Top 10 picture books for holiday 2010

BROOKLYN -- Children’s books authors like Jon Scieszka and Mo Willems saunter in and out of the Community Bookstore in Park Slope, Brooklyn., so kids books savvy is second nature here.   Absorbing the atmosphere, the offerings, and the staff recommendations gleans the following top ten picture books for this holiday season. (Yeah, Scieszka and Willems are on it, but that wasn’t intentional.)

1. Her Mother’s Face by  Roddy Doyle. This touching story of a girl who can’t remember what her mother looked like and her moody father who is no help at all, ends happily with a wonderful piece of advice.

2. Don’t Kiss The Frog by Fiona Waters.  Just the bright pink and sparkly green cover make this book look festive, but inside we have a collection of six stories that twist the fairy princess tradition – but keep the happy endings.  Readers will meet princesses who have hidden talents, who tame dragons, rescue princes and win prizes. Spells don’t always work as predicted. The stories are full of sass and humor. The illustrations are charming with creative typography. The book is billed for modern little girls who like a life substance along with the tiara.

3. Spork by  Kyo Maclear and Isabelle Arsenault.     This distressed little hybrid (mom was spoon, dad a fork) was never chosen when they were setting the table – until the “messy person” arrived.  Clever, whimsical. Charming and lets us hope there’s a place for all of us.

4. Interrupting Chicken by Davis Ezra Stein. Papa begs his daughter not to interrupt the bedtime stories, but she can’t help herself. To top it off, she doesn’t fall asleep. Then she takes over, and he does.

Tied for 5^th: It’s  A Book, by  Lane Smith, where a donkey wants to know if you need to scroll down or need a screen name or password, and keeps being told it’s a book, and learns he’s a jackass when he still offers to “charge it up” when he’s done, and We Are In A Book by Mo Willems. Recurring characters Elephant and Piggy discover they’re on the pages or a book and “We’re being read!” The nearly palpable excitement is bound to turn some kids on to reading.

 6. Dogs Don’t Do Ballet, by Anna Kemp.  But this one does, and that’s just fine in the end. Charming drawings.  Theme: acceptance.

 7. Brontorina by  James Howe. Another unlikely Pavlova, but she just needs bigger performance space. Theme: accommodation. 

8. Robot by Jon Scieszka. Not too many words here, but active kids will get it. Bright, bold, action packed.

 9. Urban Animals by Isabel Hill.  Oh, what wonders we can see if we really look.  Hill points out the wild animals we hardly notice on our public buildings. Fascinating study in learning not to miss what’s out there.

 10. Of Thee I Sing by Barack Obama. Sappy, sure, but you can overlook that for the biographical and social history here. In a supposed letter to his daughters, the president  associates their traits – like  creativity, courage, intelligence,  and kindness – with famous persons who had the same, like Georgia O’Keefe, and Helen Keller, Albert Einstein and  Jane Addams.