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Even little commuters have big ideas about books, so climb aboard and explore what Commuter Kids have to say. I take two trains and a bus to work and ask commuters about their favorite book. If it’s in the DCPL catalog, I read it and recommend it to you! Today’s selection looks at picture books that got two sticky thumbs up from the stroller set. Meet a smart cookie, a trying toddler, an insecure buffalo, an interrupting chicken and a mathematical monkey. A future Commuter Kids will explore chapter books that older children adore. Got a library card? Check’em out!
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The Smart Cookie by Jory John
A pint-sized reviewer, taking the Green Line to the Smithsonian stop, said he loves all things Jory John, including The Bad Seed and The Couch Potato. But The Smart Cookie earns top prize. “We read that over and over,” his mom told me, and it’s easy to see why. Teachy but not preachy, The Smart Cookie deals with mega-serious topics, like anxiety and low self-esteem, in an inviting and playful way. With laugh-out-loud puns and whimsical drawings of baked goods at work, it tells a journey of self discovery that “wasn’t always a cakewalk” but leads to a happy, fulfilling life.
Please, Baby, Please by Spike Lee and Tonya Lewis Lee
You know this recommendation from a Green Line commuter kid comes from a true book fan, because he cries when it’s time to leave his beloved Southwest Library. Leave it to filmmaker superstar Spike Lee and his attorney wife Tonya Lewis Lee to write a pitch-perfect script for caregivers of turbocharged toddlers. In poetry! Illustrator Kadir Nelson freeze-frames a compendium of adorable toddler adventures and misadventures (used diaper in the toy chest, anyone?) with flawless facial expressions from ecstasy to obstinacy to wonder to melt-down. The same team also created Please, Puppy, Please, about toddlers and their new best friend.
Buffalo Fluffalo by Bess Kalb
On the Red Line, I met a six-year-old commuter who’s fond of tigers, snakes, wildebeests and Pokémon. But his favorite is Buffalo Fluffalo, a dreamily illustrated picture book about "a snuffalo, scruffalo, surly old buffalo, who was ever so snarly and gnarly and tuffalo." The buffalo discovers that he can hold his bluster and become “hugly and snugly kissable” just by being himself. Author Bess Kalb uses her Emmy-nominated comedy chops to create snappy text and a feel-good story. Its musical words are ideal for enticing emerging readers to explore the rhythm of language and joys of the written word.
Interrupting Chicken by David Ezra Stein
Commuter kids recommended not one, but two chicken books! The giggle-inducing Chickens to the Rescue, by veteran author John Himmelman, is chockfull of madcap illustrations of chickens saving the day in increasingly spectacular ways. But Interrupting Chickens wins top billing, because Gabriel, clutching his favorite toy truck, told me, “I read it like 30 times in kindergarten and 50 times in first grade.” A little red chicken is king of the spoilers, derailing bedtime stories by blurting out how the characters can avert disaster. The Caldecott Honor book is the first in a series that inspired an animated TV spinoff.
Curious George: The Dog Show by Monica Perez
If a mischievous monkey and a passel of show dogs can ignite a child’s imagination about mathematical concepts like sorting and counting, then one, two, three cheers for Curious George!! Our commuter kid, heading off to the airport for a trip to San Francisco, said she loves this PBS Kids Level 1 easy reader about how Curious George entices all the prize winners at the dog show to follow him home while their owners are busy elsewhere collecting their ribbons. The end of the book has sorting and counting exercises and recommendations for how to help children with their math skills.
About the Author
Barbara Cornell is a Library Associate at the William O. Lockridge Bellevue Neighborhood Library. She grew up in Michigan, where the public library across the street from her house was a first taste of independence. Since then, she has lived in five countries and always finds a home in books. She has two grown sons and lives with her husband in Washington, DC.