This true tale of swindlers, slayers, smarts and skill will lasso listeners of all stripes.

Other biographies on JOMB:

• It’s A Snap! George Eastman’s First Photograph
• One Beetle Too Many — The Extraordinary Adventures of Charles Darwin
• Neo Leo (the Ageless Ideas of Leonardo da Vinci)
• The Fantastic Undersea Life of Jacques Cousteau
• The Value of Believing in Yourself: The Story of Louis Pasteur

More of the wild west on JOMB:

• Buffalo Music
• Smoky Mountain Rose (An Appalachian Cinderella)
• Sing, Sophie

More freedom reading on JOMB:

• Let Freedom Sing
• Night Running: How James Escaped with the Help of His Faithful Dog
• Priscilla and the Hollyhocks
• Freedom Child of the Sea
• Follow the Drinking Gourd

We’d love to hear your thoughts on a favourite children’s book. Leave a voice message on our JOMB listener hotline, +1-206-350-6487, so we can include your audio in our show.

Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither was the compact camera. This sprightly tale of curiosity and determination puts the spotlight on the inventive young man who made photographers of all of us, one improvement at a time.

On this date, September 4, in 1888, George Eastman registered the trademark Kodak. You can learn more here.

Other books mentioned:

• One Beetle Too Many — The Extraordinary Adventures of Charles Darwin
• Neo Leo (the Ageless Ideas of Leonardo da Vinci)
• The Fantastic Undersea Life of Jacques Cousteau
• The Value of Believing in Yourself: The Story of Louis Pasteur

We’d love to hear your thoughts on a favourite children’s book. Leave a voice message on our JOMB listener hotline, +1-206-350-6487, so we can include your audio in our show.

Earth toned images of bustling Nigerian swelter contrast with the book-bound allure of a world of frost and snow in this tale of a young boy pondering the pros and cons of literacy.

More books and reading on JOMB:

• Perfect Man
• Show; Don’t Tell: Secrets of Writing
• The Story of the Search for the Story
• The Storytelling Princess
• The Story Blanket
• Give A Goat
• Too Many Books
• Silent Music (A Story of Baghdad)
• Dear Deer: A Book of Homophones
• Fire Up With Reading!
• The Incredible Book Eating Boy
• Ruby’s Wish
• No English
• Library Lion
• Max’s Words

HOTLINE VOICES: Author/Illustrator, Mark Mitchell, describes the beauty of the book Tsunami! (by Kimiko Kajikawa and Ed Young).

We’d love to hear your thoughts on a favourite children’s book. Leave a voice message on our JOMB listener hotline, +1-206-350-6487, so we can include your audio in our show.

Unrealistically scrawny pop culture ideals, issues of acceptance and fears of unhealthy body image have made fitness and healthy eating tricky issues to address. This brazenly British picture book pulls no punches about the dangers of the couch potato lifestyle.

What do you think?

We’d love to hear your thoughts on a favourite children’s book. Leave a voice message on our JOMB listener hotline, +1-206-350-6487, so we can include your audio in our show.

Spot-on sixties-style illustrations, simple, springboard text and a soulful, sing along refrain shine a celebratory light on 18 individuals who stood tall and opened doors for generations.

More freedom reading on JOMB:

• Night Running: How James Escaped with the Help of His Faithful Dog
• Priscilla and the Hollyhocks
• Freedom Child of the Sea
• Follow the Drinking Gourd

We’d love to hear your thoughts on a favourite children’s book. Leave a voice message on our JOMB listener hotline, +1-206-350-6487, so we can include your audio in our show.

Simple first person narrative, cheerful illustrations and charming child-like details make this task-by-task countdown to the arrival of a long awaited sibling sweet reading for any child.

More tales of family welcoming and adoption on JOMB:

• The Red Thread
• Thicker than Water on SILS
• Before You Were Here, Mi Amor
• Someday

We’d love to hear your thoughts on a favourite children’s book. Leave a voice message on our JOMB listener hotline, +1-206-350-6487, so we can include your audio in our show.

Six bark-along pooches, homey illustrations and spirited verse — what youngster could resist this slightly retro, rhyming micro-adventure?

More rhyming dog reading on JOMB:

• Fun Dog, Sun Dog
• Don’t Lick the Dog
• Stella, Unleashed!
• Biscuits in the Cupboard
• Good Dog
• My Pup
• The Pound from the Hound
• Poodlena
• Safe and Sound
• Dirty Dog Boogie

Other dogs on JOMB:

• The King’s Taster
• May I Pet Your Dog?
• How Smudge Came
• Rosie: A Visiting Dog’s Story
• Dr. White
• Heroes of Isle aux Morts
• Doggie in the Window
• Owney the Mail-Pouch Pooch
• Night Running: How James Escaped with the Help of His Faithful Dog
• Little Lions, Bull Baiters & Hunting Hounds: A History of Dog Breeds
• “Let’s Get a Pup!” said Kate
• The Trouble with Tilly Trumble
• The Outside Dog
• Lady Lupin’s Book of Etiquette
• Dogs’ Night
• I Want A Dog

Pop over to A Wrung Sponge for today’s full menu of poetry offerings. Poetry Fridays are brought to us by Kelly Herold of Big A, Little A.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on a favourite children’s book. Leave a voice message on our JOMB listener hotline, +1-206-350-6487, so we can include your audio in our show.

Playful, edge-to-edge illustrations and cheerily worded nuggets of history, mystery, physics, and biology paint a thrilling picture of a brilliantly curious and creative man that will tickle the scientist in all of us.

Right now, you can test out over 60 of Leonardo da Vinci’s prototypes at Leonardo da Vinci: Man Inventor Genius.

Mentioned in this chat:

• Now and Ben: The Modern Inventions of Benjamin Franklin
• Wind Engineering Pioneer, Alan Davenport (palm tree observations)

More intriguing lives on JOMB:

• One Beetle Too Many — The Extraordinary Adventures of Charles Darwin
• The Fantastic Undersea Life of Jacques Cousteau
• Marco Polo
• Piano Starts Here: The Young Art Tatum
• Buffalo Music
• Priscilla and the Hollyhocks
• The Value of Believing in Yourself: The Story of Louis Pasteur

We’d love to hear your thoughts on a favourite children’s book. Leave a voice message on our JOMB listener hotline, +1-206-350-6487, so we can include your audio in our show.

New, crescent, quarter, gibbous and full then all the way back to new, this ingeniously illustrated poem gives us a solid understanding and new appreciation for our revolving neighbour.

UNESCO has designated 2009 as International Year of Astronomy. You can get excited and get involved in IYA2009 here.

More science on JOMB:

• Astronaut Handbook
• Animals at the EDGE (Saving the World’s Rarest Creatures)
• Nic Bishop’s Frogs
• One Beetle Too Many — The Extraordinary Adventures of Charles Darwin
• The Fantastic Undersea Life of Jacques Cousteau
• Bubble Homes and Fish Farts
• The Snow Show — with Chef Kelvin

We’d love to hear your thoughts on a favourite children’s book. Leave a voice message on our JOMB listener hotline, +1-206-350-6487, so we can include your audio in our show.

Gasping, gobbling, grinning, crunching and belching, seven sherbet-coloured monsters revel in outrage at their broccoli-loving readers in this rhyming enticement to eat green.

Blueberry-eating books mentioned:

• Irving and Muktuk: Two Bad Bears
• Sleepover Larry

More food on JOMB:

• Treasure for Lunch
• The King’s Taster
• Berry Magic
• The Butter Man
• The Little Red Hen Makes a Pizza
• The Luck of the Loch Ness Monster: A Tale of Picky Eating
• The Tortilla Cat
• Too Many Tamales
• Chopsticks
• Mammoth Pie
• On Top of Spaghetti
• Pumpkin Soup
• A Medieval Feast
• Sanji and the Baker

Pop over to Poetry For Children for today’s full menu of poetry offerings. Poetry Fridays are brought to us by Kelly Herold of Big A, Little A.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on a favourite children’s book. Leave a voice message on our JOMB listener hotline, +1-206-350-6487, so we can include your audio in our show.

Simple gestures, rippling kindness and true smiles are the stars of this inspiring invitation to share some brightness and chance a wave of well-being.

Other books mentioned:

• Ordinary Mary’s Extraordinary Deed

For more about spreading a ripple of kindness, you can check out

• The Pay It Forward Foundation
• The Pay It Forward Movement

or, just go ahead and do something nice….

HOTLINE VOICES: Aspiring children’s author Tara Lazar shares her enthusiasm for Perfectly Arugula (by Sarah Dillard)

We’d love to hear your thoughts on a favourite children’s book. Leave a voice message on our JOMB listener hotline, +1-206-350-6487, so we can include your audio in our show.

Lunch Lady arrived this week and our young Jarrett fans were on these books “like cheese on macaroni”. Today Lucy (10) and Bayla (8) share their thoughts on the first two books in this zany graphic novel series.

For a behind the scenes glimpse at the making of Lunch Lady , check out our video interview with author and illustrator Jarrett Krosoczka:

• Rock Stars of Reading part 9: Digital Jarrett Krosoczka

More Jarrett on JOMB:

• Rock Stars of Reading part 08: Jarrett Krosoczka
• Interview with Jarrett Krosoczka
• Rock Stars of Reading part 20: Advice for aspiring readers
• Rock Stars of Reading part 7: Creators of the Round Table

HOTLINE VOICES: An anonymous caller tells us why she loves My Friend Isabelle (by Eliza Woloson and Bryan Gough).

We’d love to hear your thoughts on a favourite children’s book. Leave a voice message on our JOMB listener hotline, +1-206-350-6487, so we can include your audio in our show.

Amidst mauve and pink Australian sunsets, this lyrically told and beautifully illustrated tale reminds us of the underrated pleasures of simply loving.

Other books mentioned:

• Elizabeti’s Doll

We’d love to hear your thoughts on a favourite children’s book. Leave a voice message on our JOMB listener hotline, +1-206-350-6487, so we can include your audio in our show.

Exuberant, edge-to-edge illustrations and simple rhyme salute a generous dairy farmer who took a chance on four kids, their dream and the prospect of peace.

You can watch Max Yasgur addressing the crowd at Woodstock, 1969, here.

August 15-17 2009 marks the 40th anniversary of Woodstock. How will you celebrate?

Other books mentioned:

• Barn
• Mile-High Apple Pie

More peace and tolerance on JOMB:

• And to Think That We Thought That We’d Never Be Friends
• Enemy Pie
• Silent Music (A Story of Baghdad)
• The Araboolies of Liberty Street
• Herb, The Vegetarian Dragon
• Interview with Uma Krishnaswami about her Bibliography of Peace

Pop over to Jama Rattigan’s Alphabet Soup for today’s full menu of poetry offerings. Poetry Fridays are brought to us by Kelly Herold of Big A, Little A.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on a favourite children’s book. Leave a voice message on our JOMB listener hotline, +1-206-350-6487, so we can include your audio in our show.

From skittery stalling to splendorous, sweet slumber, alphabet families do the bedtime wrestle in this fabulously illustrated preschool rhyme.

Other books mentioned:

• The Scrambled States of America Talent Show

More alphabet reading on JOMB:

• Carmine: A Little More Red
• Alphabetter
• A Isn’t for Fox (An Isn’t Alphabet)

More bedtime reading on JOMB:

• I Need My Monster
• Ocean’s Child
• Go to Bed, Monster!
• Darkness Slipped In
• But If They Do…

Pop over to Tabatha A. Yeatts for today’s full menu of poetry offerings. Poetry Fridays are brought to us by Kelly Herold of Big A, Little A.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on a favourite children’s book. Leave a voice message on our JOMB listener hotline, +1-206-350-6487, so we can include your audio in our show.

Doey eyes, gangly legs and silent, tangible devotion make this true tale of rescue, regret and release a thought provoking look at the value of life and freedom.

Other books mentioned:

• Saving Samantha: A True Story

We’d love to hear your thoughts on a favourite children’s book. Leave a voice message on our JOMB listener hotline, +1-206-350-6487, so we can include your audio in our show.

Warmth and well being radiate from stylized Inuit seascapes and gently lapping prose in this soothing bedtime confirmation of safety, connectedness and parental love.

More bedtime reading on JOMB:

• I Need My Monster
• Go to Bed, Monster!
• Darkness Slipped In
• But If They Do…

Pop over to Crossover for today’s full menu of poetry offerings. Poetry Fridays are brought to us by Kelly Herold of Big A, Little A.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on a favourite children’s book. Leave a voice message on our JOMB listener hotline, +1-206-350-6487, so we can include your audio in our show.

This delicately illustrated tale of travel and tragedy reminds us that today’s disaster just might be a necessary step towards the ultimate attainment of our heart’s desire.

Other books mentioned:

• The Farmer’s Wife
• The Clever Boy and the Terrible, Dangerous Animal

More middle eastern reading on JOMB:

• Silent Music (A Story of Baghdad)
• Night of the Moon: A Muslim Holiday Story
• 52 Days by Camel
• My Friend Jamal
• The Butter Man
• Lugalbanda: The Boy Who Got Caught Up In The War
• The Rich Man and the Parrot
• Sanji and the Baker
• Interview with Suzan Nadimi

We’d love to hear your thoughts on a favourite children’s book. Leave a voice message on our JOMB listener hotline, +1-206-350-6487, so we can include your audio in our show

Clean lines, comical details and snappy, generous first person narration sweep us into this suspenseful tale of strategy, solidarity and overlooked superpowers.

Other books mentioned:

• Iggy Peck, Architect
• The Mysterious Benedict Society
• Miss Nelson is Missing

More independent thinkers on JOMB:

• Willow
• Odd Velvet
• Suki’s Kimono
• Ruby’s Wish
• Getting to Know Ruben Plotnick
• Silly Tilly
• more here.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on a favourite children’s book. Leave a voice message on our JOMB listener hotline, +1-206-350-6487, so we can include your audio in our show.

Dexterous textile, text and recipe clipping collage are the pièce de résistance of this delectable adventure in talent, teamwork, travel — and sneaked treats!

More gallivanting animals on JOMB:

• Safe and Sound
• Someday When My Cat Can Talk

More food on JOMB:

• A Medieval Feast
• The Butter Man
• The Little Red Hen Makes a Pizza
• The Luck of the Loch Ness Monster: A Tale of Picky Eating
• The Tortilla Cat
• Too Many Tamales
• Treasure for Lunch
• Berry Magic
• Chopsticks
• Mammoth Pie
• On Top of Spaghetti
• Pumpkin Soup
• Sanji and the Baker

More kings on JOMB:

• The King of Capri
• The King’s Equal
• Rumplestilskin’s Daughter
• The Red Wolf
• Wenceslas

More dogs on JOMB here.

HOTLINE VOICES: Eden Spodek — who will be at PAB09 — has fabulous childhood and parenthood memories of Where the Wild Things Are (by Maurice Sendak)

We’d love to hear your thoughts on a favourite children’s book. Leave a voice message on our JOMB listener hotline, +1-206-350-6487, so we can include your audio in our show.

Catchy, four-line rhymes and an energetic animal cast aim to take the sting out of multiplication long before the onset of Times Table Torture.

More math on JOMB:

• On the Scale, a Weighty Tale
• Missing Math (A Number Mystery)
• A Very Improbable Story
• Full House: An Invitation to Fractions
• Interview with David Schwartz

Pop over to Critique de Mr. Chompchomp for today’s full menu of poetry offerings. Poetry Fridays are brought to us by Kelly Herold of Big A, Little A.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on a favourite children’s book. Leave a voice message on our JOMB listener hotline, +1-206-350-6487, so we can include your audio in our show

Chapters.ca Amazon.com

Gilded, stylized illustrations, scads of stats and lilting, laid back narration present an inspiring tale of persistence, power, poise and prevalent potential in this intimate look at the short but striking career of one of baseball’s greats.

More sports on JOMB:

• Baseball Hour
• Across the Alley
• Louis Sockalexis: Native American Baseball Pioneer
• The Bat Boy and His Violin
• Baseball Saved Us
• Dino-Hockey
• The Magic Hockey Stick

HOTLINE VOICES: Radio Producer and Sound Artist Paolo Pietropaolo explains why he loves Fantastic Mr. Fox (by Roald Dahl).

We’d love to hear your thoughts on a favourite children’s book. Leave a voice message on our JOMB listener hotline, +1-206-350-6487, so we can include your audio in our show

Chapters.ca Amazon.com

Sunshine, shenanigans and loads of jingly rhyme make this cheery little board book a perfect preschool pick.

Other books mentioned:

• Kid Tea

HOTLINE VOICES: Twin sisters Rosie (6) and Ronnie (6) tell us about their favourite rhyming books, One Duck Stuck (by Phyllis Root and Jane Chapman) and Hop on Pop (by Dr. Seuss).

More pooch inspired poetry on JOMB:

• Don’t Lick the Dog
• Stella, Unleashed!
• Biscuits in the Cupboard
• Good Dog
• My Pup
• The Pound from the Hound
• Poodlena
• Safe and Sound
• Dirty Dog Boogie

Pop over to Read, Write, Believe for today’s full menu of poetry offerings. Poetry Fridays are brought to us by Kelly Herold of Big A, Little A.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on a favourite children’s book. Leave a voice message on our JOMB listener hotline, +1-206-350-6487, so we can include your audio in our show.

Chapters.ca Amazon.com

One wisecracking lizard, one over-caffeinated monkey and 200 pages of action, attitude and assombroso alliteration transform run-of-the-mill read-aloud adults into comedy superstars. Talk about the greatest power!

You can check out Lucy & Bayla’s Sticky-inspired artwork here.

Other books mentioned:

• Clementine’s Letter
• Sir Fartsalot Hunts the Booger (Kevin Bolger on JOMB)

HOTLINE VOICES: Owen (9) and Riley (9) share their enthusiasm for Rick Riordan‘s Percy Jackson and the Olympians series

We’d love to hear your thoughts on a favourite children’s book. Leave a voice message on our JOMB listener hotline, +1-206-350-6487, so we can include your audio in our show

Chapters.ca Amazon.com

With its chatty narrative, droll dialogue and playfully illustrated play-by-play, this plucky retelling of the traditional Slavic tale is practically bound theatre.

Other books mentioned:

• Brave Irene
• The Three Sillies
• Cupid and Psyche

More shady step-families on JOMB:

• Baba Yaga and Vasilisa the Brave
• Cinderella Skeleton
• Smoky Mountain Rose (An Appalachian Cinderella)
• Ella’s Big Chance

We’d love to hear your thoughts on a favourite children’s book. Leave a voice message on our JOMB listener hotline, +1-206-350-6487, so we can include your audio in our show