>This week’s book for my 3 & up Story Time was David Hyde Costello’s I Can Help.
It was a good book to read aloud because of it’s simple story concept, but also because the pictures (which are so cute!) have bright, bold colors and the animal characters are easily recognizable for younger children. Even the book’s smaller square shape doesn’t hinder the Story Time experience for the kids. They were able to see and understand most of the action that was happening without hearing the words. The fact that the story comes full circle also delighted them, as they were able to recognize the first character, which is a baby duck.
The story begins with the baby duck getting lost, and a monkey leading him back to his mother (I am saying “him” because for some reason the duck felt like a boy to me – not being gender-biased or anything…) Then something happens to the monkey, who receives help from another animal…..etc. until the baby duck is able to pay it forward and help another animal…only to realize he’s lost again! All the animals come to his rescue, so no worries.
I was lucky enough to meet David and visit his studio. He is incredibly talented in writing and illustrating, as well as in creating amazing, almost robot-like puppets. I hope to have him to the library to read his books sometime soon. Another book by David, which I LOVE is called Here They Come! A cute book about monsters meeting up in the forest. David has a great puppet he made to go with it. For more info on David Hyde Costello, click here for his website!
For the craft, we made paper plate ducks, which turned out really cute. The idea was from Enchanted Learning, which is a great craft site. We also read Duck! Rabbit!by Amy Rosenthal and Tom Litchfield as a supplement, which is also a great book – it was funny to see which kids would stick to one animal and which ones wavered. It’s a great book. I’ve used the book before as a stand-alone and we did an optical illusion craft that was really fun (since the book is based on the old optical illusion picture.)