practicing herbal healing.

Ephraim Morgan is the new doctor in town and he hopes to practice medicine in Larkspur. It's a small community, so it's to be expected Ephraim and Becky meet. He's amused by her attitude toward doctors, but she wants no part of him. Their emotional collisions keep the reader entertained. Ramona Cecil has written an engaging story of love and faith in a period where the practice of healing was rather primitive. This is a new writer for me, and I'm looking forward to more of her work. If you like historical romance, you'll enjoy Larkspur.

LARKSPUR will transport you to another time and place. The writing is beautifully descriptive, allowing you to live the story with the characters. Ephraim and Becky are real people with a believable conflict--my heart ached as I waited for them to reconcile their differences and find a compromise. In reading the book, I gained knowledge of 1800's Indiana and medical practices during that time--all very skillfully woven into a storyline that held my attention from page one until the end. I highly recommend this debut novel by Ramona K. Cecil, and I eagerly anticipate her next offering.

Great book. Funny,intriguing, and sad. I really hate that this is the last one in the series. I will miss the great characters who have become almost like friends. The constant struggle between good and evil and the struggle of the bonds of family and the desire for power made this appeal to me as a reader and feel like I knew what they were feeling. Read and enjoy...

Outstanding book! This along with the other two in its trilogy has easily risen to the top of my favorite books. Amazing ending. Wonderfully ties up all lose strings. A wonderful piece of literature. Highly reccommended.

I love this series they just kept getting better with each book.I just hope Mr. Hill will start a new series like this.I loved the mix of supporters like the king werewolf and snowleopards.They were hilarious in the books.The vampire queen really got to me, so happy for her at the end.