I hope everyone is enjoying these first few official days of summer! We’ve been having sunshine and blue skies, and life is good!
It’s Monday, What Are You Reading? is hosted by Kathryn at The Book Date, and adapted by Kellee at Unleashing Readers and Jen at Teach Mentor Texts with a children’s/YA focus. The Sunday Post is hosted by The Caffeinated Book Reviewer. These weekly roundups are a great way to discover new blogs and bloggers, share some of the titles you’ve been enjoying, and add to your ever-growing to-read list.
I’ve recently started meeting up with an awesome group of fellow library folks to drink tea, eat sweets and share beautiful books, and thanks to them I’ve been discovering some fantastic new-to-me picture books!
WOW! I’ve never read anything by Gemma O’Neill before, but now I can’t wait to pick up her other picture book, because her illustrations are absolutely stunning. My goodness!!
The story in Monty’s Magnificent Mane isn’t the strongest – a vain lion learns what’s really important, which is of course the power of friendship – but the illustrations are just incredible. I couldn’t stop staring! Such detail! I highly, highly recommend picking this one up, if just to stare at each gorgeous page.
It’s a rare treat to find a book that’s beautiful to look at, a joy to read, and educational to boot! The Honeybee is a gorgeous celebration of the many incredible steps that bees follow to create the golden elixir, honey. Kristen Hall’s text is an absolutely delight – bouncy and fresh and wonderful. And of course, Isabelle Arsenault’s illustrations are just as stunning as you would expect.
Bees are vital to our ecosystems, just are sadly under increasing threat. How important it is to celebrate bees, raise awareness of their incredible work, and encourage young readers to protect these wondrous insects.
Roof Octopus is another picture book in which I enjoyed the story but was absolutely blown away by the illustrations. Just look at that cover! The colours! The details! GORGEOUS.
Every spread is just bursting with colour and detail and life, and look like little works of art. Again, the story is fine, but it’s the illustrations that really make this worth picking up.
So, what have you been reading, friends? I can’t wait to read all your posts! Have a great week!
Oh my, you read some gorgeous picture books this week! I just checked locally and cannot believe we have none of these books in my libraries, yet. 🙁 But it’s probably time for me to put in a few more order requests. I would especially love to read The Honeybee. Our next door neighbor is a bee keeper and she’s taught us quite a bit over the years. Thanks so much for sharing these books and spreads, Jane!
Definitely time to add these beauties to your collection, especially The Honeybee! It’s a real delight. Aren’t bees just marvelous??
These all look like beautiful books!
All three of these books look gorgeous! I’ll definitely have to look for them! Thanks for sharing!
Wow, all three are new to me, and I just took some pictures on my morning walk of lots of bees in a meadow near me. I will find “The Honeybee”!
I just took some pictures of bees in a meadow near my house, Jane! Thanks for all these, but I will certainly find “The Honeybee”!
We’ve been out for a month! It’s nice to get out before Memorial Day in May, but weird to go back August 14!
What beautiful books.
I love the look of Roof Octopus. https://marthasbookshelf.blogspot.com/2018/06/sunday-post-june-24-2018its-monday-what.html
I read Roof Octopus with my nephew not long ago. We loved the pics too.
Happy Reading!
The book cover of Monty reminded me of Aslan! Made me wistful. Have a great reading week! 🙂
Every book you shared has vivid and eye catching illustrations! Thanks for the recommendations!
I swear I read a story very similar to Monty’s when I was little, but I can’t recall the name of it. Now I want to check out Monty’s Magnificent Mane .The illustrations look awesome!
Definitely gorgeous books! I think The Honeybee is one I need for my classroom collection.
I’m going to echo lots of reviews but these are beautiful books! I haven’t read any but a couple of them are on display at the store.
The Roof Octopus looks awesome! Really beautiful cover.