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Author: Judy Butler

  • Kindness and Stone Paper

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    Judy Butler
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    The Lonely Mailman (2016) and A Mystery in the Forest (2020) are two stories about kindness published on Stone Paper. I sure hope that Susanna Isern and Daniel Montero Galán team up again to create more heartwarming picture books. A badger (I think it’s a badger) rides a bicycle to deliver mail to animals in…

  • lmnop

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    Judy Butler
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    Someone changed the melody to the English alphabet song. No more rushing through lmnop! Funny how, in all the years I sang that song as a child and then as an SLP, I never questioned the intelligibility of that middle section. This modification got me thinking about the many alphabet books I’ve come across. Some…

  • Sandra Louise Woodward Darling

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    Judy Butler
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    A friend pulled Carl’s Afternoon in the Park (1991) from a bookstore shelf and said, “You’ve got to see this.” That was in 1992. What fun it’s been finding books by Alexandra Day ever since. Carl is an enormous Rottweiler that looks after a child while his owners are away. The idea for this series…

  • Barry Moser’s Amazing Animals

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    Judy Butler
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    Energy literally flies off the page of Earthquack (2002) as the wings of a huge white goose extend beyond the borders of the cover. I nearly hear honking from the bird’s wide-open beak as it flails above the crumbling ground below its airborne feet. A small, bright yellow duck mirrors the panic. The sky isn’t…

  • Praise for Patricia Polacco

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    Judy Butler
    in

    Thank you, Mr. Falker (1998) was the first book I read by the amazing Patricia Polacco. This story is about a girl who has trouble learning to read. In first grade, “when Trisha looked at a page, all  she saw were wiggling shapes, and when she tried to sound out words, the other kids laughed…

  • Insightful Title

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    Judy Butler
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    Marisol McDonald Doesn’t Match by Monica Brown (2011), at first glance, looks like it might be a story about a unique personality, maybe an artistic child, so I grab it. Sara Palacios’ cover illustration shows a smiling red-head with pig tails hanging upside down. I don’t know which way is up until I read the…

  • Why the limited palette?

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    Judy Butler
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    The Brilliant Deep: Rebuilding the World’s Coral Reefs by Kate Messner (2018) is the story of Ken Nedimyer’s heroic attempts to restore dying coral reefs. There’s more information, references, and vocabulary at the back of the book. A photo of Nedimyer is on the last page. I won’t be creating a Picture Book Talk lesson…

  • Pale Male x 3

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    Judy Butler
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    I’ve enjoyed reading three picture books about a famous hawk from New York City. Pale Male arrived in Central Park in 1991 and eventually built a nest at 927 Fifth Avenue. He grew an international fan club. It’s fascinating how the three stories differ in text and illustration. City Hawk: The Story of Pale Male…

  • The Picture Book Club

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    Judy Butler
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    I have a subscription to The Picture Book Club. The theme of my subscription is “In Translation”, so I receive books first published in other languages. All but one of these stories has been quite gentle. The content more original than I’ve seen in my browsing. The illustrations also unlike the homogeneous digital art that…

  • Retold . . . and Revised?

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    Judy Butler
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    The Mitten by Jan Brett (1989) is one of her gorgeously illustrated stories that I read many years ago. What I didn’t remember was a note that precedes the story. It’s a full page explanation of how The Mitten is a Ukranian folktale that her friends brought to her attention. She looked for all the…