PICK OF THE LITERATURE
— by Dr. Donna Phillips
A
pril makes it official. It’s
spring! It’s a month to cele-
brate life, renewal, and hope!
Whether you are celebrating Easter, Pass-
over, Earth Day, or Arbor Day, they all
have these same things in common. Even
lesser known holidays like Burmese New
Year, Cambodian New Year, Lao/Tai New
Year, Bengali New Year, and Tamil New
Year share these elements.
And what better month to be Stress
Awareness Month than April? The sun is
shining, the grass is turning green, flow-
ers and trees are budding out. It is time
to take a deep breath of fresh spring air,
smile, and relax into the optimism and po-
tential that April brings.
To help celebrate this time of year,
there are many colorful and fun books to
read or to stash in an Easter basket, hide
along with eggs and other trinkets, or
share on rainy days.
A fun board book to cel-
ebrate the season is You are
My Sunshine (Scholastic,
New York, 2019, $7.99) by
Sandra Magsamen. A little
finger-puppet sun pops through
on every page to play along
with the words we often sing to
our children, “You are my sunshine,
my only sunshine…” Bright colors and
cuddly animals decorate the pages to cel-
ebrate the loving relationship between
parent and child. The shape and size of
this book is perfect for little hands and
just right for a springtime gift.
Peep, Peep, I Love You (Scholastic,
New York, 2019, $7.99)
is another board book
by Sandra Magsamen
that is a perfect way to
herald in the springtime.
This lift-the-flap book
introduces us to the
animals on the farm and
their new spring babies.
20 WNY Family April 2019
Pastel spring colors and pictures of the
barnyard will make getting outside all the
more fun! A nature walk or searching for
signs of spring outdoors are a great way to
celebrate the month and the season.
How about a new version of Old
MacDonald to keep the barnyard theme
going? I Love Old MacDonald’s Farm
(Scholastic, New York, 2019, $6.99) is
another creation of Sandra
Magsamen. In this book,
we meet some of the same
animals that we met in
Peep, Peep, I Love You
but this time we are sing-
ing our way through the
barnyard, not only making
animal sounds, but also
hugging, squeezing, tick-
ling, or kissing. This book
encourages us to sing and
interact affectionately with
our little ones, all the while using a book
to create language development and a
loving parent-child bond.
To go along with the barn-
yard theme, Look Who’s
Mooing (Scholastic, New
York, 2019, $14.99) combines
adorable photos of 10 animals,
delightful illustrations, flaps to
lift, and a button to push to hear animal
sounds. This multisensory book engages
sight, sound, and physical manipulation
that will keep children and adults enter-
tained and occupied for hours. The on/off
switch will help save the battery life of
the animal sounds, and it
is a book that children can
use with an adult
or by themselves.
Have you no-
ticed your young
child
beginning
to speak with a
British
accent?
Apparently there
are some children who watch Peppa Pig
shows doing just that! If Peppa is a favor-
ite of your child… or a favorite of yours…
Peppa’s Easter Egg Hunt (Scholastic,
New York, 2019,
$4.99) would be
perfect for their
Easter basket!
Grandpa
Pig
has arranged a
chocolate Eas-
ter egg hunt for
Peppa and her
friends. Once they are done and they have
had their treats, there is still more fun to
come as they meet Granny Pig’s chickens
and their newest arrivals. Fifteen stickers
make reading this story even more fun.
You can even use them to create your own
artwork or to illustrate original Peppa Pig
stories. Keep in mind that your children
will probably not learn to speak with a
British accent from reading this book, un-
less you read it with one.
If you are celebrating Easter, the book
Jesus Loves Me (Little Shepard Books/
Scholastic, New York, 2019, $7.99) is an-
other book that is meant to be sung in cel-
ebration. As the
song progresses,
the illustrations
tell the story of
the life of Jesus.
The cartoon-like
illustrations are
easy for children
to understand and interpret. This book
even comes in a Spanish version.
These books and many more books
for spring are available at your local li-
brary, bookstore, or online. If you are
looking for something to do as you wait
for spring to arrive or if you are travel-
ing for the Easter/Spring holiday, books
are perfect for entertaining. Keep in mind,
you can’t go wrong with audio books to
make the time pass quickly.
Dr. Donna Phillips is an
associate professor in the
College of Education at
Niagara University where
her specialty is literacy
and children’s literature.
She lives on Grand Island,
NY, and is the mother of
two adult children and the
grandmother of one.