And the winners are...

Congratulations Beth, Sally and Z Marie! You are the winners of the Kaleidoscope giveaway.

Thank you everyone for entering here or on my Facebook page! And a big thank you to Little, Brown and Company for sponsoring the giveaway!

Giveaway! Salina Yoon's Kaleidoscope

To win a copy of Kaleidoscope, leave a comment below by Sunday, May 20. Three commenters will receive a copy!  Please include an email address so I can reach you.

Kaleidoscope

Created by Salina Yoon

Little, Brown and Company, 2012

$12.99, ages 3 and up, 18 pages

Artist Salina Yoon pays tribute to mirrors, angles and ordinary objects in this charming, interactive book.

Readers fold out the cover and look through a clear plastic lens to see swirling, symmetrical designs reminiscent of those seen through a toy kaleidoscope.

The lens looks something like a flattened crystal with multiple flat faces and angles, while the designs mimic those made by loose objects in the optical toy.

One design leads to another over eight diecuts -- each inspired by circular objects that mark a change in seasons. Among them, a snowflake, pinwheel and steaming pie.

As readers view the book, a poem whisks them along. "Raindrops plopping, / splashing, splashing! / Skipping, turning, / Children dashing," the book begins near an open umbrella.

To simulate the effect of turning or shaking a kaleidoscope, readers rotate a tab on the cover, which in turn, turns the 2-inch lens. The result is a constantly changing set of colors and patterns on the page.

But watch out, because looking at the pages is only the beginning of the fun. Once your child realizes they can aim the cover lens at anything, they'll be wandering around the backyard with a book over the face.

It All Began with Max

Maurice Sendak, who inspired us all to go have fun with the phrase, "let the wild rumpus begin," died yesterday at age 83.

"Every once in a while, someone comes along who changes our world for the better," Susan Katz, publisher of HarperCollins Children's Book, said in a statement. "Maurice Sendak was such a man."

His most famous picture book Where the Wild Things Are won the Caldecott Medal in 1964 and has remained fantastically popular ever since.

Reading it aloud has been a bedtime ritual for at least three generations and the book is considered one of the 10 bestselling children's books of all time.

Over his amazing career, Sendak illustrated about 80 books and won countless awards for his illustrations. Like Dr. Seuss, he shook up the status quo and became an icon almost instantly.

By the time Where the Wild Things Are came out, Time magazine had already dubbed Sendak "the Picasso" of children's literature. And by 1971, the Los Angeles Times was hailing him as the "Norman Mailer of children's books."