All God's Critters - Hardcover

Staines, Bill

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0689869592 ISBN 13: 9780689869594

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2009

Synopsis

Featuring illustrations by Kadir Nelson, winner of the Coretta Scott King - Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement!

Big...small...quiet...loud...feathered, flippered, or furred....

All God's critters have a place in the choir! And this jubilant and raucous bunch is waiting for you to join in because everybody has a part to sing. It doesn't matter if you sing like a bird...howl like a wolf...or croak like a frog!

About this title

About the Author

Kadir Nelson has been honored with the Coretta Scott King - Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement, acknowledging his significant and lasting contribution to children’s literature. He is an award-winning American artist whose works have been exhibited in major national and international publications, institutions, art galleries, and museums. Nelson’s work has won the Coretta Scott King Award, the Robert F. Sibert Award, two Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Awards, and the 2005 Society of Illustrators Gold Medal. His beloved, award-winning, and bestselling picture books include We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball; Thunder Rose, written by Jerdine Nolen; Ellington Was Not a Street, written by Ntozake Shange; Salt in His Shoes, written by Deloris Jordan and Roslyn M. Jordan; and many more. Kadir lives in Los Angeles.

Reviews

PreSchool-Grade 2—A theater curtain opens on Staines's classic folk song populated with the gorgeous array of animals featured in the lyrics. Each spread shows singing, howling, and yowling beasts set against dramatic lighting that varies from misty sunlight to darkest night. The anthropomorphized critters are all hams and seem to enjoy their moments in the spotlight. Nelson's rich illustrations display an exuberance that comes to a rousing finale in a foldout, rainbow-drenched spread followed by a view of the wildly cheering audience and the bowing performers. Musical notation appears as the curtain closes. Libraries that own the version illustrated by Margot Zemach (Dutton, 1989) will still want to share Nelson's critters with storytime groups.—Marge Loch-Wouters, Menasha Public Library, WI
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A song by children’s folk-singer Staines is brought to rollicking life by Nelson’s artwork in this howl-along picture book. The refrain begins All God’s critters got a place in the choir, / some sing low, some sing higher, / some sing out loud on the telephone wire. The tune then moves into solo and ensemble performances by dogs and cats and cows and hippos and possums and porcupines and on and on, adding their own voices and personalities to the hubbub. In each delightful spread, full-to-bursting with said critters’ energy, Nelson proves himself to be as adept painting jubilant scenes of barnyard animals raising a ruckus as he is creating the more gravitas-laden artwork for which he is justly celebrated. The oversize type of the lyrics nearly shouts off the page, making this a great choice for groups of excitable singers; but it works just as well on an individual level, allowing children to point out the various animals while mimicking their joyful noise. Be sure to keep this book far, far away at bedtime, though. Preschool-Grade 1. --Ian Chipman

Edition details

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0689869592
• ISBN 13: 9780689869594
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Nelson Kadir
• Number of pages: 36