Mouse was Mad (Author: Linda Urban / Illustrator: Henry Cole)

Mouse is really mad.  The other animals try to give him suggestions on how to express his anger, but as Mouse tries them, he inevitably ends up in a mud puddle.  That is until he finds his own perfect way to be mad that no one else can match.

This book is a fun way to talk about anger and the many ways that people (or animals, as the case may be) can express it.  Since my 4 year-old son is working on this very thing right now, it was a timely read for us. :)

Lon Po Po: A Red-Riding Hood Story from China (Illustrator / Translator: Ed Young)

Would you like to read a Red-Riding Hood story in which the child wins?  Although the 3 children in Lon Po Po get tricked by the wolf at first, they prove that they have some tricks up their sleeves for the wolf, too.  I ended up liking this Chinese version of the tale much better than our traditional Western version.

And the illustrations!  Oh, they were haunting!  And I absolutely loved them!  There was even one time that I turned the page and gasped.  OK, yes, I have an extremely overactive imagination.  But these pictures were just scary enough to really get the imagination going.