First Pages: Wizard of Oz

“Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer’s wife. Their house was small, for the lumber to build it had to be carried by wagon many miles. There were four walls, a floor and a roof, which made one room; and this room contained a rusty looking cookstove, a cupboard for the dishes, a table, three or four chairs and the beds.”

~ from The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

Book Vs Movie: The Sun is Also a Star

“Carl Sagan said that if you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe. When he says ‘from scratch’, he means from nothing. He means from a time before the world even existed. If you want to make an apple pie from nothing at all, you have to start with the Big Bang and expanding universes, neutrons, ions, atoms, black holes, suns, moons, ocean tides, the Milky Way, Earth, evolution, dinosaurs, extinction-level events, playtupuses, Homo erectus, Cro-Magnon man, etc. You have to start at the beginning.”

~from The Sun Is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon

If I Was the Sunshine

Julie Fogliano has woven together a lovely soft sort of ode to a loved one in a call and answer format. It’s a quiet melody that is not quite predictable, but depicts an ongoing relationship that draws two people (or things) together. Loren Long’s gorgeous illustrations are vibrant and full of flight, ocean waves, changing seasons, and always, always the ways we interconnect with each other and beyond.