Good Night

Just put Bud Bud to sleep after reading Dr. Seuss's Sleep Book.  Gosh, I love that book. It is told like a news story on all the creatures going to sleep around the world.  Bud Bud loves the Foona Lagoona Baboona, I love to read about Moose and Goose Juice.  Good way to end the day.

In quick other news:  We are really enjoying Dinosaurs Love Underpants and other dinosaur books during dinosaur week at preschool.

 We also read Cats' Night Out for the first time last night. I at least, love, love, loved it and I know a just the tiny someone who lives in the city and might be getting a copy for her 1st birthday.  I like the subject matter, the counting and the illustrations although maybe they were a little dark in color to totally hold Bud Bud's attention, though I still think he liked the book.

Goodnight all!

What We are Reading 9/28 - 10/3

        This week was another mixed bag:

We kept, by happy accident, My Heart Is Like a Zoo.  We also got two new Bob Staake books which we were waiting to become available The Red Lemon and The Donut Chef.  Both are good reads, as with We Planted a Tree  - but these were written by Staake as well as illustrated.  I think they have a Seuss-y rhyme to them.  Both are fun stories as well.

Other than that, we are reading A Book Of Thanks (All Of Me!), Parts, We've All Got Bellybuttons!, Taking a Bath with the Dog and Other Things that Make Me Happy, and Story of My Feelings. The last two were carryovers from Feelings week at preschool, but only just became available at the library and the three before that were for My Body Week.  All good for the subject matter required, but none really stood out for me.  Bud Bud might have thought that Parts was a little scary, but we hammed up the reading and in the end he was laughing.

But the book that really won me over this week was, A Giraffe and a Half by Shel Silverstein.  I bought it on a whim at TJ***x, as it was on the book rack in the checkout line, and I am a sucker for some good old Shel Silverstein.  Plus, I had never read this one.  It is totally fun.  I ramp up my reading speed as the story crescendos and then slow down again as it comes to the end.  It really is fun, give it a whirl. I also try to imagine Silverstein reading it - I hear his voice in my head, from the old tape I had of him reading a Light in the Attic, and I let that goofiness lead my own.

Stay tuned this week, I have to check, but I think it is Dinosaur Week.  Bud Bud is going to be psyched!

Banned Books Week

Banned Books week is coming to an end and I would be remiss if I didn't mention it.  I had, to be completely honest, never heard of this week until I started this blog.  But I think it is an excellent idea to:

highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings of books across the United States.  (ALA)


I just read through the ALA's top 100 list of Banned/Challenged books from 2000-2009 and was pretty surprised.  There are so many books which moved me, made me think and were even pretty important to me growing up. You will find books like: The Kite Runner, Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret., and Harry Potter  among classics and others.  I am thinking that this list looks like a pretty good list for reading inspiration.  Hmmm, maybe in my spare time (ha ha)  I should make it my new goal to read through this list.

Banned book week has also made me think of my Grandfather, Bernard Evslin, who's book Cerberus  was banned.  I can't remember the exact details of the banning, so I won't relate the story of it that I have in my head, but I do remember that it was challenged for reasons such as satanic content, nudity etc (the book was illustrated with famous works of art depicting the subject matter. Really nice in my mind), lack of parental respect, etc, etc.  I have a soft spot for this book as it was dedicated to me, but also, these books were written for the young adult audience and have been recognized as an excellent resource on Greek Mythology.  As a parent, not just as the granddaughter of the author, I look forward to reading these books to my children and witnessing them enjoy the rich world that is related though the combination of the strong narrative and the excellent curation of the series.

For this last day of Banned Books Week I intend to remember that even though I do not agree with a specific thought or idea, I strongly believe that it is important for information to be available for learning and enjoying, for all.  I may not choose to read a book but I defend my right to.

What we liked this week

   Usually trips to the library are just a random book finding adventure, but since Bud Bud started part-time preschool (which has weekly themes) I am trying to be more deliberate and organized in choosing books. Though of course there is always room for extra books that don't meet the theme requirements, and I am finding that the problem with putting books on hold is that they aren't necessarily ready on the week that you need them. So some weeks the themes end up running together for us.  This week is a good example.

Our favorites this week were: The Odd Egg,  Excuse Me!, The Great Nursery Rhyme Disaster, and  No T. Rex in the Library.

The Odd Egg is a short tale of hatching eggs and a duck who finds an unusual egg and cares for it until, "CRACK!"  out comes a surprise.  It has muted pencil illustrations and staggered pages (like in the Very Hungry Caterpillar.)   H wasn't sure about this one because he thought that Bud Bud might be frightened by the last page, but he doesn't seem to think it is scary at all.

Excuse Me! is a book that I picked up for manners week.  It is the story of a frog who burps so much that he is banished from his town, until he learns some manners that is.  Bud Bud thinks that all the burping in the story is pretty funny.  I think it has a good lesson that is accessible even to someone as young as Bud Bud.  Bonus: he has been saying excuse me all week.

The Great Nursery Rhyme Disaster is a novel tale of Little Miss Muffet who is bored with her rhyme and decides to go on an adventure through other nursery rhymes to find something more interesting, and causes havoc in the process.  Bud Bud just asked me if she was a crazy girl for running away with the spoon, and is currently sitting on the floor with the book singing nursery rhymes.  I love the authors approach to old subject matter and thought the illustrations were lots of fun with bright colors and endearing characters.

Lastly, No T. Rex in the Library is not really one of my favs, but Bud Bud loved it.  He loves all things dinosaurs.  Though I can say that it does teach a good lesson about how to behave in the library, how to respect the books etc.  I am not sure that a young audience would get the subtext about controlling yourself and projecting your feelings, but it could be a good discussion point.

Now, we are off to the library for a new stack!

Zoo Books

  Tweets over the last few weeks (from the likes of @MillonBookRead and @littleonebooks to name a few) have me thinking of zoo books and reading techniques.  I know, not really related topics, but both got me thinking, and both are easy to discuss using two of our current favorites, My Heart Is Like a Zoo and Dear Zoo: A Lift-The-Flap Book .

First, let me say that Dear Zoo has been one of our favs since Bud Bud was about 7 months old and cousin of mine gave it to him as a present, and at 2 1/2 he still loves it.  It is a fun little lift the flap board book about writing to the zoo for a pet and all the different types of pets that they send before finding the perfect one.

Zoos are fun and the surprise element of lifting a flap is fun, as are the illustrations.  However, over time I realized that we were using this book as a teaching tool for a number of different things.  Firstly, it is a board book and the fat pages are easier for little hands to turn, so we would always say, "turn the page Bud"  before turning each page, even when he was too young to do it himself, not only did he learn to turn pages, but he stayed focused because it made the reading process that bit more interactive for him (which of course the lifting flaps did too.)  We also used each new animal to illustrate animal sounds and repeated the names of the animals over multiple times combined with the sound.  As Bud Bud got older, we waited for him to name the animal and make the sound etc. I think of this type of reading as building up the layers of understanding and knowledge.  You can just read a book through over and over again because you like the pictures or the story, or you can build on what you find in the book over time and therefore get the most out of it.

Another good example of a book to do this with is My Heart is Like a Zoo.  At face value, this seems like a nice easy animal book with a novel approach to illustration, but I think it can be a lot more.  For example:

Yesterday Bud Bud, Little Flower and I read the book and it took us over 20 min, even though there are very few words and only about 30 pages.  We read and enjoyed the simple story, but we also counted the hearts on each animal (they are layered to create the shapes of difference animals, which I find really interesting) tracing them with our fingers to understand where each one was and how they were combined.  We identified the different colors, made animal sounds, talked about new words like portly, and even practiced the ASL signs that we are working on for animals.  Bud Bud had a great time and all the commotion of noises and signs and the bright colors of the illustrations even kept Little Flower entertained.

I am not a teacher and I am sure that there must be lots of studies and techniques on how to get the most out of reading, this is just what works for us.  Soon after Bud Bud was born, when I still had no idea of what to do as a mother, my Mom told me of how she would sit us in the kitchen with her while she was doing things like cooking dinner, and talk us through chopping, mixing etc.  Of course we were way too young to understand it all, but the repetition and exposure that she gave us was the building blocks for later learning.  I feel that the same is true for what we cover while reading these types of books, Little Flower might not be able to keep up with Bud Bud at this point, but she is hearing all of these things over and over and it will help her to learn, and Bud Bud can use the knowledge that he already has and add too it with multiple concepts coming from one source.