This addition to Raising Star Readers features the theme “If you read it, they will come.”
As Connie (Gigi to her grandchildren) explains: “Our reading team hit a bump in the road! On a recent trip to Colorado, I introduced the picture book Grumpy Monkey (written by Suzanne Lang and illustrated by Max Lang) to Priya (now 2½) and Nikhil (now 10 months). This is a funny, sweet story about allowing yourself to have a bad day every once in a while for no particular reason.
“Nikhil absolutely did not want to sit on my lap to look at the book. He did, however, want to manhandle the bright red shiny dust jacket.
Priya did not want to sit and read either, though she was intrigued by the title. She kept repeating, “grumpy monkey” as she puttered around the porch with her armful of toys. It wasn’t until Grandpa picked up the book, began to read aloud, and clearly enjoyed the story, that Priya couldn’t resist coming in for a look. Hence the moral of the story: If you read it, they will come!
“With the addition of Grandpa, our reading team has now grown by one. And Priya’s dad reports that since we left, Grumpy Monkey is Priya’s most requested bedtime story. It seems she has added Jim Panzee, Marabou, and Norman to her list of beloved book friends.”
Connie is a former buyer for Creative Kidstuff stores in Minneapolis. She currently lives in Montana, where she enjoys the great outdoors with her family and one extra-energetic dog. She is the author of several picture books, including Rare and Blue: Finding Nature’s Treasures, forthcoming from Charlesbridge on June 16, 2020. Connie feels sure that Priya and Nikhil will be captivated by Alan Marks’ stunning illustrations for the book. You can find Connie online at www.constancevanhoven.com.
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Bookology is always looking for new Reading Teams to help us celebrate the joys of reading aloud together. Contact Lisa Bullard for further information if you’re interested in participating.
When I first read The Stuff of Stars by 
I’ve been anxiously awaiting the book birth of The Stuff of Stars by 
When you sit down to write a picture book, what has inspired you?
Do you know the ending of your picture book before you begin to write?
Do you ever begin a picture book feeling at a loss for how to write it?
Why is “older” an acceptable word and “old” almost forbidden?
There are times when I don’t know my own mind. Worse, there are times when I think I know my mind perfectly well and then find an entirely different mind on a later visit to my opinions.
We hope you enjoyed reading 
In this interview with Jennifer A. Bell, illustrator of many endearing books, we’ve asked about the process of illustrating Little Cat’s Luck, our 
How did you interact with the art director for these books?
In this interview with Marion Dane Bauer, we’re asking about her novel-in-verse, Little Cat’s Luck, our 
The moment I give an animal human speech, I have violated its animal nature. We are who we are as humans precisely because we talk, and we do it constantly, with good and bad results. We converse to understand one another, and we call one another names. In stories it can be very difficult to hold onto the animal nature of a dog or cat while human words are coming from their mouths. When I wrote my novel Runt, about a wolf pup, I chose to give the animals speech, following the pattern of marvelous writers such as Felix Salten, the author of Bambi, a Life in the Woods. And while that was a very intentional choice, it was a choice I found myself not wanting to repeat when I considered writing a sequel to Runt. I returned to my wolf research in preparation for writing that second book and found myself so impressed with the subtle, complex ways wolves actually communicate with one another that I put the idea for a sequel aside. I found I didn’t want to put speech into their mouths again. However, when I wrote Little Cat’s Luck I put that concern aside easily, partly I suppose because cats are domesticated animals, so speech felt less a violation. I gave them roles that are familiar in our human world, too, for Patches be a mother and for Gus to be a hurting bully, which made it easy to know what they might say. Throughout, though, I retained their animal nature by staying close to their physicality. Describing the way they move and the things they do with their bodies kept their animal natures in view.
I believe that the most important thing a story does, any story, is to make us feel. By inhabiting a story, living through it, we are transformed in some small — or sometimes large — way. I know that when stories are used in the classroom, they are used for multiple purposes, and that is as it should be, but I hope adults presenting Patches and Buddy will first let the children experience the boy, the dog, the cat, will let them feel their stories from the inside. After the stories have been experienced, as stories, there is plenty of time to use those words on the page for vocabulary lessons or as a prompt for children to write their own verse stories or anything else they might be useful for. But always, I hope, the story will be first.
This month, we are pleased to feature Untamed: The Wild Life of Jane Goodall, written by Anita Silvey, with photographs and book designed by the incredible team at National Geographic. This book is not only fascinating to read, it’s a beautiful reading experience as well.
