Category Archives: photography

love letters

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You remember school love notes in February.

Folded pieces of paper passed fast in the hall to you & notes someone else found tucked into the math book.

Maybe put there by you.

Arnold Adoff &  Lisa Desimini remember those days. They team up for the best book of sweet poems on the school love  topic. Isbn 0.590.48478.8  It’s all here. The shyness, the frustration & the puppy love. It includes mom & dad & the teacher & the whole family. Plus the kid across the aisle

Lisa brings each poem to the page visually in tender & inventive ways. Arnold Adoff deftly gifts us with the words that say I hope you never find out this red heart is from me. I think you will oooh & aaah through this book.

I especially like the chalkboard rimmed with the alphabet page & the dad on the sofa page.  Enjoy!

from "Love Letters" by Arnold Adoff with illustrations from Lisa Desimini

"Dear Once Upon a Time"

Books for the Boo!

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We keep creepy Halloween in a box 11 months out of the year.

Come October, the ghosties & ghoulies, black cats & bats

are let out of the box.

We hammer tombstones into the yard dirt & place home-made pumpkins

of paper around the living room.

My daughter puts read-aloud Halloween books on a low  table.

And she & her father stuff & dress a scarecrow who guards our yard. We will all

carve the pumpkin closer to the big evening.

What are your favorite Halloween titles? Once you read some of ours, these may become a grand part of

your Halloween bookshelf:

SIX CREEPY SHEEP by Judith Ross Enderle & Stephanie Gordon Tessler, with illustrations from John O’Brien

BAT JAMBOREE by Kathi Appelt, with illustrations by Melissa Sweet

THE LITTLE SCARECROW BOY by Margaret Wise Brown (yes, MWB herself, without a bunny in sight) and brought to a delightful modern art interpretation by David Diaz.

Trick or Treat (I want it to be Treat) to You & Yours

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First readers looked like this

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Is this shape a little Kindle-like?

This is a Horn Book.  The kind before we had today’s The Horn Book .

Horn Books were available to learners, especially children (usually boys) who were able to  sit with a teacher,  in the Colonies, especially Massachusetts, New York, Connectitcut, Rhode Island, New Jersey & Pennsylvania, of Great Britain (later the U.S.A)

This Horn Book is for a wealthy family, crafted of silver and ivory & it most likely was made in England.

It is one of many treasures in the Children’s Literature Center of the Library of Congress, where the Chief, Dr. Sybille A.  Jagusch, is herself another treasure for you to discover there.

www.loc.gov/rr/child

Follow the Library of Congress on twitter http://twitter.com/libraryccongress

c. 2009 Jan Godown Annino at the Library of Congress

c. 2009 Jan Godown Annino at the Library of Congress