Mole Music

 Does music speak to your soul in a way that nothing else can? This is what Mole discovers in Mole Music by David McPhail. He is inspired to play the violin by a performer on television and Mole works hard to become excellent.


His love for music replaces the time he used to spend watching television, and his music impacts more people than he will ever realize.

This is the Game

We are big baseball fans (Go Orioles!) and This is the Game by Diane Z. Shore and Jessica Alexander is a book that literally gives me goosebumps. It's written in beautiful verse and packed with great baseball descriptions. From kids playing a pickup game on sandlots to playing cards and crackerjack, it's full of nostalgia.


And the ending is baseball in miniature: one victor emerges and everyone else has to "wait 'till next year."


This book is sure to thrill baseball enthusiasts of all ages.

The Man Who Walked Between the Towers

Mordicai Gerstein's The Man Who Walked Between the Towers is another Caldecott Award winner. This picture book is the true story of Philippe Petit, a wire walker that walked between the unfinished World Trade Center Towers in 1974.

The story is facinating and  the illustrations compelling (many are taken from actual photographs of the event. This book is a great way to introduce history and historical events to kids in a very accessible and entertaining way.

The end of the book also mentions the towers being gone now, though it does not say the reason. We used this book to introduce September 11 to our kids when they asked about why the towers were gone.

After enjoying this  book so much, I wanted to learn more about Philippe so I read his book To Reach the Clouds