Childrens books

(I intentionally left the apostrophe out of ''Children's'', in this post's title.)

Maybe it's because I don't have a lot of time to read, or maybe it's because I like books that get to the point -- butI like children's books.

Here are a few that I recommend: I picked them up at our last two visits to the local library.

• The Squirrel Wife; by Philippa Pearce; 1971, 2007; an original fairy tale; guy lives w/ mean older brother, helps the magic people of the woods, granted a wife who used to be a squirrel.
• Tickety Tock; by Jason Robert Brown; 2008; a tailor is raised to be always busy, which means that he never gets around to making a special dress for a special young woman of his young man days; finally, as an old man, the clock gives him a reprieve, and a chance to make that dress.
• A Young Man’s Dance; by Laurie Lazzaro Knowlton; 2006; a young boy visits his grandmother who has Alzheimer’s, and remembers how she used to dance around the room with him and tell him how “a young man needs to know how to dance if he wants to get a girl”.
• Me, All Alone, at the End of the World; by M. T. Anderson; 2005, 2007; a boy is quite content to live by himself and dig for fossils, etc., until his area gets turned into a resort.
• Finding Home; by Gary Crew; 2009; a boy, who loves books and live out on a farm loves the tree with all the cockatoos, but his parents want to cut it down because they have to plow around it.
• The Princess who Had No Kingdom, by Ursula Jones, 2009; AU publisher; princess w/out kingdom ends up w/ jester; charming story.
• Miss Little’s gift, by Douglas Wood, 2009; 2nd grade teacher’s perseverance teaches boy with ADHD how to read.

--GG