G&D Vintage Books

  

When it comes to illustrating picture books, the ways to do it are endless. Programs like Photoshop or 3D animation take watercolor or oil pastel images to a whole new level. While this is a new and exciting development, the people at Penguin Publishing believe in the tried and true pen and ink classic pictures and have recently introduced their line of G&D Vintage books – relaunching books from the Wonder Books line that were originally published in the 40s, 50s and 60s. Each book has a nostalgic feel but the colors and stories are fresh and exciting for today’s youngest readers. It’s a genius way to make the classics relevant and to create a bond between grandparents and grandchildren by sharing the books they loved as children with the next generation of readers.

My favorite books in this series are:

The Animals’ Vacation – Shel and Jan Haber

The zoo keeper gathers up the animals and drops them off in their natural habitats for vacation but they all head back to the zoo in time to celebrate Mrs. Kangaroo’s new baby. The best part of this book is the map on the back end pages that highlights where each animal from the story live around the world.

The Too Little Fire Engine – Jane Flory

A small toy engine has always wanted to help fight fires. When his friends at the toy shop laugh at this idea, he is more determined than ever to put out a fire. When the fire alarm goes off in town, he heads out to the heart of emergency and learns that even when you are small you can help in big ways. This book is ideal for any child who loves rescue vehicles.

The Noisy Clock Shop – Jean Horton Berg

Mr. Winky loves his clock shop and takes comfort in the constant hum of the tick-tock. When Mr. Glum points out how irritating the sound is, Mr. Winky is suddenly bothered by the noise as well and starts on a journey to find peace and quiet. He travels all over in search of the perfect spot and finds it in the heart of his clock shop. The book has great illustrations and reminds everyone that there is no place like home.

The full title list of books in this series:

The Funny Bunny Factory

The Fix It Max

The Baby Elephant

The Christmas Puppy

The Animals’ Vacation

Mr. Wishing Went Fishing

The Bingity Bangity School Bus

My ABC Book

The Noisy Clock Shop

Bunny Hopwell’s First Spring

The Too Little Fire Engine

Fall Is In The Air!

My family does not celebrate Halloween (unless you count buying the candy for 75% off the day after “celebrating”), but all the costumes and decorations are already being displayed and it is hard to avoid. In another week children’s television shows will already be airing their Halloween episodes and that is really when I start to feel the fall season in full swing (even if we are still wearing short sleeves). I am really excited about the new Halloween books out this season which range from baby to big kid which I urge you to check out and even though my kids won’t be carving pumpkins or dressing up like many of the characters in these stories, I love sharing with them the spirit of the season by making pumpkin cookies (here’s our favorite recipe: http://www.bakedbyrachel.com/soft-batch-frosted-pumpkin-cookies/http://www.bakedbyrachel.com/soft-batch-frosted-pumpkin-cookies/ ).

Disney Tails: Figaro’s Halloween Surprise

This is an adorable touch and feel book starring Minnie’s pet cat. Figaro decides to create a “spooktacular surprise” for his friend Cleo and young readers will be able to feel the crisp leaves, ripe pumpkins, soft noses and costumes. This brightly illustrated story brings the colors and spirit of the Halloween season to life.

Seven Orange Pumpkins – Stephen Savage

This Halloween counting book incorporates everyone’s favorite spooky aspects of this holiday. Count down with skeletons, pirates, owls, mummies, witches, black cats and spiders. The nighttime illustrations set the tone beautifully and with the vibrant rhyming text this is sure to be a counting book read all year round.

Mickey’s Halloween – A Lift the Flap Book

I love a lift the flap book. I especially love this particular one because it caters to children who are old enough NOT to rip the flaps. With a rhyme and look and find on every page, this book is really perfect for a three to five year old who will appreciate lifting the flaps to find their favorite characters dressed in costume, help to collect treats and spot familiar shapes and animals on every page.

Peter Rabbit – The Great Pumpkin

The lovable Peter Rabbit (from the hit television series on Nick Jr.) is celebrating Pumpkin Day with his family and friends. Obviously, he needs a giant pumpkin from Mr. McGregor’s garden and runs into trouble in the process of getting it. Luckily, Peter and his friends always come up with a plan and celebrate the holiday in style. The graphics are so vivid and the story is not specifically Halloween and can be used for any fall themed story time. The last pages have instructions to carve your own pumpkin and a certificate for completing your lantern creation.

Room on the Broom Big Activity Book – Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler

Your source for all Halloween and fall activities lies in the book. Perfect to keep any young child busy for hours with fun, this book is filled with games – dot to dot, complete the scene with stickers, matching, look and find, word searches, mazes, crosswords, and more. There are a ton of stickers, coloring and drawing opportunities and recipes to cook festive Halloween snacks (I am all about the Star Cookies). The book has an answer key in the back for each activity and is filled with seasonal characters and themes including witches, brooms, magic spells, and dragons. You can also check out the website for printable activities. You will love playing games with this witch! http://roomonthebroom.com/activities/ 

My Friend Greg

 

As I have mentioned in the past, each minute I spend at the Book Expo is carefully planned out well in advance. In 2014 I was one of the first in line to meet Lemony Snicket.  This gave me an extra 25 minutes which I did not factor into my thoroughly planned day.  I looked up and saw a signing booth with a relatively short line.  When this happens at an autograph booth you can either assume the author isn’t famous (yet) or everyone is waiting for a chance to snag a picture with a really famous actor or actress (spoiler alert: you rarely get a picture WITH them). The booth belonged to Greg Pizzoli, an author I had never heard of. That’s pretty embarrassing for a children’s librarian as he won an award for his first picture book and it is my job to know of all award winners. There were only two people on line so I hopped on and got an autograph of his book Number One Sam. A part of me wanted to autograph it for my brother since his name is Sam but instead I had it made out to my children. I totally regret not taking a picture with him, not just to enhance this blog post but because I feel like he is my friend (even if he just considers me his #1 fan). I told him I thought it was weird that I had never heard of him since he was handing me his second book but I said “I’m going to read your first book” (I didn’t until July of 2015). I DID however, share the story of Number One Sam with everyone I knew because I thought it was adorable. 

A few months later I received a copy of Tricky Vic, Pizzoli’s next picture book which is a fascinating biography of Robert Miller, the famous con man who “sold” the Eiffel Tower. I was blown away by this book. I am not one to read biographies willingly (unless it is written by Mindy Kaling or Tina Fey) but I knew this book was special. Written in typical Pizzoli fashion, he took an interesting, lesser known character in history and told a fascinating story on a level a first or second grader could easily understand. The pictures are fun and interesting and details on the pages were filled with newspaper clippings from the time which I thought made this book amazing. I started to recommend it to everyone I knew who needed Common Core nonfiction ideas and every reluctant reader I could think of. Then I decided to take a leap and email Mr. Pizzoli and let him know just how much I loved his book. When I would write fan mail back in 1996 with my friends we never heard back from them (ever). Luckily, in 2015 there are really easy ways to track down famous people and stalk them on Twitter. I was so excited when I got a response from Mr. Pizzoli himself and not a publicist.

I then received a copy of his next title, Templeton Gets His Wish and decided it would be fun to send another email to Mr. Pizzoli about how much my children loved reading the book with me. When I got another response I knew I had a good thing going and I probably shouldn’t mess it up. At this point, summer had just started and my kids were eating watermelon all the time so I finally read and shared Mr. Pizzoli’s award winning debut picture book, The Watermelon Seed with my children. I am pretty sure I should have read it to them sooner - they are obsessed with it and I read it about 10 times a day. I obviously had to share that with my friend Mr. Pizzoli via email because I have never seen my kids laugh as hard as they did when I read this book to them.

Greg Pizzoli really understands his young audience and they really appreciate him. My children have a great relationship with Pizzoli’s characters, and I don’t mind reading about crocodiles or Templeton or Sam multiple times a day. I know that when my children are a little older, they will also get to know Tricky Vic.

A Brief Summary of Greg Pizzoli’s picture books that were not detailed above:

The Watermelon Seed –

An adorable story of a crocodile who loves watermelon and accidentally swallows a seed. Yep, everyone’s biggest melon nightmare is his reality and it is the perfect summer read aloud (and all year long). My kids have been telling me things are growing in their guts for months now and it never gets old. I especially love that he only uses four colors (red, green, black and white). The simple images really capture the tone of the text and compliment it beautifully.

Number One Sam –

Sam is the number one racecar driver until he loses a race. This charming story about how Sam makes his way back to the top is extremely relatable to children learning that you don’t always have to win the game to be the best player on the team.

Templeton Gets His Wish –

Templeton is the oldest of four cats and he is tired of his parents bossing him around and his siblings taking his toys so he wishes them away. Once he realizes that sometimes you need a little guidance from your parents and it is nice to have siblings to play with he makes a new wish and with it comes a new attitude. At first I really didn’t think my two and four year old would understand this story but they did and my son even pointed out that even though sometimes you get angry at your family members you really still love them no matter what. That is pretty impressive for a four year old, but I think he really appreciated the story because of how it was presented.

Now you know all about my friendship with Greg Pizzoli. Share his stories with your little ones and then email him all about your personal experience.