A Taste of Colored Water by Matt Faulkner

Two naive kids hear about colored water and drive into town to try a sip.  They're expecting some fruity flavors but it turns out they've come to a water fountain for black people.  Along the way they pass protestors--blacks who are trying to gain suffrage--and witness firemen blasting water into the crowd.  The pictures are great and Faulkner is a local who lives in Oakland.

 

Mouse Island by Eve Bunting

A lonely mouse lives alone on an island.  One day a ship is sinking and while the men are all rescued, the cat struggles in the ocean.  Brave mouse jumps in and saves the cat, bringing it back to the island.  Once they establish that cat won't eat mouse, they become friends and play volleyball together. 

 

Waking Beauty by Leah Wilcox

This is a fun rhyming book from the Prince's perspective of Sleeping Beauty.  He tries various ways of waking up Sleeping Beauty like dumping water on her head, jumping on her bed and shooting her out of a cannon.  Finally the three fairies tell him she needs to be kissed.  I love the response:  "One hundred years of morning breath.  Wow!  That could be the kiss of death!" 

 

Angelina, Star of the Show by Katharine Holabird and illustrated by Helen Craig

Angelina Ballerina is a bratty mouse who travels with her grandparents by boat to a dance festival.  She's asked to help paint the boat and cook but is too busy practicing her ballet to bother.  Eventually she ruins her dress and realizes how horribly she's been behaving.  She soon learns to pitch in and help with chores.  Grandma loans her an old sailor outfit and she dances a sailor's jib at the festival.

 

Boris and the Snoozebox by Leigh Hodgkinson

I loved the pictures in this book!  It's like Hodgkinson took photos of fur, cut it out and drew cat features.  Very creative.  OK so Boris is a stray cat that finds a box, but every time the box is opened, it's by someone who's not expecting a cat.  He travels all around the world and even into outer space.  The disappointed aliens had been waiting patiently for a remote-controlled space butterfly.  Eventually Boris arrives at Grandma Flapjack's house and stays put.