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Welcome to Episode 2 of Librarians of Littles. I'm Patrick Adams.

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And I'm Caroline Leger. We are both librarians in North Texas. I have 17 years of experience

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with pre-K students. Five of those are in a pre-K library.

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And I have also got 17 years of experience. The last nine of them have been as a librarian.

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I have been for the last two years a librarian at a pre-K through fifth campus. And before

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that I was a librarian at a pre-K only campus.

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And today on the podcast we are going to be talking about some fun Valentine's books that

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can be used as Valentine approaches. These books are some fun enjoyable stories that

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our early learners will be able to jump right into and enjoy.

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And first we are going to be talking about Mr. Goats Valentine. It's published by Sleeping

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Bear Press in 2016. The author is Eve Bunting. And the illustrator is Kevin Zimmer.

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So we'll jump right in with the author history. Born in McGeerra, Northern Ireland in 1928.

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Eve Bunting attended Methodist College in Belfast, Northern Ireland and graduated in

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1945. Then she attended Queen's University where she met her husband. After marrying

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the couple moved to Scotland to start a family. The family moved in 1958 to the United States

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which her family included herself, her husband and three children at that time. In 1959 Bunting

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began attending Pasadena City College taking writing courses. She wrote over 250 children's

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books her first of which was the two giants in 1971. And she passed away October 1st of

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2023 of pneumonia at the age of 94. Other books that Eve Bunting has written, a few

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of them because there are so many, but How Many Days to America which was illustrated

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by Beth Park. Moonstick, The Seasons of the Sioux, illustrated by Jonathan Sanford. Smoky

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Knight, illustrated by David Diaz. And Knight Tree, illustrated by Ted Rand. And this book

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is illustrated by Kevin Zimmer and he attended Kendall College of Art and Design in Grand

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Rapids, Michigan during his training at Kendall. The Society of Illustrators honored Kevin

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by publishing three of his oil paintings in their 1993 and 94 issues. While completing

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his award-winning thesis for Kendall, his career was launched with the American Greetings

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Corporation where an internship soon evolved into the position of creative developer. In

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2002, he took the leap into a freelance career based on his hometown of Kalamazoo, Michigan.

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Kevin specializes in developing greeting cards and children's books and magazine illustrations.

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Some of his other books include another one by Eve Bunting which was Little Yellow Truck,

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Clownfish and Crab by Liza Charlesworth, and Buster the Little Garbage Truck by Marsha

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Berniger. So this was a really fun story. The summary for the book is that Mr. Goat realizes

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it's Valentine's Day and he must get a gift for his first love, his first Valentine. As

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he makes his way through town, he stops to make different purchases from some unique

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characters. He purchases a ragweed salad and a rusty tin can to give to his first Valentine.

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He purchases some rotten eggs and finally he decides that he needs to write his own

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song to present to his very special first Valentine. And at the end of the story, we

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find out who his very special Valentine is. It's his mom.

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So I thought this was a really cute story. I love that it's not a traditional Valentine

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between like a couple or anything. I love that it was from a boy to his mom pretty much.

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I really like that it's, with Valentine's Day in particular, especially with our little

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ones, I like to stress that it's like, it's just to tell anybody how much you love them

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and to kind of show your appreciation for other people. So I thought this was a really

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cute way to do it. And I loved all the interesting things that he collected for his mom since

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he's a goat. It was kind of a fun way to get some giggles in there for our little kiddos.

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Absolutely. I think this is a really fun story about Valentine's Day and a lot of times when

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it's about Valentine's Day and it's the mushy like love stories kind of thing, it has a

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lot of our, a lot of the boys, the young boys will check out kind of. And so the fact that

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he was getting these kind of gross and ridiculous gifts kind of keeps their attention and keeps

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it going. And like you said, yeah, the fact that it's just his mom, it's not like romantic

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love kind of like that. It's just a caring about this person who's taken care of you

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for so long and showing gratitude and love and appreciation for everything that they

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do is just a sweet way to celebrate the day, not make it be something about romance where,

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you know, the kids are just really young and kind of checking out on that. And so they

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know it's an important day, but being able to share this book and show them it can be

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just a day where you're showing anybody that you care about them is really nice. The artwork

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in the book, Kevin Zimmer uses some really cool digital artwork that it's vibrant and

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a really cool, the kids love to look at all the different animals and the rotten eggs

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and the gifts that he's getting. So it's very vibrant eye catching, which is really nice

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also.

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Yeah, and it had that illustration style where it had some blank parts of the page for the

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text. And then like the illustrations like around it kind of. And I personally really

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appreciate it when they do when they do that because then you can kind of for our kids

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who are learning to read, you can kind of point to the text a little bit more and it

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makes it stand out a little bit more so they can focus on that as well.

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Yes, very much. Because yeah, when the words either go over the pictures or like the pictures

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are kind of blocked out because of the words, it makes it not necessarily as engaging. And

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so that's really nice the way they they spread it out and spaced everything. So this was

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a great story and my students tend to love this story a lot. What I find is always funny

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to me is that when you get to the end, it's clearly an older goat, which it's his mom.

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But so many of the younger kids automatically assume like grandma, which is just kind of

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funny to me because they forget that as adults, your parents get older too. And so just because

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she's older doesn't mean immediately grandma. But a lot of the kids immediately assume that

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and that's when when you read that page where it says Happy Valentine's Day mother and they're

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like, Oh, wait, it's the mom. I just think that's kind of funny also. Because that's

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not usually the first guess that the kids have. They go straight to grandma, which is

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not a bad idea. But when we get older, our parents get older too. So that's not something

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that always clicks for for the younger kids. Yeah, that's a good point. I hadn't thought

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about that part before. So if we're going to rate this book out of five bookmarks, what

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do you think you'd give it? Hmm. I think maybe a I was I want to say four, but I'm not really

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sure why. Honestly, I think I might I can't think of a reason to knock it down. I'm being

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honest. I think it's really cute. Pretty engaging. Pretty simple story. Kind of funny. Yeah,

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I like it. Absolutely. Yeah, I was going and I don't know why either. But I was saying,

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I was thinking in my head somewhere between three and a half and four. Because it is an

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engaging story. It's got great illustrations. The kids love it. So yeah, I think a four is

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a fair, fair score for it. So four bookmarks out of five. And if we're going to use this

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in the library and we want to connect it with makerspace activities, a makerspace activity

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that I'm going to try out this year with my students with the younger kiddos, I'm going

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to put out some construction paper and some writing utensils crayons colored pencils markers.

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And I'm also going to put out some stickers. And we're going to have the students create

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their own Valentine card for a parent or an important person in their life that they want

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to just give a little extra thanks to. I would definitely put up some generic keywords for

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the students because being younger, they're not going to be able to spell them correctly.

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But if we go over them and have a couple words on the board, they might try and write those

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down. If they draw a picture, you can help them. You can help by dictating. They can

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dictate to you. You can write it down so that they can share their message of love and caring

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and thanks to their special person in their life.

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Love it. Yeah. Yeah, that's a great, pretty simple Valentine's Day activity.

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And they get to walk out of the library with something in hand that they can take home

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and show their families and share. So I really like that idea.

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All right. So now we get to move on to our Library of Littles Management Tips and Tricks.

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So this week, I thought since we've discussed last week, we talked about how to kind of

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set the routines when they come into the library, coming to the carpet to get sitting. This

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week would be a good week for us to share our Storytime Song with everybody because

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I think it's a great way to get the kids engaged and then get... It's like something

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that the students expect. It gets them to be able to participate right away and then

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we can get into the actual lesson.

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My Storytime Song is to the tune of London Bridge and the lyrics are as follows.

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Welcome friends to Storytime, Storytime, Storytime.

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Welcome friends to Storytime in the library.

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We will share a book or two, book or two, book or two.

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We will share a book or two. Are you ready?

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And I always, after we sing the last song, and the first couple weeks, I explain to the

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kids that I'll sing it by myself but that we don't really want to hear that. So I will

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always explain to them that as soon as they learn the words, I want them to help me out

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so that it's not just me singing and that they're helping me out. And they pick it up

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pretty quickly, especially when you do it every week, to the point where if I am like

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running short on time and almost forget to do the Storytime Song, I get called out on

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it because they get really into that part of the routine and wanting to make sure that

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we do that.

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But once we sing the Storytime Song, it ends with, are you ready? And I remind my students

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at that point that to be ready, they should be showing me by having a calm body, which

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means that they're not touching their friends, they're keeping their hands to themselves,

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they're not wiggling all around so that they can focus and pay attention. That they're

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listening ears are working and that means that while I'm trying to read the story, their

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mouths are quiet. When I ask questions or if they have a question, they can raise their

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hand and we'll listen to what they have to say at that point. That their eyes should

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be looking up at the book so that they can see those pictures because so much of their

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comprehension is connected to the visual images that are in the book. And that their brains

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are working so that when they're thinking about the book and when I'm asking questions,

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they can come up with answers that make sense to what I'm asking and not just random thoughts

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or anything else. Because other times we'll get things like we're reading a book about

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Mr. Goats Valentine and then I find out that someone's baby brother just had a birthday

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or something random, you know. So I'm trying to keep that, trying to rein it in and keep

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it connected to what we're talking about at the moment.

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But I do the same thing when I start my library lessons. It takes a couple of weeks for the

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kids to learn the song. But after a couple of weeks because they do know that when they

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hear that it's time for them to get their bodies ready for learning, they kind of, even

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if everybody's chatty and not even really sitting down yet and kind of all over the place,

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if I start singing it, then that's their auditory cue to like, oh, I have to get ready now.

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And they kind of automatically stop whatever nonsense they were doing and kind of get into

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gear and get ready for story time. And as a bonus, like if I'm not feeling well or something,

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if I'm sick and maybe losing my voice, I can just later on the year, if I just start singing

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welcome, then they can usually finish it for me. I don't even have to say a word. It's

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fabulous. Yeah, that's really nice. It's also nice because

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that's also something that the teachers learn the song as well. So if you're needing to,

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either if you're, like you said, losing your voice or like when there's a sub, the teachers

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can also help or the assistants, whoever's in the library with you, they they've learned

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the song as well. So they can always help you to begin that if you need it also, which

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is always nice when you have some backup help. Absolutely. All right, well, our second book

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that we're going to talk about today is QPig, The Valentine's Day Pig. It's published by

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Flamingo Books in 2023. The author is Claire Tattersfield. And the illustrator is Rob.

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I think you say his last name, say, I don't know. I'm guessing. I think that's correct.

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Okay, excellent. This book has not won any awards, but it does have some good professional

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reviews out there. There isn't a whole lot about Claire Tattersfield online. She this

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is her very first book. She started out as an assistant editor at Viking Children's Books

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and Flamingo Books. She started out at Penguin Young Readers in 2019 after graduating from

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the University of Vermont with a degree in political science and a global studies and

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a minor in Spanish. She supports Flamingo and Viking with picture books and a little

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bit of young adult middle grade. So primarily an editor right now, but she is moving toward

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being more of an author. This is her very first book, but she does have QPig Saves Christmas

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coming out in October of this year. Excellent. And so our illustrator Rob lives in San Francisco.

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He is a former toy designer who later became an artist and an illustrator. He draws inspiration

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for stories and art by collecting vintage toys and exploring San Francisco. He frequently

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does school visits both in person and virtual and the visits are about 45 minutes. And there's

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a form on his website if you're interested in setting up a school visit with him. Some

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of the other books that he has worked on, he has written and illustrated Love Tales published

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in 2015. And he provided the illustrations for 14 other books that are all listed on

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his personal website, including I'm Not Scared, You're Scared by Seth Meyers. Arlo

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draws an octopus live by Lori Mortensen and One Summer Night by Tammy Salzano. So in

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this book, QPig is a pig who loves love and looks forward to Valentine's Day every year

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when she shoots her heart shaped arrows and helps others fall in love. Unfortunately,

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this year the weather was horrible and it causes some of her arrows to go astray. Some

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of the mishaps include peanut butter falling in love with anchovies rather than jelly and

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salt falling in love with trash rather than pepper and dog falling in love with xylophone

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instead of bone. And at first QPig decides to give these new love matches a chance, but

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then she eventually decides it's best for her to own up to her mistakes and fix everything

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back to the way it was before because you just can't have salt without pepper, right?

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I did like that there was a lot of rhyming words in this book. So for our younger readers,

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sometimes those rhyming words can kind of keep their attention like that nice cadence

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of just hearing the rhythm of the words can kind of keep their attention even if they're

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not necessarily, they don't necessarily understand the storyline itself. Just the rhythm can

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help keep them engaged. So this did have kind of a nice cadence for younger readers to

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hear. I did like that there were not a lot of bigger vocabulary words, but there were

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some like discombobulated was in there. That's a fun one to teach. So there was it was enough

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basic words that I don't think any kids would really get lost with the story with having

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a bigger word like discombobulated thrown in there. But it was nice to have for older

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students or for even for our younger ones who have a bigger vocabulary who might be

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really listening in to kind of learn some new words there. The illustrations were fairly

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simple. I loved that it wasn't like too overwhelming to look at. So that kids could kind of focus

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in on the different pairings of like, when you see like peanut butter and jelly, like

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you can really tell where they are on the page, it wasn't like overwhelming. I did for

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younger kids, though, it does kind of assume that you have the background knowledge of

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who Cupid is and that Cupid is somebody who does go around shooting, you know, couples

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or whatever on Valentine's Day to make them fall in love. And that I think there's a lot

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of I think there's a lot of younger kids who wouldn't have that background knowledge.

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It didn't like explicitly say why Cupid would be randomly shooting people with hearts, you

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know. So I think that might be a little bit confusing for some of the younger kids. But

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other than that, like for older kids, they would probably have that background knowledge

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and be able to pick up on that a little bit quicker. But yeah,

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Yeah, sure. And knowing that if you preteach a little bit and just kind of mention, hey,

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there's this mythological character named Cupid and here's what he does real quick kind

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of thing, and then introduce the story that that would be fine too.

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That's true. Just in case. Yeah. Yeah. You know, because even if you just kind of put

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up a picture of the actual Cupid like on the screen on a screen or pull out a picture of

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him and just kind of ask what they know, you'd find out a lot of whether they know or not,

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and then you can kind of give a quick explanation and go from there. Yeah, I thought this was

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a super cute story. I hadn't read it until you suggested it. And it's now going to definitely

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be part of my Valentine's rotation with my students because I think that they'll get

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a kick out of it. I think that some of the mismatch pairs were really silly. And that

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the kids will enjoy that. I also found the that the author has a Barnes and Noble story

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time on YouTube where she reads the book, and she mentions that all of the little word

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bubbles that are in the book were Rob Sehe's the illustrator's idea. So he is the one that

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kind of put those in. And so any of those little thought bubbles, they're his just kind

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of quips and punny ideas that he decided to add into the pictures, which is kind of fun.

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One of my favorites is the pen on the iceberg as it's kind of like on a piece of ice that's

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floating away. And he says, I'll never let go. Because it's just like adult humor, like

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reference to Titanic kind of thing. I just thought that was kind of amusing. So yeah,

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it was really fun for both for me. And I think my students are going to really enjoy it when

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I read it this year with them. The pictures were great. And it was just a cute, cute little

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story that, you know, I think everybody should read and enjoy.

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Yeah. So I think for this one, I think I would go ahead and give this one a four out of five

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bookmarks. Again, probably just because of that, the pre teaching piece that you mentioned

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there, that is a really good idea to pre teach the like get the picture of Cupid and kind

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of figure out the kids even know who that is or anything. But I think that's the only

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thing that would stop me from making a five out of five. Yeah, what did you think?

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Yeah, I agree. My thoughts were four out of five. I think the the illustrations are amazing.

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The story is really great. There might not be like a deep, meaningful kind of thing behind

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it other than maybe that, you know, some you can like, you don't have to necessarily be

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pigeonholed to who were expected to care about kind of thing. But so yeah, I think four out

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of five bookmarks is a solid rating. Yeah.

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And then for a makerspace activity, again, just creating those valentines and specifically

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making valentine cards or poems that rhyme this time because this one focuses a lot more

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on those rhyming words. Yeah.

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Yeah. And I was even thinking that you could use some of those like if you have the the

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magnetic poem words like that you can put on your refrigerator and stuff like those words

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where you can just kind of create your own poem. You could use something like that and

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have the kids kind of make their own poetry that way. You could use you could just print

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like some rhyming pictures and have them kind of use those to make a rhyme or a poem. And

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then the other thought I had was that if you wanted to have like a tactile like a physical

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activity, you could pull out the Legos and have the kids either use the Legos to build

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a mismatched pair from the book or they could make their own mismatched pair like maybe

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instead of the cat falling in love with his ball of yarn, he falls in love with a mouse

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or something like that and they could build those things with the Legos that way to tell

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their own story. So that would give the like a physical activity building. So yeah, I

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think I think both of these are really great Valentine's stories. I'm looking forward to

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using them this year with my pre-k and Kinder and first grade students because I think they're

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going to enjoy them as well. Yeah, I agree. I'm looking forward to reading these this

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year. Thank you for listening to this episode of librarians of littles. We hope that you've

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enjoyed it. Check back each Wednesday for a new episode.

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Librarians of littles is a podcast produced and hosted by Patrick Adams and Caroline Ligier.

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Editor Patrick Adams. Our theme song is performed by JD Adams. You can follow us on Instagram

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at librariansoflittles. You can follow us on Blue Sky at littleslibraryan.bsky.social

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and you can send us your emails at librarianoflittlespod.gmail.com.