Day 51: A Sick Day for Amos McGee

Philip and Erin Stead have created a beautiful masterpiece in A Sick Day for Amos McGee.  We adore this story about a sweet old zookeeper and his beloved animals and love the fabulous illustrations even more.  Amos McGee is the city zookeeper.  He gets up every morning, puts on a fresh pressed uniform, and rides the number five bus to the zoo.  Although he has a lot to do when he gets there, he always makes time to visit his good friends.  He plays chess with the elephant, runs races with the tortoise (who always wins), sits quietly with the shy penguin, lends a handkerchief to the sniffly rhinoceros, and reads stories to the owl (who is afraid of the dark) at sunset.  Then he returns home to rest before another busy day ahead.  When Amos wakes up sick one day and is unable to go to work, he receives a pleasant surprise:  his animal friends come to return the favor and take care of him!  It's a wonderful tale of friendship that has some of the most expressive and unique illustrations I have seen.  In fact, when I went to save the image from Barnes and Noble's website, I saw that it was the 2011 Caldecott winner -- deservedly so!  A big congratulations to artist Erin Stead, whose woodblock print and pencil drawings are simply incredible and tell the story in and of themselves; a sign of a truly great picture book, in my opinion.  In fact, my favorite pages are the only two in the book that have no words at all, with the animals waiting for and then riding on the city bus.  If you haven't yet discovered this wonderful story, look for it the next time you go to the library.  It is bound to be a classic in our house.