Hello, I'm Patrick Adams. And I'm Caroline Legere.
And this is Librarians of Littles, a podcast
where we talk about books, give makerspace connections,
and give some tips and tricks for working in
the library with our youngest learners. Today,
as we're entering into March, spring is coming.
And so we're going to talk about some spring
themed books. Our first book today is Abracadabra
It's Spring. It is published by Abram Appleseed
in 2016. The author is Anne Sibley O 'Brien and
the illustrator is Susan Gall. There are no awards
for Abracadabra It's Spring but Anne Sibley O
'Brien has received awards for other books including
the CCBC Choice Award Selection 2011 for What
Will You Be, Sarah Me, Junior Library Guild Selection
2017 for In the Shadow of the Sun, Ezra Jack
Keats Award 1987 for Jamaica's Find. Susan Gow
has also received multiple awards for other books
including ALSC Notable Children's Book Commended
2025, Center for the Study of Multicultural Children's
Literature Best Book Selection 2024, Charlotte
Zolotow Award Commended 2025, Golden Kite Award
Picture Book Illustration Finalist 2025, Horn
Book Fanfare Selection 2025, Publisher Weekly
Best Books Picture Book Selection 2024, School
Library Journal Best Book of the Year Selection
2024, Sydney Taylor Book Award Honor 2024, All
for Joyful Song, A Naming Story. Anne Sibley
O 'Brien is a children's book creator. She's
illustrated 36 books and authored 14 of them.
Many of her books deal with or have a theme of
multiculturalism. Anne Sibley O 'Brien was raised
bilingual and bicultural in South Korea as the
daughter of two medical workers. She attended
Mount Holyoke College. i don't know if i said
that correctly but i tried and studied studio
art during her junior year she did a year abroad
and studied at yuha women's university in seoul
korea and She wrote a column for the Bulletin
of the Society of Children's Book Writers and
Illustrators for 23 years, titled The Illustrator's
Perspective. She's also a performer, and she
created a one -woman show entitled White Lies,
One Woman's Quest for Release from the Enchantment
of Whiteness. And she now lives with her husband
on an island in Maine, and she's a mother of
two grown children and has two grandchildren
as well. Some of her other books include Hocus
Pocus, It's Fall, also illustrated by Susan Gall,
Circle Round, illustrated by Hana Cha, Jamaica's
Find, and six other Jamaica titles, which are
all written by Juanita Havel and Talking Walls
and four other titles by Margie Burns Knight.
And Susan Gall completed her BFA at Art Center
College of Design and began her illustration
career as a poster and calendar artist in Los
Angeles. Her passion and talent earned her an
internship at Walt Disney Feature Animation,
and she became a member of the original animation
team at the Disney MGM Studios in Orlando, Florida.
Eventually, Susan returned to her native California
to continue her passion of creating whimsical
illustrations and captivating picture books.
Some of her other books include New Shoes for
Leo by Lauren Agra Deedy, Joyful Song and Naming
Story by Lesleyann Newman, Dear Stray by Kirsten
Hubert, Welcome Elijah, A Passover Tale with
a Tale by Lesleyann Newman. Bella's Fall Coat
by Lynn Plourde. Together, day by day, into the
outdoors, please take me for a walk and to nightlights.
And actually, Susan Gall actually has a really
cool story on her website where she explains
that as a child, she, her second grade teacher,
had them create their own picture books after
Al Perkins, the author, came to do a school visit
and when the kids made their books she convinced
Mr. Perkins to look at the books and read them
and she actually has like a picture of him with
a couple of the kids that had made their books
and he's reading another one of his books to
them. It's kind of cool. So it's pretty awesome
that like those teachers and those those authors
can come in and have those moments where they
can inspire kids. And so that's kind of just
a really cool story that she includes on her
website. Yeah, that makes me happy. I love that.
That makes me feel like our jobs matter a little
bit more. Yeah. It's always good to hear. I know
our jobs matter, but yeah, libraries are important
and we know that, but it's good to hear the success
stories like that. That's great. It's pretty
awesome. And then so for this book, Abracadabra,
it's spring. This is a short story that focuses
on things changing from a wintry state to a spring
surprise. This is a fun rhyming scheme book.
It has wonderful, colorful illustrations. The
pages, like it starts as a two page spread and
then you can turn that second page over and it
becomes a three page spread to show imagery going
from winter to spring and it's just a really
cool book that has that wonderful rhyme scheme.
I've really enjoyed it. My kids loved that you
could open up one of the pages to make it a bigger
picture and to be able to see like snow in one
side of it to like the flowers blooming on the
other side. It showed some of the Like the plants
changing it showed some of the animals changing.
It was just a really cool book It's a short story,
but my students were engaged with it just because
they were wanting to see all of the bright and
colorful pictures that went along with it I really
enjoyed this book. I think probably I would say
I probably give this maybe like a Three and a
half out of five. I think that it was simple
text. There were some Like silly magic words
that I had to like my kids were like, what does
that mean? And so we had to kind of talk about
It's just a silly magic word to make like to
show the change kind of thing But my kids enjoyed
it. They liked it They liked the pictures for
sure and I think everybody's just excited for
warmer weather And so the idea of reading a book
where we're like, it's gonna get warmer and we're
gonna start to see green again is very positive
for a lot of my kids Yeah, I agree with all the
things you just said. I hadn't read this book
before you recommended it and I do really enjoy
it a lot. I think the illustrations are really
what bring it to life. I love that it, you know,
opens up and I think it's so much fun for kids
when they get to see the pages like that that
open up. It does make it a little bit harder
for kids to read independently. I don't know
how many times I've had books rip like that,
that when they open up, like if the kids are
trying to be independent with it. Unfortunately,
they do get torn a lot, which is kind of a bummer
but for like a whole class read it's the best
where like they're just like absolutely amazed
and i don't know how many times reading a book
like that kids have been like how did you do
that and they just think it's like seriously
magic the first time they see it it's kind of
awesome to get to read a book like that with
kids so i and i agree actually with the made
-up words that's in the past long ago when I
used to read Dr. Seuss to kids, I always had
to talk to him for a long time like, look, this
isn't a real word. And then I just stopped. Aside
from the fact that, you know, a lot of Dr. Seuss's
themes aren't necessarily appropriate anymore.
He definitely lived in a different era and his
writing reflects that. But I never really liked
his books anyway because of the made -up words,
where it's really confusing for our kids who
are still learning language a lot of the time,
especially our ESL kids. That can be... a little
bit tricky but there's not too too many in this
book it's like once every it's like every two
or three pages there's like a silly made -up
word so it's not too bad but it still takes a
minute to explain so yeah and that's what it
was i just had to i stopped and said okay these
are all just the magic words to make the magic
happen you know and kind of explain it that way
and once the kids understood that after the second
or third time they were like oh okay and just
kind of let it go from there and it was fine
but yeah uh just having to take that second and
explain it for sure especially for those ESL
kids that are trying to learn English and then
we throw in random silly made -up words like
that and they're like yeah so yeah they're not
ready for nonsense yet not yet especially the
pre -k ones like yeah even some of like my first
and second grade ESL kids were still like, wait,
what? Like so, for sure. But it is a very sweet
story. It's very cute. And like you said, I agree
with you. The pictures are really pull it together
and make it just so beautiful. The way the paintings
and the pictures are just so vibrant. It's really
good. So if we're gonna... incorporate a makerspace
activity, I couldn't decide. I had two ideas
and so I'm going to tell both of them because
depending on the situation that you're in you
might be able to do one or the other easier.
So my first idea is to have the kids plant some
seeds. Now for this you would need some kind
of seeds. You can get seeds pretty cheap and
if you go to some places you can get donated
seeds pretty easily also so getting some seeds
and then either having plastic cups for each
kid to be able to plant in or if you're fortunate
enough to have like some planters around your
campus if you could situate one of those planters
near the library near a window so the kids could
see or near the playground so when they're outside
they could see what they've done but going out
there with the seeds and some soil and maybe
some gardening tools having access to water and
then having the kids actually plant some seeds
they can put them put some soil in a cup and
put that seed in there and cover it up and give
it some water and take it home or if you do have
that planter like taking a field trip outside
to the planter and having every kid be able to
put some soil in there and put in that seed so
that they can see them grow as the weather gets
warmer and just kind of making sure that you
keep it watered so that they do start to grow.
I think that would be a fun activity that if
you could keep it on the campus, especially with
the planters, that would allow the kids to continue
to come by and see it. If you could get it close
to the, to a library window where they could
see it, that would help with that connection.
Maybe if that's not something that's feasible.
Another possible activity is having the kids
make their own flowers using like paper toilet
paper rolls or paper towel rolls some construction
paper tissue paper, maybe some paper plates you
probably need glue and possibly some markers
or some scissors, but use the paper towel roll
or the toilet paper roll as the stem of the plant
and then they can make a flower at the top of
it. You could situate a paper plate on there
and have them decorate the paper plate. You could
have them tear pieces of construction paper to
make the petals of the flower. There's lots of
different ways you could do that to give them
like an arts and craftsy kind of way to have
a flower of their own to take with them. Yeah,
those are great activities. I love it. When I
was in the classroom teaching pre -k, we used
to plant seeds and watch them grow in the classroom.
But actually, now that you mention it, I think
I like doing it in the library even better because
you could plant it as a class and like have one.
When I was in the classroom, I always used to
do with pre -k, I used to have a bigger clear
plastic cup that we would plant in so that the
kids can see the roots and the everything growing
underneath the soil as well. Personally, I liked
having I know I've seen some people do the Ziploc
baggies and have like the lima bean growing inside
I prefer to have soil because that's part of
the lesson is like Plants need soil to live and
I think it's a little bit confusing if you skip
that part of the lesson but if you did that like
as a class and just have like one cup per class
then they could see the progress a little bit
better because if you do it in the classroom
and it's like a day -by -day thing they grow
so slowly that it's like okay let's check nothing's
happening yet like and then you're gonna have
three or four days of that whereas in the library
if they come in like once a week then they can
like really see the difference so i like it i
don't know why i hadn't considered it for the
library but i like it you know and then worst
case you get a couple Flowers in the library
that would brighten up the place a little bit
too. So yeah Yeah, be good. You want to take
on the library of littles management tip this
week? I would love to all right this week for
our library of littles management tip We are
gonna be talking about the novel effect app.
I personally use an iPhone. I don't know about
other platforms, although I'm sure novel effect
exists on other platforms as well, but The iPhone
has an app called Novel Effect. It's free to
download, but then you do have to pay for services
eventually. There's a very wide selection of
books on Novel Effect where you can flip through,
pick a book. For example, I always start this
school year with Chica Chica Boom Boom. When
I activate the Novel Effect app, when I start
reading the book, the app will listen to my voice
and it will play background music and sound effects
along with the book. So like when I'm reading
Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and you and I'm reading
you know A told B and P told C I'll meet you
at the top of the coconut tree and then you can
hear the coconuts falling down after it climbs
the tree. So it has some really cool sound effects
that go along with it. Some fun music to go along
with it because it's listening to my voice too.
I do have to talk into the phone I'm not gonna
lie, that can get a little bit annoying sometimes.
But because it listens to my voice so well, if
I have to stop and say a child's name or remind
kids to stay on task or anything at all, if I
tell a kid to go to the bathroom, it'll pause
where it's at in the soundscape and it won't
go on until I keep reading. And it's kind of
fabulous for like... keep drawing kids in a little
bit more kind of give them something else to
engage in. I don't know how many teachers have
asked me like how they can get it and where they
can purchase it and all the things. It's very
well loved on our campus. It costs it has a seven
-day free trial period if you want to try it
out but I think after that it costs I want to
say fifty dollars a year so I mean, really not
too bad. I guess it's like five bucks -ish a
month. But usually it's on sale for about half
off around Teacher Appreciation Week. And I think
I've even seen in Scholastic, like in my book
fair rewards where I think I just saw that this
last time I had a book fair where you can use
your book fair rewards to, from Scholastic only,
to purchase a subscription to it. So I like it
for my library personally. It doesn't it has
only pre loaded books on it, but it's got it's
got hundreds of books on there and you can recommend
other books and they're always loading up new
ones. So yeah, this sounds like a great app.
I have not used novel effect. I've heard about
it before and it's one of those things where
I'm like, ah, I should look into that more. But
the more you've described it, the more I'm like,
I really need to look into that and try it out
because I think those sound effects and stuff
will really grab the kid's attention. And it's
really, that's a really cool idea that it can
listen to your voice and hear the story and know
when to stop and pause and begin again and everything.
That's really cool. That's my favorite is how
well it listens. I have tried hooking it up with
like my earbuds so I can like read into the earbud
and play it out through a different speaker.
And I haven't figured out that trick yet. If
I ever figure out that one, that'll be a great
day. But as of right now, I'm kind of holding
up my phone and reading into my phone. That's
a little bit annoying, not going to lie. But
you can still get it, even if you hold it up,
hold your phone up. I couldn't figure out how
to get my phone to hook up to do different Bluetooth
devices and have input into one source and output
with another, if that makes sense. That was where
I was failing. And maybe that's a me thing. Maybe
that's just my technology handicap. I don't know.
I'm definitely going to try this out. I'm looking
forward to it because yeah even I see all the
time that there are different books that are
like hey check out the novel effect with this
book but I haven't tested it so I think this
would be a good time of year to test it out and
see the kids reactions because I think they'll
really enjoy it as well. Yeah if you have any
scholastic Rewards dollars. Yeah, I've got some
scholastic dollars. Go check that out. I've got
like 4 ,000 scholastic dollars. They keep emailing
me. You've got a lot. You want to use them. So
maybe this is what I spend some of it on. There
you go. That's a good idea. I like it. Yeah.
And I usually don't pick books based on novel
effect. Usually I pick my book and then I go
search. It's really easy to search for books
on there. Awesome. Alright, well our next book
today is called When Spring Comes. It's published
by Greenwillow Books, an imprint of Harper Collins
Publishers in 2016. The author is Kevin Henkes
and the illustrator is Laura Dronzek. This book
won the Read Aloud Indiana Book Award 2018, Pennsylvania
Keystone to Reading Book Award, 2018, 2018 Read
On Wisconsin Book Club, El Dia de los Niños Selection
2017, Children's Favorites Award 2017, Cooperative
Children's Books Center Selection 2017, and Kevin
Hinckes is the winner of the 2020 Children's
Literature Legacy Award. The ALA gives this award
annually to an author or illustrator who has
had a significant impact on children's literature.
Okay, and then for the author history, it's kind
of both. Yeah. Okay. That's cool. Yeah, kind
of. I know. Yeah. So growing up in Racine, Wisconsin,
Kevin Hinkes had a passion for both art and writing.
Going through college, he discovered that writing
children's literature combined his love for both
of those. He met his wife, Laura Dronzek. while
attending college at the University of Wisconsin
-Madison. They currently live in Madison with
their two children. It's really cool that he's
able to make books and work with his wife at
the same time. That's really cool. It is. I did
not know they were married. I've seen plenty
of books by the two of them together. Obviously,
plenty of other books by Kevin Hinkes, but...
I had no idea they were married until this episode
came about. Yeah, that was pretty fun. Yeah,
it's pretty awesome. Alright, so some other books
by our author Kevin Henkes. He has written many
other books over a long and prestigious career.
Some of his more notable books include Kitten's
First Full Moon, which was the Caldecott winner
for 2004, Olive's Ocean, A Newberry Honor of
2004. The Year of Billy Miller, A Newberry Honor
for 2014. Waiting, The Caldecott Honor and The
Geisel Honor for 2016. And then the rest of his
books in this series include Winter is Here,
In the Middle of Fall, and Summer Song. Other
books that he has written and that have been
illustrated by his wife Laura Dronsnick include
finding things, little houses, birds, and oh.
All right in this book the emergence of spring
is described in second person narration so as
you're going through there's a lot of bold bright
illustrations and it's really like the narrator
is just speaking directly to the reader. I like
that it's speaking directly to the narrator like
or to the reader like that where it's like okay
wait if it's on this page there's these big sticks
but if you wait out come the blooms or something
like that i don't know i'm not quoting directly
but it's something similar to that uh it's not
it's not quite rhyming and it's not quite poetry
but it's still kind of lyrical and kind of it's
just got a very smooth cadence to it where it's
like, okay, we see this now. Now wait for it.
And now we're gonna see this and it's very kind
of calming. I think the way it's written, there's
a couple of pages that have some nice alliteration
on it. I really like the illustrations in this
book as well. I think the books that we both
picked this Weak are accidentally very similar
with really simple text. I like the text in this
book a lot better. I do like how it doesn't rhyme
and it flows really well, I guess. And it has
apt descriptions for everything that's on the
page. I really like how bold the illustrations
are. It's just very bright. It's very pretty.
It just feels like spring a little bit more,
I think. Like how simple the illustrations are
it's not too overwhelming. This is my favorite
spring book I think this whole series is pretty
great where it's just very simple and it kind
of shows the winter leaving and then you can
see Spring arriving and then at the end it's
like but wait for it because summer's coming
it kind of shows the progression of the seasons
pretty well Yeah, I think you're right. I think
this book is great the I think you're right,
lyrical is a good way to describe the writing
of it. And the pictures are beautiful and bold.
And I really like how in the other book, we have
just like a full scape of a picture. In this
book, what caught my attention and what I really
liked was that some of the pictures there, it's
stages. And so you can see like at one point
it's, we have a snowman, but just wait. because
he's slowly melting the entire time and then
later on it's a plant that's starting as a seed
and slowly starting to grow and a caterpillar
that's going into a cocoon to become a butterfly
and so like showing some of that stage kind of
stuff more in this book so that you could also
incorporate science with it and you could talk
about life cycles and like because around spring
is when a lot of a lot of schools start to hit
that kind of science where you're talking about
life cycles of plants and life cycles of animals
and that kind of stuff. So you could actually
incorporate some of that in there also. And yeah,
I think this was a really great book. I agree.
Yeah, I might give it a five out of five for
like a spring book. I think I might. I enjoy
it a lot. And Kevin Henkes also, I didn't realize
how many online resources he has. If y 'all haven't
looked up, because I hadn't looked up any of
his information prior to this episode, but he
has a lot of really good connections nothing
for this book in particular but he he's written
so much he did have some um direct lessons for
um winters here not this one but for his winter
book but yeah if you need an extension for anything
of his like it's probably on his website there
was a lot of really great great resources there
so you might want to check that out for a makerspace
activity for this book I was thinking it might
be fun to do a sensory bin of some kind you could
have just a big bin with anything really that
looks like dirt you could do sand if you're feeling
brave or you could personally I always like to
do things like beans or rice or something like
that just in case little kids put everything
in their mouths and if you do something like
that if they accidentally get it in their mouth
it's kind of okay because it's food of course
we're gonna encourage kids not to do that but
accidents happen every now and then so if I was
gonna do this in the library I would use like
black beans or brown beans and then print laminated
flowers with letters on them and hide them inside
the garden so that kids can dig through there
and you could match like letter to letter or
you could have like different items in there
that like you could have a bunch of flowers and
you have to you know match it to the letter F
or like a watering can that you match to the
letter W or something like that little springtime
things that you could match practice alliteration
or really any other skill that you're working
on you could do There's a lot of different directions
you could take that with I love that idea. I
always forget about the possibility of doing
sensory bins. I think sensory bins are a great
way to get those kids to be able to have that
tactile connection to the lessons. I gotta do
that more. And I love this idea. I definitely
like the idea of doing the dry beans or rice.
Even if we convince the kids not to eat any of
it, sand is just gonna make such a mess. it's
so much harder to clean up sand and clean up
some dried beans or some rice so I think I know
it's almost like glitter it's kind of terrible
yeah I never use it in the library like all of
a sudden I feel like Anakin it's just it's coarse
and it gets everywhere like you know like I would
avoid sand at all costs in a sensory bin but
I think the the dried beans or rice is definitely
a great great idea for that yes excellent idea
all right thank you Ready? Thank you all for
joining us today on this episode of Librarians
of Littles. We hope you found some fresh ideas
for inspiring our young readers. Please be sure
to subscribe and connect with us on social media.
Thank you for listening to this episode of Librarians
of Littles. We hope that you've enjoyed it. Check
back each Wednesday for a new episode. Librarians
of Littles is a podcast produced and hosted by
Patrick Adams and Caroline Legere. Editor, Patrick
Adams. Our theme song is performed by JD Adams.
You can follow us on Instagram at Librarians
of Littles. You can follow us on blue sky at
littleslibrarian .bsky .social. And you can send
us your emails at librarianoflittlespodatgmail
.com. I did listen to part of a podcast today.
I did 10 minutes. Yes. Okay. And how'd it go?
You're a good editor. Good job. I was like, that's
where I fumbled. I can tell. I can tell, but
you can't tell.