Rah, Rah, Radishes!

I'm taking the first course for my School Librarianship certification, Literature for Children.  This first assignment is to read 21-30 current (within the past four years) picture books and create annotations for them.  The annotation is the short blurb that makes you want to read the book but doesn't give away the ending.  It's a challenge for me to find recent books, because I tend to hang on to old favorites.  But, I have my pile and I'm ready to dive in!

Rah, Rah, Radishes!: A Vegetable Chant

The first thing I thought of with this book is how cool it would be to do papermaking with vegetables with the kids (The Gourmet Paper Maker by Ellaraine Lockie comes to mind) and then have a special display in the library of great picture books about vegetables. Or, if you're a homeschooler, you could go to the library and ask the librarian for recommendations and check out a whole bunch of books.

Here's a start to a list like that; feel free to share!

More thoughts (and if I spend an hour being inspired by every book in my box, I'll never get my homework done in time...)

Her website is here: http://www.aprilsayre.com.

She also did a companion book on fruits called Go, Go, Grapes!: A Fruit Chant

This would be fun for older kids to go into art lessons like watercolor paintings or sketching veggies. We are doing a residency with a local artist as part of our Local Lunches cooking lessons where we photograph the produce and then will make oversized paintings that celebrate their colors and textures. This book is a great intro to a concept like that! Someone also does funny art where veggies are made into animals... I have to see if I can find it. Ah! Here it is.

Of course, then you could always go in the direction of Renaissance artist Giuseppe Arcimboldo...