Mo Willems rocks my socks

 This set of books features three great stories by Mo Willems, the Emmy and Caldecott Honor Award winning author. Willems is known for his works a writer on Seasame Street, and can be heard regularly as a “Radio Cartoonist” on NPR’s All Things Considered (one of my favorite shows). Reading this set of books has been an amazing experience. If you have a child under the age of 5 and don’t have any Mo Willems books, I suggest you drop everything right now and go get some (library, book store, or whatever!). If you ever even PLAN to have children under 5, go ahead and buy them in preparation because you’re going to want to have them around. Uh oh. I think I’ve just turned into a Mo Willems fan girl.

16. Leonardo, The Terrible Monster

by Mo Willems

Leonardo feels like he is not as scary as his monster friends, so he makes a plan to scare the tuna salad right out of the biggest scardy-cat he can find. His target is a boy named Sam, but Leonardo is surprise by the lesson he learns after trying to scare the boy.

A delightful, funny book! The minimalist illustrations and text were perfect, sure to impress both kids and parents. I learned a new phrase from this book that I will be adding to my vocabulary: “Scare the tuna salad out of.” My favorite part was when Sam screamed at Leonardo in one crazy run-on sentence that took up the entire page. I could just imagine that reading that part, and the whole book, aloud with a child would be so much fun!

17. My Friend is Sad

by Mo Willems

When Piggy sees that Elephant is sad, he tries to cheer him up by dressing up as a cowboy, a clown, and a super-cool robot. However, Elephant is still sad because all he really wants is to see his friend Piggie.

Cutest. Book. Ever. It describes friendship perfectly, while also being fun and charming. The text is given in speech bubbles over the simple drawings, which helped me imagine the characters’ personalities as I read. I wanted to give Elephant a hug and I wanted to be friends with Piggie. The language and text are simple enough that this book could be read with toddlers, and there is actually a whole series of Elephant and Piggie books for kids that want to read about familiar characters. I also read There Is A Bird On Your Head, which was just as good (I actually laughed quite loudly in the media center and drew some attention to myself when I read it).

18. Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale

by Mo Willems

Trixie and her father go to the laundromat to do laundry. While walking home through the streets of New York, Trixie realizes she has lost her Knuffle Bunny. Since Trixie is too young to talk, she tries to tell her father about the missing Knuffle Bunny so he can save the save the day.

What’s great about this story is the pictures. Just like the photo on the cover, the pictures are real photographs of the streets of Brooklyn with illustrations of the characters. They are fun to look at, and the story did win a Caldecott Honor award in 2005. The story is realistic, no doubt echoing a real-life experience with Mo and his daughter (who is actually named Trixie!).

Coming up in the next installment…more Mo Willems books. Yes…mo’ Mo.

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