Make Way for Readers

Sierra returns to the subject of Wild About Books and Born to Read with another exuberant celebration of reading, this time focusing on the joys of a good read-aloud session. As the story opens, young animals ride scooters, skateboards, and bikes to a story hour led by Miss Bingo, a bespectacled flamingo who holds court in an outdoor library of sorts, complete with a pond and surrounding meadow grasses. Karas (A Poem in Your Pocket) includes visual nods to several children’s book classics—avid readers will recognize copies of Pat the Bunny and Doctor De Soto, among other titles—and Sierra puts Mother Goose rhymes front-and-center as the day’s read-aloud choice. As usual, Sierra’s verse is spot-on in its rhyme and meter, and Karas’s wispy colored pencils capture the animals’ bountiful enthusiasm. And when one of the animals steps on the foot of tiny Annabelle the mouse during a mid-reading stretch session, Sierra eloquently shows how reading can do more than just engage imaginations—with a little improvising, it can turn tears to giggles, too. Ages 4–8. Illustrator’s agent: Brenda Bowen, Sanford J. Greenburger Associates. (July)