Susan Middleton Elya

Susan Middleton Elya grew up in Iowa, started writing stories at age seven, traveled to Mexico City in high school, earned a dual degree in Spanish and elementary education at Iowa State University, student-taught in Venezuela, saw Machu Picchu when she was twenty-one years old, studied in Spain, taught ten years of public school, started the Spanish program and wrote the curriculum at Lewis Central Middle School in Council Bluffs, Iowa, earned a master’s degree in Linguistics from the University at Nebraska at Omaha, got married, and moved to California. 

When Ms. Elya’s oldest child said, “Teach me Spanish, Mom,” that request sparked a book called Say Hola to Spanish. Twenty-four years later, Susan is still writing rhyming picture books in Spanish and English.

Some of Susan’s best known titles are Home at Last; Oh No, Gotta Go; Bebé Goes Shopping; Fire, Fuego, Brave Bomberos; Rubia and the Three Osos, Little Roja Riding Hood; La Madre Goose; and La Princesa and the Pea.

The mother of three grown children, Ms. Elya lives in Northern California with her dog, Pepper, and other family members.

Book Reviews by Susan Middleton Elya

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Dan Gutman has written another title for his Wait! What? series, called The Beatles Couldn’t Read Music. A brother and sister, Turner and Paige, are the comic strip narrators.

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Genius Noses is a winner for older kids. Five stars out of five.”

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!00 Immigrants Who Shaped American History is a fascinating book of people, famous and those not as apt to be a household name.

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Invisible Things is not your average picture book. Instead of 32 pages, there are 52. Instead of one main character, there are several, and not who you might think.

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“Even with its problems, the book is colorful, handy, and good for any budding gardener, scientist, botanist, or biologist.”

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The Library of Congress was started when Thomas Jefferson sold his entire library to the U.S. Government. He was a lifelong reader.

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Traveling Rose is about a stuffed bunny with OCD. Her first book is called Unraveling Rose.

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From the old-timey end papers (streets in New York) to the muted blue color of the book cover, the story of Madame Alexander: The Creator of the Iconic American Doll, is rooted in history.

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“Hats off to you, Dan Gutman, for showing us the whole woman in an enjoyable and accessible way.”

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A Mind Like Mine looks at more than a dozen famous people who are no longer on Earth and nine who are still living.

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The most colorful book on the bookshelf might just be Hana’s Hundreds of Hijabs.

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The Wolf’s Story is a fairy tale classic with a hilarious twist—if you’re old enough to get it.”

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A Case of the Zaps is zany robot fun for all the humans among us.”

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The Secret Life of Butterflies is a gorgeous book with a blue cover loaded with Monarch butterflies.

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Every Dog in the Neighborhood is a sweet story about a young boy and his grandmother who live in a city. The boy wants a dog, and his grandmother says, “Nonsense.

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“Every science classroom would benefit from having a copy of Up Your Nose.

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Animal BFFs is a treasure trove of information about animal pairings that a reader can enjoy in one sitting. A whole science curriculum could be developed around this book . .

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Be Thankful for Trees is for young kids in first and second grade. It’s broken into sections, the first section being A tree is food.  “Would life be satisfying without trees?

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Marilyn Monroe (Little People, BIG DREAMS) introduces a young child (ages 4–7) to Marilyn Monroe. “Once, in the city of Los Angeles, there was a little girl with lots of love to give.

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There’s a Ghost in this House is a picture book of a different color.

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This book introduces a young child (ages 4–7) to Charles Dickens. It starts with his birth and childhood.

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The tall and thin book, Nano: The Spectacular Science of the Very (Very) Small, draws us in with its warm cover of yellow, red, and teal.

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The People Remember covers the most ground of any picture book out there regarding Black history.”

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The big colorful book of A History of Music for Children grabs your attention with its orange, oversized cover.

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The shiny cover of Psychology for Kids invites us in with greens, bright yellows, and purple. We open the book and see colorful gears on the white background end papers.

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My School Stinks! is about a boy named Stuart who gets sent to a wild animal school by mistake.

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“The art is stunning, the words are poetic, and for many, the book will be a comfort, showing how to manage grief by holding onto memories.”

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Never, Not Ever, written and illustrated by Beatrice Alemagna, might be the perfect picture book. It’s simple, funny, charming, and tells a universal story.

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The graphic novel, Before They Were Artists: Famous Illustrators as Kids, covers the careers of six illustrators, three men and three women, of varying levels of fame, three deceased and t

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The Secret Life of Whales is a huge blue book with a shimmery cover. It starts off by explaining that whales belong to the Cetacean family and are either Baleen whales or toothed whales.

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Lobe Your Brain is a colorful book about how your brain works. Although it is laid out like a 32-page picture book, it’s really for older kids, ages five and up.

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1001 Bees is described by the publisher as a fun, fact-filled, oversized book about creatures and the world they inhabit.

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The Secret Life of Boo-Boos is a winner for future doctors, nurses, physician’s assistants, or anyone wanting to learn about the human body in a clever and understandable way.”

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Juan Hormiga is refreshing in its simplicity. It will find itself on many bookshelves because it is so different.”

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The Not-So-Scary Dog is a book about a boy who is afraid to go to a birthday party because his friend has a big dog.

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A stunning, trilingual love poem written to the U.S.A. is America My Love, America My Heart.

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Little Audrey’s Daydream: The Life of Audrey Hepburn, would make a nice choice for a young person doing a biography on a famous or influential person.”

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One of the most important songs ever composed for rock music is the Beach Boys’ Good Vibrations from 1966. Once the Beatles heard the song, they knew they had to ramp up their work.

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Brooklyn Bailey, the Missing Dog is a true story. Yotam and Emile are bothers who live with Ima, their mom.

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Martin Luther King Jr.: Little People, Big Dreams starts out with a young Martin standing on a box in a long black robe, preaching to his family and friends.

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The Heart of a Whale is a winner for a library, beach house, or a bookshelf in a land-locked world.”

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This book is perfect for any budding marine biologist, science lover, ocean aficionado, or curious kid.

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“funny, educational, and downright delectable if you have a nose for science and/or weird trivia.”

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this book rocks the history of rock.”

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“What looks like a simple story is an important one for polka-dotted, striped, or tan children out there. For pink ones, too!”

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Lulu is a black Labrador who was recruited into a CIA dog-training program. She had a nose for everything. That’s how she ended up at the police dog academy.

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“Sometimes the simplest stories are the best.”

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“This book could’ve easily run twice as many pages in length. It is a Famous Person reporter’s dream and should be in every classroom.”

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Who doesn’t know Dr. Seuss and his most famous children’s book titles, Green Eggs and Ham, and The Cat in the Hat?

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“Even with (or because of) the poop jokes, Tony T-Rex’s Family Album: A History of Dinosaurs is a keeper.”

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Andrea Antinori has written a complete book about every kind of whale out there. Did you know that dolphins belong to the whale family?

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“Stay, Benson! might be the perfect picture book.”

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Coco Chanel was an orphan who grew up in a convent in the French countryside. The nuns taught her how to sew. She didn’t like having to brush her hair with one hundred strokes a day.

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“This book can be read over and over, because there is always something new to see in the art, and the puns are so punny. . . .

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“Dress Like a Girl is an empowerment book.”

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The Little Green Hen is a twist on a classic story, The Little Red Hen. In Murray’s version, the hen is good at caring for an apple tree.

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The picture book Pencil: A Story with a Point, is a book about a pencil with feelings, and a tablet with a mouth, and junk drawer filled with inanimate things with good ideas and silly pun

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At first glance, Why Can’t I Feel the Earth Spinning? seems to be a book of random and interesting STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) facts.

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“Duck and Hippo: The Secret Valentine is a happy story of friendship, perfect for circle time at preschool or one-on-one time in a parent’s or grandparent’s lap.”

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Woke Baby is a book of for the times. “Woke Baby, up before the sun smiles, eyes open./” The illustrated baby of color has two clenched fists and on eye open, one closed.

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Ocean: A Visual Miscellany is a large book, surprisingly done in black and blue ink only, not what one thinks of when thinking of a book about some of the most colorful scenery on Earth.

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Little Dreamers: Visionary Women Around the World, is a book about 37 (plus 18) women and their contributions to art, science, and math.

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P is for Pterodactyl is an alphabet book about words with silent first letters.

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This spooky book by Kate Coombs has 17 poems. It is creepy from beginning to end. The art is dark with lots of black, brown, olive green, orange, and pops of red and white.

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Mr. Snore checks into the Sharemore Hotel, and the bellhop shows him to room 104. When he gets ready to go to sleep, he hears a squeaking mouse on his pillow. Mr.

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This tiny book is packed with fun facts about Charles Darwin, one of the most famous scientists of all times.

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The Book that Jake Borrowed, written and illustrated by a children’s librarian, starts out as a spin on The House that Jack Built.  “/This is Jake./”

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This beautiful book has a simple message about the animals of the earth, sky, and sea: that they be happy, safe, well fed, and have companionship.

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A chaos of color is what you will find in The Great Grammar Book.

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“Walls is a book for our time as a divided nation. . . . Sometimes the simplest books have the most to say.”

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This colorful book, The Crocodile and the Dentist, has only 128 words in it, and many of them are repeated. First the crocodile says he is afraid. Then the dentist repeats it.

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Gary Bogue was a household name in the Bay Area for many years with his daily column about wildlife in the Contra Costa Times.

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This gorgeous book has two owls on the cover and six sections in the table of contents. The book is made up of pairs that are similar but not the same.

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The London author Michael Rosen has been the poet laureate of the UK. He knows poetry. What is Poetry?

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The intriguing title got this reviewer’s attention. The protagonist is a T. rex named Penelope, and it’s her first day of school. Penelope is nervous about going.

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“Seven Bad Cats will become a bedtime favorite for its short jaunty story and its charming art.”

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Pink Is for Boys by Robb Pearlman is a delight.

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An online dictionary says that a poem is a piece of writing that partakes of the nature of both speech and song that is nearly always rhythmical, usually metaphorical, and often exhibits such Susan

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Along the lines of the musicals Jersey Boys (Franky Valli and the Four Seasons) and Beautiful (Carol King), the dual biography When Paul Met Artie tells the story of the

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I Am Enough starts out with beautiful art and rhyming poetic stanzas.

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How can a book with only 112 words be so satisfying?

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Margot Lee Shetterly uses the repeating phrase, “really good” throughout this true story of four women working for NASA in the 1940s and beyond.

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Chronicle likes to push the envelope, and in this case, it is covered with hearts—or maybe not. The point of the book is that a stereotypical Valentine is not what the author wants to deliver.

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“Clever . . . a nice addition in preschool, kindergarten, and first grade classrooms or on a child’s bedroom bookshelf.”

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Kudos to Candlewick for doing a sick-kid book. There can’t be too many out there, and what sick child wouldn’t want to go to an alien world to forget about how badly he or she feels?

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“William’s Winter Nap is perfect for toddlers and preschoolers learning to share.”