Books with author Geneviève Côté

Piggy and Bunny are having their first campout. As the shadows loom larger, Piggy and Bunny playfully imagine scary scenarios and how they might deal with them. It’s all good fun, until Piggy reveals a secret fear. This sweetly humorous story shines a light on ways young friends can acknowledge each other’s worries and enjoy new experiences.Goodnight, You is the fourth book in the Piggy and Bunny series, which features endearing tales that celebrate friendship and encourage individuality and self-acceptance.

When Mr. King discovers a flower nibbled by a caterpillar, he is NOT happy. So he builds himself a Caterpillar-Catcher and off he goes. But he doesn't notice that his machine is belching smoke, or that he is leaving crushed flowers in his wake. Now his friends are NOT happy and Mr. King isn't very proud of himself. But --- aha! --- Mr. King reconfigures his machine and now instead of smoke his new Flower-Fan sends out gusts of flower seeds. Working together, Mr. King and his friends use his new, smokeless machine to plant flowers, and Mr. King discovers that he not only likes flowers and machines, but caterpillars, too! A playful and engaging read-aloud story with themes of environmental responsibility, creativity and friendship, Mr. King’s Machine is the third and final book in the Mr. King series, which features environmentally friendly tales starring the shortsighted but well-meaning Mr. King and his helpful forest friends.

Mr. King wants to build himself a BIG castle. So he uses the closest available material to make the blocks he needs — the land around his house that just happens to be home to his forest friends. When Mr. King’s friends make him see what he’s done, he realizes he’s made a BIG mistake. Can he be king of his castle and a good friend, too?Young readers will delight in this second adventure of the shortsighted but well-meaning Mr. King.

Two artistic friends, paintbrushes in hand ... ?I wish I were just like you,? says the rabbit to the pig. ?I wish I were just like you,? says the pig to the rabbit. As the friends use paintbrushes and a few props to adjust tails, ears and noses, something soon becomes clear: they liked each other better before. ?I am me and you are you ... that's why we love each other, me and you!?This gentle celebration of friendship and individuality by award-winning writer and illustrator Geneviève Côté will reassure young readers that they are loved and special as themselves. It's a book with all-ages appeal and an ideal gift for a child --- or a best friend.

In this heartwarming title from the Piggy and Bunny picture book series, the two friends explore what scares them as they prepare for their first campout together. When Bunny admits to being frightened of monsters, Piggy responds that ?even if there WAS a monster, I wouldn't scream like you!? When Bunny asks, ?What if the monster GROWLS at you?? Piggy answers, ?PWAAT! I can be loud, too!? Then, one by one, all of Bunny's questions about what to do if a monster came near are countered confidently by Piggy. Soon Bunny begins to feel differently about monsters, and says, ?I can even turn off the light and wish that monster goodnight!? To which Piggy then admits, ?NOOO!! I'm a wee bit scared of the dark.? With Bunny on the left-facing page of every spread and Piggy on the right, the two create a rhythmic back-and-forth that is soothing yet fun. What Piggy and Bunny learn together is that everyone gets frightened sometimes, and having a good friend nearby is the perfect antidote. Children will appreciate that neither of them makes fun of the other's fears, and instead they find ways to comfort and reassure each other. With soft, gentle artwork and deceptively simple text, award-winning author-illustrator Geneviève Côtè has crafted a beautiful picture book that will be a regular favorite at storytime. This would also be a perfect title to begin classroom discussions about emotions, particularly fear, and how to identify, manage and express them.

Mr. King, a lion in a gold crown, ?lives on top of a BIG hill. He wants to build himself a BIG castle. Mr. King likes BIG things.? But in order to make such a big castle, Mr. King needs lots of material. So he decides to use blocks he chops up with abandon from all over his hill, not noticing the giant holes he's leaving behind. Once he's done, Mr. King is proud of his enormous new castle. But when his animal friends begin to wonder what happened to their favorite places, Mr. King realizes the harm he has done to the once-beautiful hill. ?Everyone is staring at Mr. King, and suddenly he feels very small.? Is there anything Mr. King can do to feel big again? This picture book is part of an environmentally themed series created by award-winning author-illustrator Geneviève Côté. With gentle humor, it offers an age-appropriate message to young children about how each of us needs to tread lightly on the earth. It makes a wonderful book for a primary science lesson on environmental stewardship. It also works well for discussions about friendship and could be used for a character education lesson about fairness, responsibility or cooperation. For a hands-on experience, there are visual puzzles in which the pieces chopped out of the hill can be matched directly to the pieces that make up the castle.

Mr. King is a cat who likes new things. In fact, ?LOTS of new things. As soon as one of his things becomes the tiniest bit old, he tosses it into the nearby pond and replaces it with a new one.? Happily, this works just fine for a while. But then one day while attempting to fish in this same pond, Mr. King is terrified when he pulls up what he believes is a gigantic monster. Only it turns out it's not a monster at all. It's a tangle of his own discarded things, come back to scare him! Geneviève Côté has created a terrific introduction to the causes and effects of pollution and overconsumption with this lively and funny picture book. As with so many big ideas, the environmental message here is quite simple and easy to understand when explained at a child's-eye view. The story is gentle, humorous and not at all preachy, and the artwork is clean and open, with most of the visual focus on Mr. King and his range of intense emotions. The ways Mr. King finds to repurpose all of his resurrected things at the end of the book could inspire all kinds of classroom discussions about what efforts children might make to recycle their things for other people or other uses, as well as how not to waste things in general. It could also work as a jumping-off point for a project turning children's found objects into their own works of art.

In this sweet picture book, two animal friends, a bunny and a pig, explore the world of their emotions as they attempt to put on a play together. Along the way, they must face a few challenges, such as when the bunny wants them to ?be sunflowers and sing a duet,? while the pig would rather ?be pirates on a shipwreck.? As they work their way to a successful collaboration, they take turns describing the different ways they act when they are shy, scared, eager, angry and sad. Each two-page spread features the bunny on the left page and the pig on the right, where their words play off each other in rhyme: ?When I'm angry I grumble and pout,? says the bunny. ?When I'M angry, I kick and SHOUT!? answers the pig. A different typeface for each of them further separates their points of view visually.Award-winning author-illustrator Geneviève Côté relies on a simple palette of mostly shades of pink and white to keep the focus of each page clearly on the emotion being exuberantly expressed by the animals. This would make an excellent read-aloud for a discussion about feelings and the importance of respecting the feelings of others. The lively give-and-take of the two characters also makes this a wonderful role-playing tool, in which children could choose to take the part of one or the other of the animals. Two previous books, Me and You and Without You, feature the same two characters.