Grade: 1

In this Byrd Baylor prose-poem classic, Indian children in the Southwest make a game of collecting pieces of ancient pottery and trying to fit the pieces together. Their parents remind them to treat the clay with respect because “every piece of clay is a piece of someone’s life” and every piece “has its own small voice and sings in its own way.” As the children carefully touch the pieces of clay, they listen for the songs they sing and think about the hands that shaped them. And as they examine the pottery’s designs, their imaginations conjure up details of the people’s lives who made and used this pottery. Bahti’s animated pen-and-ink drawings of the pottery’s primitive figures and designs won a prestigious Caldecott honor.

Just when a little boy thinks he’s going to die of boredom from running errands with his mom, the most remarkable, the most stupendous thing happens. He discovers that on this day, and this day only, stores everywhere are giving away a very special treat with any purchase. No, not the usual lollipop or sticker. Something bigger. Much, MUCH bigger. It’s a dream come true, except…what exactly do you do with these Jurassic treats? And how do you convince Mom to let you keep them?

Max is being so terrible that his mother sends him to his room without supper. But Max doesn’t care — he sails off to the land of the Wild Things, and they make him his king. There, Max can be as terrible as he pleases, and the Wild Things join in the rumpus. Finally, Max is tired of being wild, and yearns to go home. Marvelous pictures and the superb story combine to make this a quintessential picture book. In it, readers will recognize their own wild side.

Spot’s more colorful than ever! With a striking new cover to show him off, this lift-the-flap paperback has Spot’s mom looking for her lost puppies — especially Spot. But where is he? Little readers will have a bow-wow-wonderful time looking for the popular pooch, too.

Dr. Seuss, pseudonym for Theodor Seuss Geisel, is world renowned for his inventiveness and wit. His stories are instantly recognizable by their use of fantastic words, clever rhymes, and unusual creatures-drawn in his distinctive style.

There was a time when women in America had to wear bulky dresses that weighed as much as a dozen bricks! That was until Amelia Bloomer, a 19th-century feminist, invented “bloomers” — a fashion trend which ultimately freed women from their burdensome clothing. Author Shana Corey and illustrator Chesley McLaren have created a charming picture book which tells the story of this unconventional and fashion-forward designer.

This wordless book demonstrates that a simple scene is not always what it seems! It begins with a close-up image of a rooster’s comb. Each successive image provides a more distant perspective, revealing that each picture is a small part of a larger scene — farm children watching the rooster, aerial views of the children and farm, and so on. As the imaginary lens pulls farther and farther away, we see that the farm scene and children are actually a toy farm set being played with by a child, the child turns out to be in a photograph of a magazine being read by a boy on a cruise ship, the cruise ship is part of an advertisement on a bus . . . The reader’s attention is captured as the imaginary lens pulls out into space. The Earth grows smaller and smaller until it is a tiny white dot on a black page. Have students also read Re-Zoom (Penguin, 1995), a sequel by the same author that examines the process in reverse.