Saturday, February 12, 2011

Recommended for Caldecott Award Readers

Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears by Vera Aardema

This is another book that I'm sort of surprised took me so long to recommend. I remember this book from when I was a kid - and now I'm 27! It's pretty impressive when a book can stay with you for that long. Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears is a tale of exactly that. It's a West African tale explaining why mosquitoes do that annoying buzzing in your ear. It all starts off with a story the mosquito tries to tell the iguana and sets off a chain reaction of events that ends with Mother Owl refusing to wake up the sun. It will take King Lion to sort all this out. I think these tales are fun (I'm also a fan of the story of how the zebra got his stripes) and kids will like the bright colors of the illustrations, which is exactly what helped it land the Caldecott award in 1976. Probably not a story kids have heard before - so why not try something different?


Notes from the playlist: "Tourniquet" by Evanescence

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