Though everyone has times where they want to do things on their own, teamwork is what helps get big things accomplished. Teams can take shape on soccer fields and in swimming pools, but they can also appear in a classroom or on a playground. Working together utilizes the strengths of everyone in the group in order to reach a common goal. It is not about being the best; rather, it is about helping one another and finding a shared purpose. The books in this list are selected for readers ages 4-7 and showcase both humans and animals helping each other in a variety of situations. Hopefully, these stories will help inspire young readers to become team players in their own lives. Contributed by: Mary Lanni
Duck is Stuck
By: Zoubida Mouhssin
Illustrated by: Pascale Moutte-Baur
When he falls asleep while on the lake and wakes up stuck in ice, Duck needs the help of other animals to get loose.
Duncan the Dragon loves to read, but he keeps accidentally lighting his book on fire, leading him to try to find a friend to read to him so he can get to the end of his story.
As they head off to find breakfast, the mighty Little Guys conquer all obstacles in their path through teamwork, but when they amass more than they need, their fellow forest creatures worry about what happens if no one can stop the Little Guys.
Melia is scientific and loves to create things in her backyard laboratory, but something is missing. Her inventions just aren’t quite right. Enter Jo, her new friend with an artistic spirit. When you add the arts to the sciences, something magical happens!
Told in rhyming text, Excavator, Bulldozer, Crane Truck, Dump Truck, and Cement Mixer will all need to work together as they tackle their biggest job yet—a massive building.
Pedro would love to be the goalie in the team’s first game, but another boy is bigger—so, all his friends come over to help him practice before the tryout.
Ursula, a bear, and Ricardo, a human, are preparing for the water ballet competition. But a new regulation at the community pool—no bears—leaves Ursula cut from the contest. Luckily, she encounters a group of undaunted animal swimmers at a local pond, and Ursula and her new team figure out a way to participate in the competition and make sure everyone is welcome at the pool once and for all.
When a big tuna attacks his school of fish, Swimmy goes out on his own and discovers the wonders of the sea. While there, he finds a new school, and he helps them find a way to venture out and stand up to the bigger fish.
When a bear, a moose, and a beaver go on a canoe trip, they have all sorts of disagreements, until they find themselves stranded up the creek and decide that working together is the only way to make it home safely.
Badger brothers Grub and Bristle want to build a boat, but when everyone decides to help, all they’ve built is a big argument. The only way to decide whose idea is best is a race down the river. Will that prove one of them right, or will teamwork win the day?
When Pencil Met Eraser
By: Karen Kilpatrick and Luis O. Ramos, Jr.
Illustrated by: Germán Blanco
Pencil loves to draw and isn’t happy when he meets Eraser. Eraser soon convinces Pencil that he’s the one who can fix things when Pencil makes a mistake, and Pencil finally agrees that they make a good team together.
Art is everywhere, and as children become more comfortable with their fine motor skills, there is more they can create. From finger painting to more delicate collage work and design, the possibilities shift and change over time. As children experiment with producing art themselves, it can be beneficial for them to learn about the many art forms in existence. This awareness can inspire further discovery and exploration both in reading about and in creating art. The books in this list are selected for readers and budding artists ages 5-7. Some titles can be used to inspire art projects directly, while other selections tell of famous artists and popular art forms that may be unfamiliar to young readers. Contributed by: Mary Lanni
Max wants to be an artist like Arthur, but his first attempt at using a paintbrush sends the two friends on a whirlwind trip through various media, leading them to unexpected consequences.
This spiral-bound, divided-page book with die-cuts encourages children to look at art from every angle, mixing and matching to create their own masterpieces.
If you were a boy named Henri Matisse who lived in a dreary town in northern France, what would your life be like? Would it be full of color and art? Full of lines and dancing figures?
Find out in this beautiful, unusual picture book about one of the world’s most famous and influential artists by acclaimed author and Newbery Medal-winning Patricia MacLachlan and innovative illustrator Hadley Hooper.
The Jelly Beans—four friends who like to do such different things as paint, play soccer, read, and dance—paint a mural on an outside wall of Mrs. Petunia Dinkley-Sneezer’s candy shop that depicts them each doing what they love best.
Kenya’s Art
By: Linda Trice
Illustrated by: Hazel Mitchell
Instructed to get rid of all her broken toys, Kenya, with the help of her father, recycles them into art for her class project.
Explains what sort of supplies people use to create works of art, including pencils to draw, paper to make an origami bird, and a camera to take photographs.
Arranged by such materials as paper, paint, clay, and markers, this book offers instructions for making over eighty art projects, including a paper car, Valentine mobile, clay snowman, and colorful kite.
In Math Arts, children will: learn shape recognition by creating a Living Shape Sculpture, explore patterns with a Sticky Dot Illusion, discover the whole and its parts through a Parts and Pieces Relief, practice early graphing with a Cookie Graph, and much more.
Can you spot the shape? Read this book to find out about the different shapes you can find in art. Books in this series introduce children to different shapes in a range of situations. Each book uses simple, repetitive text to teach children basic vocabulary, and includes stunning photographs that show how shapes can be found in many places. In Shapes in Art, children have to find a selection of shapes in paintings, sculptures, and other works of art.
Viva Frida
By: Yuyi Morales
Photography by: Tim O’Meara
The bilingual text explores the famous artist’s life and illuminates the laughter, love, and tragedy that influenced her work.
Human culture is built around communities big and small. Whether a community is made up of people who live near one another or composed of those who share a cultural heritage or background, these groups sustain one another. Sometimes, it is hard to see where one community ends and another begins, and other times it is much more obvious. For the most part, people are involved in more than one community at any given time, and it is through the positive efforts of these groups that society can grow and flourish. This book list is intended for readers aged 8-12 and includes a selection of fiction and nonfiction titles, highlighting a small sampling of communities around the world. Contributed by: Mary Lanni
A Japanese American boy learns to play baseball when he and his family are forced to live in an internment camp during World War II, and his ability to play helps him after the war is over.
Describes how children can help their communities in different ways, from tending a community garden and training service dogs to volunteering to help people with disabilities and mentoring younger students.
What is a community? Who are the leaders in communities? Which languages are most spoken in the world? This series encourages geographical inquiry with an interactive, investigative, and visual approach to a wide range of core curriculum topics.
Describes the different types of communities found around the world, from small farming villages to cities, and explains how each community uses energy, finds food and water, and disposes of waste.
Explore the regions of the world’s oceans known for their coral reefs and learn about the life forms that dwell there. First-person accounts from scientists answer important questions about reef communities.
This title looks at offshore fishing. Around the coast of much of North America, fishing stocks have greatly declined as a result of overfishing, pollution, and global warming. Nova Scotia, in the northeast of Canada, once had a huge fishing industry. In 1753, people from Germany, Switzerland, and France came from Europe to set up a colony at Lunenburg on the coast. They soon set up a fishing and shipbuilding industry. The community grew until about 1980 when the fishing industry largely stopped. Since then, the community has had to reinvent itself. It is still largely based on the old industries, but tourism is as important.
What do you do online? What digital communities do you belong to? Learn how your digital activity makes you part of a digital community in this timely book and examine what it means to be a part of an online culture and digital society.
Cycling rules the road in Amsterdam today, but that wasn’t always the case. In the 1970s, Amsterdam was so crowded with vehicles that bicyclists could hardly move, but moms and kids relied on their bicycles to get around the city. Pedal Power is the story of the people who led protests against the unsafe streets and took over a vehicles-only tunnel on their bikes, showing what a little pedal power could do! Author and illustrator Allan Drummond returns with the story of the people that paved the way for safe biking around the world.
The strength of a community often is determined by the resources available where it is located. This resource discusses both human-made resources (such as dams, bridges, roads, buildings, and industry) as well as renewable and non-renewable natural resources (including soil, water, forests, and energy). The text further explores how such resources affect a community’s health as well as the prosperity and opportunities of its members. Young readers will begin to understand the economics of how resources affect trade and industry. This insightful text also introduces the idea that controversies exist about ways to use resources without environmental damage.
Dear Professor Whale By: Megumi Iwasa
Illustrated by: Jun Takabatake
Reviewed by: David Bove
Professor Whale is the only whale left at Whale point. He has the respect of the other animals who live nearby, but all of his friends have moved on, and he feels lonely just reminiscing about the good old days and his championship outings in the Whale Olympics. Thinking that new connections will perk him up, Professor Whale sends out letters with the delivery seal in an attempt to meet new animals from different parts of the world. The only response he receives is from Wally, a young whale from Otto Island.
Professor Whale is disappointed at first since he was hoping to hear from someone more exotic, but his interest is piqued when he learns that Wally is the grandson of one of his old friends who left Whale Point long ago. Wally grew up hearing stories of the Whale Olympics, and Professor Whale is inspired to organize a new round of the games after hearing how much Wally was moved by the stories his grandfather told him. Getting everything in order for the event turns out to be just the thing to enliven Professor Whale and jolt him out of his old routines. The Whale Olympics even bring some old faces back to Whale Point, and Professor Whale is happy to have other whales around.
Iwasa’s sweet parable about the value of friends and kindness to others is sure to charm. Her story, presented here in a pitch-perfect translation by Cathy Hirano, is full of warm, likable characters who are consistently kind to one another in a way that feels heartwarming, rather than saccharine. Takabatake’s illustrations are a perfect complement, their childlike simplicity adding to the sense of coziness to the story. Dear Professor Whale builds on the characters that Iwasa introduced in Yours Sincerely, Giraffe, though this book stands on its own. Whether readers are new to the series or not, both children and adults will appreciate this cheerful story.
