Uh-oh! I'm Sorry: Jill Ackerman

Uh-oh! I'm Sorry is a lesson in manners and etiquette for ages 0-2, but it's a nice reinforcement for totz as well. At ten pages, with oversized lift-the-flaps and rhyming repetitive text, it reassures readers that simple mistakes can always be fixed. For instance, when crayon scribbles venture onto the floor instead of staying put on a drawing:

Sometimes I color outside the lines.
Uh-oh!
(child is joined by mom under flap)
I'm sorry!
It's okay.
We can clean it up.

Though accidents will happen, the set of important words in this book will help the youngest readers cope when they do.

Uh-oh! I'm Sorry
Author: Jill Ackerman
Illustrator: Michelle Berg
Publisher: Cartwheel Books
Series: Little Scholastic

Beep! Beep! Jill Ackerman and Michelle Berg

We're going a little young for totz this time, with this interactive stuffed-cloth book for ages 1-3. It's made up of four 2-sided pages and has cars, planes, trains, and trucks as well as a squeaker toy in the front cover and a mirror inside "for busy hands and minds". It's part of Scholastic's developmental publishing program intended to give babies and toddlers a head start in learning. Sounds good to me. Beep! Beep!

Beep! Beep!
Jill Ackerman, author
Michelle Berg, illustrator
Scholastic, 2010

Welcome Spring: Jill Ackerman

It's the perfect to time to enjoy the season with Welcome Spring! Jill Ackerman describes the joys that a child might encounter. She might smell the flowers, hear the birds, or have raindrops land on her nose. But regardless of the experiences, the child is "safe and dry in Mommy's arms."

Nancy Davis' stylized, flat, sharp-edged imagery is captivating in it's simplicity and brilliance.



Inserted textiles add dimension to the work as well. Satin flowers, silver smooth rain, and plastic rain boots are fun to touch. An additional flap reveals the child and mother happy under the red umbrella. Be sure to note that the rain and sun cause the tulips to open and the butterflies to appear.

Welcome spring with your readertotz!

Welcome Spring
by Jill Ackerman
Illustrated by Nancy Davis
Design by Pamela Notarantonio
Scholastic, 2008