Making Memories: IN A JAR

This will be brief.
Not because this book deserves little attention, but because it is a brilliant reminder to nurture the life beyond ourselves- in the natural world, but especially in relationships. As soon as possible, get your hands on this book and get busy making memories in real life.

IN A JAR is the recent picture book written and illustrated by Deborah Marcero.

Penguin Books for Kids

Someone I dearly love began, with her first baby's first breath, to whisper the words "Let's make some memories" in that infant's ear. She repeated some version of that mantra preceding the mundane and miraculous, the planned and the unexpected, throughout her kids' lives, including their eye-rolling adolescences. 
Now adults, I expect they'll do the same with their own eventual families.
This picture book is eloquent in words and images, offering that same invitation to the tot audience and to the adult reader, the ones holding books and turning pages. It calls all to be intentional, to be direct and in the moment, to savor and save, and to use those moments to root us in deep relationships. 
Digital screens have value. Our brains (big ones and little ones) are drawn to them. But on the other side of a human-screen relationship, no one is THERE.  No one remembers back. There is no authentic emotional link, no one to smile with, or cry with, or just KNOW us.

There are countless wonderful things about this book, and meaningful ways in which it reveals nature and seasons and life cycles and longing. But mostly, it just might launch someone into making memories.

For more details about this book (and added praise), check out starred reviews from KIRKUS (HERE), and SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL (HERE). The Booklist starred review included this:
*”Marcero works magic with prismatic watercolors, ink, and pencil, as her light-filled illustrations chronicle the young rabbits’ exploits and their appreciative wonder of the world around them . . . This joyful account of friendship will charm readers with the notion of capturing wind or a rainbow in a jar, but its deeper message of maintaining relationships over a distance will comfort those who have moved or know someone who has.” —Booklist, starred review

A Trifecta of Fun: Fairytales, Fractions, and TWINS!

As noted in the previous post, I'm excited and honored to be participating as a ROUND ONE panelist for the CYBILS Awards again. This year I'm reading in the POETRY category. If you haven't yet checked out the current nominees for all categories, get over to those lists and make sure your favorites are represented (HERE). The deadline for open nominations is just a week away, October 15. 
Meanwhile, I've been updating availability lists for books already nominated, placing holds at the library, and even hauling home some of the amazing poetry books from 2017. This is gong to be a tough decision, I can tell!

For the coming weeks, though, while reading, rereading, and evaluating the ultimate list of poetry nominees, I want to shine a spotlight on picture books that may show up in other categories. 
One worthy read is TWINDERELLA: A Fractioned Fairy Tale, written  by Corey Rosen Schwartz and illustrated by Deborah Marcero. It's  a winner on several counts. 
The premise is that Cinderella actually had a twin, Tinderella. Cin and Tin suffered the same mistreatment as in the original story, but they shared the tasks equally, halvsies, and offered each other the comfort of sisterly love and a many-hands approach to drudge work.
With numerous examples illustrated simply and embedded in rhymed text, the two personalities emerge as highly compatible but distinctly different. Cin has the more traditional romantic bent to her interests but Tin is an analytic and mathematical problem solver. It seems that may account for her having been overlooked in prior tellings of the tale. 
Each page contains more examples of fraction-able examples that you can imagine, and attentive kids will find many more than are mentioned explicitly. Typical "half" exercises are pictured as slices or symmetrical folds, but these are halves of sets of various items. As their families expand the opportunity to consider related fraction families is an open-ended challenge. The end papers and a bonus removable fraction chart in a casing pocket make this book especially suited to kids who jump on board the fraction frenzy enthusiastically. 
Schwartz has written other versions of various traditional tales. This one, released in September, will find fans among readers, parents, and teachers. The likable pair add an engaging twist to a familiar story, and the fraction challenges add to its "read-it-again" appeal.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.