Disclosure: I will receive copies of these books for posting. Opinions shared are mine.
When my children were small, we rotated the picture books every month or so. We kept baskets of books in the living room and dining room so that the kids always had something to read. Baskets were easier for little hands to manage; pulling a book from a bookshelf usually resulted in a bookalanche.
If your kids need new reading material, don’t miss these cute titles from Tilbury House!
Mother Earth’s Lullaby by Terry Pierce and illustrated by Carol Heyer (ISBN: 978-0884485575; Ages 4-7; 36 pages; Hardcover $17.95): When Mother Earth bids goodnight, / the world is bathed in silver light. / She says, “Goodnight, my precious ones.” / Nature’s song has just begun.
Mother Earth’s Lullaby is a gentle bedtime call to some of the world’s most endangered animals. Rhythm, rhyme, and repetition create a quiet moment for children burrowing down in their own beds for the night, imparting a sense that even the most endangered animals feel safe at this peaceful time of day. In successive spreads, a baby giant panda, yellow-footed rock wallaby, California condor, Ariel toucan, American red wolf, Sumatran tiger, polar bear, Javan rhinoceros, Vaquita dolphin, Northern spotted owl, Hawaiian goose, and Key deer are snuggled to sleep by attentive parents in their dens and nests under the moon and stars.
Brief descriptions of each animal appear in the back of the book. Color throughout.
If da Vinci Painted a Dinosaur by Amy Newbold and illustrated by Greg Newbold (ISBN: 978-0884486671; Ages 6-9; 40 pages; Hardcover $17.95): In this sequel to the tour de force children’s art-history picture book If Picasso Painted a Snowman, Amy Newbold conveys nineteen artists’ styles in a few deft words, while Greg Newbold’s chameleon-like artistry shows us Edgar Degas’ dinosaur ballerinas, Cassius Coolidge’s dinosaurs playing Go Fish, Hokusai’s dinosaurs surfing a giant wave, and dinosaurs smelling flowers in Mary Cassatt’s garden; grazing in Grandma Moses’ green valley; peeking around Diego Rivera’s lilies; tiptoeing through Baishi’s inky bamboo; and cavorting, stampeding, or hiding in canvases by Henri Matisse, Andy Warhol, Frida Kahlo, Franz Marc, Harrison Begay, Alma Thomas, Aaron Douglas, Mark Rothko, Lois Mailou Jones, Marguerite Zorach, and Edvard Munch. And, of course, striking a Mona Lisa pose for Leonardo da Vinci.
As in If Picasso Painted a Snowman, our guide for this tour is an engaging hamster who is joined in the final pages by a tiny dino artist. Thumbnail biographies of the artists identify their iconic works, completing this tour of the creative imagination. Color throughout.
Praise for If da Vinci Painted a Dinosaur:
“Nineteen reimagined images present slightly altered versions of iconic paintings by famous artists, substituting dinosaurs as subjects. Readers are treated to a microraptor standing in for the Mona Lisa, avelociraptor as Frida Kahlo, and a looming giganotosaurus prompting Edvard Munch’s The Scream. The illustrations don’t just merely replace original elements, such as offering gamboling triceratops and stegosauruses as paper cutouts by Henri Matisse. They also strive to capture the overall emotion of each original…this picture book will encourage creativity, prompt giggling,and hopefully spark gleeful recognition.”
– Booklist
“Art history with a little smile.”
– Kirkus Reviews
“In the second of a playful, conceptual series (following If Picasso Painted a Snowman), the Newbolds, a married team, reimagine classic works of art with a prehistoric twist. A friendly hamster draws with a purple crayon: “If Leonardo Da Vinci drew a dinosaur, it might look like…” The result is a mash-up of da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man and a pterodactyl. Plesiosaurs surf Katsushika Hokusai’s wave, and in Edvard Munch’s iconic painting, the figure on the bridge has a real reason to scream. The image replications capture each artist’s styles and the works’ recognizable features… [T]he creators deliver a memorable introduction to famed works of art.”
– Publishers Weekly
How Nature Works: Don’t Mess With Me: The Strange Lives of Venomous Sea Creatures by Paul Erickson and photographs by Andrew Martinez (ISBN ; Ages; pages ; Hardcover $17.95): The role of venoms in nature … and in human medicine.
Why are toxins so advantageous to their possessors as to evolve over and over again? What is it about watery environments that favors so many venomous creatures? Marine biologist Paul Erickson explores these and other questions with astounding images from Andrew Martinez and other top underwater photographers.
GREAT for teaching STEM Marine Biology.
Scorpions and brown recluse spiders are fine as far as they go, but if you want daily contact with venomous creatures, the ocean is the place to be. Blue-ringed octopi, stony corals, sea jellies, stonefish, lionfish, poison-fanged blennies, stingrays, cone snails, blind remipedes, fire urchins―you can choose your poison in the ocean. Venoms are often but not always defensive weapons. The banded sea krait, an aquatic snake, wriggles into undersea caves to prey on vicious moray eels, killing them with one of the world’s most deadly neurotoxins, which it injects through fangs that resemble hypodermic needles. The Komodo dragon, an ocean-going reptile, tears into a water buffalo with its blade-like teeth, then secretes a deadly toxin into the open wounds.
Enter to win a book prize package thanks to Tilbury! (NOTE that books received might differ from those pictured.) To enter, visit the form below. The giveaway is open to US readers ages 18+. Void where prohibited by law. Due to the timing of this post, the prize will probably not arrive by Christmas.
Tilbury House thankyou so much for sponsoring this giveaway
I would love to have The Nesting Quilt
I would like to see a giveaway for the book Before We Eat.
Thank you to Tilbury House for sponsoring this giveaway.
Tilbury House, I like your fun, cool books! Thank you!
I would be happy to see a giveaway for the Tilbury House book “Most People”! The cover is beautiful!
“One Man’s Meat” by E.B. White looks like a good read!
Their “E.B. White on Dogs” would be another great book related to a favorite author!
A Gift For Geta looks like a great book to potentially win!
“A Caribou Alphabet” looks like a cool piece of design!
These all look like great books!