Crunch, Interrupting Chicken & The Cow Loves Cookies

As I can, I'm going to read some of the Cybils book awards and nominees as suggested by the ladies at Five Minutes for Books. For those that are unfamiliar with the Cybils, they are awards are given each year by bloggers for the year's best children's and young adult titles. (Taken from the Cybils website). I'm always looking for books to recommend to N1 and pictures books for the smaller munchkins so I requested a few titles from the library to try out this past week.

The first book that I read was Crunch by Leslie Connor. This was a really neat story that I have no hesitations about recommending! Crunch is the story of the Marriss family during a great gas shortage - coincidentally (or not) the Marriss family owns a small bike shop which suddenly gets lots of attention when no one can drive their cars. The five kids in the family run in age from 18 to 5 and they are swamped with bike repairs and requests, all the while their parents are stranded far away and can't make it home because they have no gas. This is a great story about stepping up and being responsible when the time calls for it. There are great characters in this book and once I started it, it was hard to put down. I think this book would especially appeal to a boy as the story is told through the eyes of Dewey, the 14 year old brother. An excellent book that I would recommend for anyone aged 9 and up.

For the little girls, I grabbed two pictures books that were both nominated for an award this year: Interrupting Chicken and The Cow Loves Cookies. Interrupting Chicken is adorable. The story of a little chicken that askes her Dad for a bedtime story, but can't help interrupting and interjecting herself into the story. N2 (5) pronounced this one her favorite and I'm sure it will get additional readings before we return it to the library. B (3 1/2) pronounced The Cow Loves Cookies as her favorite of the two. A book with an easy rhyme to it, it goes through the food that the different farm animals like to eat, but for some reason the cow gets to eat cookies! Craziness. : ) I liked the illustrations in this book a lot - very roly-poly sweet drawings of the animals. Interrupting Chicken was very bright and colorful which I liked, however, some of the type was a little hard for me to read on such a bright, vivid background. (Or it could be that my eyes are getting old and it's time for new glasses. Also very possible).

Three winners from my first stack of Cybils nominees! For more suggested Cybils reading, visit Five Minutes for Books.