At 5 Minutes for Books, we are proud to feature books across many genres for children and adults. This week is all about highlighting children’s books, but if your own kids are a little older now, please take some time to look through our Teens review archives.
Read the anchor post to find all of the Fall Festival of Children’s Books reviews and see how you can get involved as well.
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As parents, we watch as our little ones get older, and when the time comes, we gradually grant them more freedom to explore the world independently. Well, it can’t be too much different in the animal kingdom, and as depicted in Lisa Schroeder’s Little Chimp’s Big Day, it’s adorable and sweet.
When Mother leaves Little Chimp for a moment in the tree, he suddenly finds the branch cracking, and soon he safely plops down in the mud. He begins to explore the jungle around him, making friends with various animals and discovering delicious foods to eat. Little does he know, Mother is never very far away, keeping a watchful eye on her beloved young one, but allowing him a chance to seek, and lurch, and peek and perch (among many other fantastic rhyming verbs).
Animal loving children will also be sure to be ecstatic for the absolutely beautiful Man Gave Names to All the Animals, a new picture book based on the Bob Dylan song of the same name, and illustrated by the talented Jim Arnosky. I wasn’t familiar with the song, personally, so the accompanying CD was helpful for us to learn the tune. Truly, Arnosky’s realistic and super detailed paintings make this book a delight to look at. After listening to the song and moving at a quicker pace through the pages, one should really go back and take time to fully appreciate the numerous animal illustrations, perhaps even to try matching up pictures with the alphabetic list of animals at the end of the book!
If you have animal lovers in your life, or perhaps are looking for a book to give as a gift to a future zoologist on his birthday, you can find two winning options in Little Chimp’s Big Day and Man Gave Names to All the Animals.
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Dawn’s own children both love, AND act like, wild animals, and their adventures are often chronicled on her blog, my thoughts exactly.
I am very aware of my daughter’s need for additional freedoms. I’m sure Little Champ’s Big Day would help us both with this!
It’s really quite adorable, with that added little reassurances to moms and dads about our children’s need for gradual independence! 🙂
A chance for my daughter to learn a Bob Dylan song without Dylan’s usual mumbling…nice! (Plus she loves animals).
Ah, don’t worry Casey- it comes with a CD, so she’ll still get to hear him in all his mumbling glory! Hee hee.
Too funny! I read the review about the CD but just assumed it would be someone covering Dylan, not actually him. Ooops. Maybe I’ll fill my mouth with marbles when reading the book so DD can have full Dylan experience. 🙂
Not a bad idea- really make it an authentic reading! I was thankful for the book, because there are several lyrics in the song that I couldn’t understand without the assistance of the text! 🙂 Gotta love Dylan!
My son loves animal books (And I miss listening to Bob Dylan). Thanks for the great give away.
Thanks, Lynn! This review is not a giveaway, though we do have many open right now as part of our Fall Festival of Children’s Books– just click up at the top navigation bar where it says Giveaways. 🙂
I think we’d really like that Bob Dylan one!
My 4 year old has recently become very independent… Little Chimp’s Big Day looks like a good read for him!
Little Chimp sounds like a fun book
Little Chimp’s Big Day would be welcome at my house. Three little ones all wanting to exert more independence!
I am a Bob Dylan fan and familiar with his song.
I am very excited to learn about this book and can’t wait to share it with my animal loving daughter. thanks