Author Feature | Amy Krouse Rosenthal

Amy Krouse Rosenthal has long been a favorite picture book author of mine and she just keeps killing it with her creative books. Her most recent book, Exclamation Mark, knocked it out of the park. But I can hardly tout my love of Exclamation Mark, without also introducing you to some of Rosenthal’s other fantastic books:

Exclamation Mark (Illustrated by Tom Lichtenheld) is about an exclamation mark who is trying to figure out what his purpose is. He spends so much time with periods, that he’s confused about why he is different. It isn’t until he meets a question mark that he realizes how special he is. The illustrations in this book are simple but extremely clever and wonderful. This book is also a great way to teach children how to use some of the most basic punctuation marks.

Spoon (Illustrated by Scott Magoon) is about a little spoon who longingly looks at all the other eating utensils in the kitchen and wishes he was one of them rather than himself. At the same time, all of those utensils are looking at Spoon and wishing they could be as cool as he is and be able to do the things that only a spoon can. Chopsticks, the follow up to Spoon is also a fun a book, but Spoon is definitely my favorite of the two.

Little Hoot, Little Oink, Little Pea (Illustrated by Jen Corace) – These books are so clever. The main character of each is having a conflict with their parents because they don’t fit the traditional mold of who they are supposed to be. For example, in Little Hoot, an owl is encouraged by his parents to stay up late every night, but Little Hoot just wants to go to bed early. Little Oink wants to be clean rather than live in a pigsty, and Little Pea is forced to eat candy before he can get his vegetable dessert.

 

 

 

 

The Cookie Books (Illustrated by Jane Dyer)- Rosenthal’s cookie books teach manners through the use of vocabulary. I love how these books teach principles to kids while also increasing their vocabulary. The illustrations are done by Jane Dyer, who always creates beautiful pictures.

Wumbers(Illustrated by Tom Lichtenheld) – What do you get when you combine a word and number? You get a Wumber! This s2pendous book is 1derful 4 readers in kindergar10 and up. Some of these wumber combinations are tricky, but 4tun8ly the book has pictures that will help you get the wumbers ins10tly! In a texting age where we are shortening words and phrases into acronyms and the like, this book is a fun, progressive usage of our language.

Bedtime for Mommy (Illustrated by LeUyen Pham)- This is more of a picture book for parents than children, but moms and dads will relate so much to the story that I think they’ll enjoy reading it to the littles. The story portrays a silly reversal of the classic bedtime routine, in which a little girl puts Mommy (and then Daddy) to bed.

 

 

So many of Rosenthal’s picture books are favorites of mine to give as baby gifts to new parents. Go check them out, you won’t be disappointed!

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