Tom Booth (1)

This book could be read to young children 4 and up. This book is about a family with two young children and boy named Gideon and his little sister Audrey who go to the beach and every year they build sandcastle together but this time Gideon ditched his sister to make a spectacular sandcastle that no one has ever seen and doesn't want his sisters help. He ends up struggling and realize at the end that these moments are special and create a bond with his sister when they work together.

Source- Personal library, Amazon… (mere)

A little chipmunk wonders what Christmas really is in this sweet new holiday picture-book from author/illustrator Tom Booth. He asks his mother, as they travel around the forest, whether this and that thing - the presents carried by ladybugs, the carols sung by geese - are Christmas. Yes, she tells him, these are each part of it. But what is it, in total? The next morning, awakening to a snowy world and joining a diverse group of animals singing, he finds out...

Although I would imagine that more religious readers might contest the claim that this - the sense of communal good cheer and fellowship displayed by the animals in their singing - is what Christmas is, for other more secular readers, there is sure to be some appeal to Booth's This Is Christmas. The idea that gifts, carols, and decorations are part of the holiday, but not the holiday itself, is a welcome one. The artwork is cute, although a little too smoothly digital for my taste, and chipmunk makes for an appealing little animal hero. Recommended to more secular holiday celebrants looking for sweet animal-centered Christmas stories.… (mere)

Author/illustrator Tom Booth, whose Don't Blink! broke the fourth wall in amusing ways, returns to the same cast of characters - a young girl and her animal friends - in this follow-up work of picture-book metafiction. As girl and animals wonder who it was that gave away the secret of the book's existence to the reader, an elephant named Harvey approaches. It soon becomes clear who the guilty party is...

Like its predecessor, Don't Tell! is an entertaining book, one that, with its back-and-froth dialogue text, and its appealing artwork, would make an excellent read-aloud selection at story-time. I particularly appreciated the way that Booth handled the issue of secrets - that sometimes you keep them and sometimes you don't - and that he included a brief note at the beginning about the importance of not keeping secrets, if they are harmful. Recommended to anyone who read and enjoyed Don't Blink!, as well as to those seeking more meta-fictional picture-book fare.… (mere)