My Favorite Read-Aloud Books Right Now: March 2016

Do you ever feel like you hit a streak of not-so-great books, and then boom! You get a ton of really great ones in one shot?

Below are the library finds my family and I enjoyed reading in the last month, including everything from picture books about having a can-do attitude to graphic novels strangely reminiscent of Doctor Who.

Edgar Gets Ready for Bed, written by Jennifer Adams and illustrated by Ron Stucki is, as you can probably deduce, a picture book inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven.” Edgar is a boisterous young raven whose answer for everything is, you guessed it, “nevermore!” The kids won’t get the reference, but you will. Adorable!

I Had a Favorite Dress, written by Bonie Ashburn and illustrated by Julia Denos, starts with a young girl’s favorite dress and a problem: her dress is now too short. Rather than throwing it away, she asks her mom to sew something else with it. “Snip, snip, sew, sew, new shirt, hello!” As our spunky protagonist progresses through the many lives of her favorite dress, it reminds us that making something new out of something old isn’t just a possibility but a joy.

The Wonderful Things You Will Be by Emily Winfield Martin is so sweet, you might get a toothache. Emily’s beautifully painted, wistful images pair perfectly with her short rhyming text written from a parent’s perspective contemplating all the wonderful things their children will become. Just make sure you have tissues nearby.

The Whispering Town written by Jennifer Elvgren and illustrated by Fabio Santomauro is a picture book based on a true story taking place during WWII. A seaside Danish village comes together to help Jews escape from the Nazis to neutral Sweden. Both the text and the author’s note don’t provide much backstory about WWII, so be prepared to do some explaining if your child isn’t familiar with this part of history yet. Regardless, it is a touching and clever story that will probably give you goosebumps.

Welcome to the Tribe (Tib & Tumtum #1), written by Flora Frimaldi and illustrated by Danielle Bannister, is a graphic novel featuring an adorable cast of cavemen and a dinosaur no one believes exists, except for Tib. Tib is a boy frequently bullied for having a birth mark on his face, and no one takes him seriously when he claims to have found and befriended a dinosaur. But does the dinosaur come through to save the day? Of course he does!

Hilda and the Troll by Luke Pearson is a graphic novel in a wonderful series following the adventures of a girl who lives in a land filled with many strange creatures. In a way it reminds me a lot of Doctor Who: Hilda is kind to the new creatures she meets (even when they are initially kind to her) and finds peaceful solutions to unusual situations. My 5-year-old enjoyed the first one so much that we took multiple trips to the library to binge-read the whole series in the same week.

How about you, have you picked up any interesting read-alouds at the library or a bookstore recently?