Don't leave picture books behind, pleeease!

We are not reading as many picture books (small sob) now that J. is a member of that vast group of children who love chapter books, even though they are not really able to read them. She gets tired of reading after about 2 pages and hands the book back to me w/ a "you read the rest." But the other night we took a small break from our chapter book to read a few picture books from the library.
We love Valeri Gorbachev's new book, Turtle's Penguin Day (2008) about a young turtle who falls in love with penguins after his father reads him a bedtime book about...yes, penguins! The little turtle dreams about penguins and wakes the next morning wanting to be nothing other than a penguin. He waddles to school w/ an old black tuxedo jacket on...looking very much penguin-like. I myself have parented several children who have spent their days morphing into cats, dogs, and wolves. They have insisted on drinking water from bowls on the floor and even food from plates on the floor-yum. Watching Little Turtle "become" a turtle struck a very funny chord for us. The teacher uses Little Turtle's penguin fascination as a "teaching moment" and the whole class spends the day doing penguin-like things, like "during music time, they all danced a waddling penguin dance." Lots of fun. J. said she liked all the details in his artwork and she helped me read it. I love all of Gorbachev's books as much as Kevin Henkes' books for teaching certain ideas to children. Not too didactic because of the cool animal characters. The end includes a page of interesting penguin facts. five cool stars.
Click here to find a list of Gorbachev's other titles.