Charlie's Bookshelf

Tree of Birds

2011-12-28T15:00:00.000-05:00

Another great book we've found for this in-between phase is Tree of Birds. Once again, this is out of print, but Amazon has a few reasonably-priced used copies available. I picked this up at a garage sale or something about a year ago, but Charlie wasn't ready for it until now.

This is a delightful story, and one that I like much better than the sappy-sweet Stellaluna. A boy named Harry finds an injured bird and takes her home to nurse her back to health, and names her, amusingly, Sally. But once Sally is all better, Harry still wants to keep her. It's getting cold out, and normally she would fly south for the winter, but he keeps her locked up indoors so she won't leave him. But there are a couple of problems. First, Sally is very lonely, gazing longingly out the window all day. But even more disturbing is that her flock refuses to fly south without her. Instead, they follow Harry around, staying in a tree outside his bedroom window, flying behind him to and from school, and even waiting for him outside the schoolroom window all day.

Harry is very concerned, because it's starting to get cold out and the birds will die if they don't fly south for the winter. He tries to convince them to go away, telling them that he is taking very good care of Sally, but he cannot convince them. Finally, it begins to snow. Harry and Sally stare out the widow, distraught. Harry finally makes the difficult decision to open the window, even though he will miss Sally very much. But in a surprise twist, Sally doesn't leave -- the other birds fly into his house instead!

I love this book because of the concern Harry shows for Sally the whole way through. His emotions are very real. So are those of the birds, who do not talk but express their feelings through very well-drawn facial expressions. I also love how Harry makes his own decisions and takes care of his own problems. His mother shows up here and there with help and advice, but Harry is definitely thinking and acting for himself. This one is highly recommended!

Stellaluna

2011-11-27T13:57:00.000-05:00

Charlie is still into his bike and coloring books, but I'm pleased to report that he is finally showing interest in books again. But after a two-month break from most reading, it took me quite a while to figure out what kinds of books he would enjoy and appreciate. His capacity for understanding plot has increased dramatically, and he now loses interest in stories with simple plots or no plot at all. But at the same time, he still needs pictures to hold his attention, so books with very long text passages and few or small pictures, such as the original Winnie the Pooh stories, were not working, either. It can be quite difficult to find something with just the right balance of text and pictures.

Stellaluna is one of the first books I've found that fits the bill perfectly. I bought this at least a year ago, because it is always featured prominently at bookstores. But back then, it was much too wordy for Charlie and he couldn't pay attention through the whole thing. Now, at age three years and three months, it's just perfect.

Stellaluna is a story of a baby fruit bat who is separated from her mother and taken in by a mother bird with three baby birds. She starts to behave like a bird even though it is very difficult for her to do things like eating bugs, standing upright instead of upside-down, and sleeping during the night. Eventually she finds a flock of bats again and learns that she is one of them ... but her bird step-siblings are not! The moral is that even though we are different from each other, we can still be good friends.

The illustrations are also gorgeous. They are very realistic and detailed paintings. Many are in drab colors--white, brown, grey--with just a splash of vibrant color on the page. Others show the brilliant blues of daytime and nighttime skies. Somehow, the emotions shine through on highly realistic bat and bird faces.

There is a second, hidden story in this book, told entirely through small line drawings at the top of each page. The text and main illustrations tell the story of Stellaluna, the baby bat. But the line drawings tell the story of the mother bat after she is separated from Stellaluna. An owl chases her into a cave, but after she escapes she searches and searches for Stellaluna until finally they are reunited and the mother takes her place back in the main story. It's very clever and helps the child understand that there can be several perspectives on the same story, or several things happening at the same time.

This book is not one of my all-time favorites, but Charlie does love it and it has filled a very empty niche for us at the moment.

Phases

2011-10-16T17:38:00.000-04:00

I haven't updated this blog in ages, but it's not dead. The reason is that Charlie has been going through a phase where he is so focused on other things that he has very little time for books. This has not slowed down my children's book addiction at all, unfortunately. I keep buying more and more books, and Charlie just ignores them.

What is he doing? He's very interested in two things: coloring with markers and riding his balance bike. We've been taking bike rides around the block almost every afternoon after school, and he is really getting the hang of pushing off with his feet and gliding. It's amazing to watch, and I'm starting to teach him how to ride safely around cars, too.

Coloring is largely a before-bedtime activity, but he also brings it out at other times of day. He will sometimes color quietly, by himself, for up to an hour. He has dry erase markers and a couple of laminated activity books which he loves, but also a bunch of regular coloring books. He doesn't do the activities in the books. He just colors in all the pictures. His ability to control the markers has dramatically improved.

So, with all this important focused activity going on, he has been too busy to read much. I stressed about it a little bit at first, but when I saw how much attention he was giving to these other two activities, I decided to just relax and let the phase play itself out. It's not that he dislikes books, it's that he's busy learning other Very Important Things. But I think we're starting to see the light at the end of the bookless tunnel. I hope to have some more reviews up soon.

Gyo Fujikawa's A to Z Picture Book

2011-07-11T12:30:00.000-04:00

Gyo Fujikawa's A to Z Picture Book is amazing and gorgeous. When I picked it up in the bookstore and flipped through it, I was just in awe. I expected to find a $25 price tag on the back, but lo and behold, it costs $9.95. I could not believe it! This is a steal, and it is totally worth buying in hardback and new at that price. (The book is recently back in print after the 1970s version went out of print, and I don't know how the original compares.)

I only bought this book about six months ago, but I imagine that it would be a great one for infants and toddlers. It doubles as a vocabulary book, with numerous labeled illustrations of individual things on each letter's page. A young child would be interested in the book for language learning years before the alphabet has any meaning.

The downside to this approach to the alphabet is that there is no "story" or rhyme to read through, and there is a lot to look at on each page. Charlie enjoys looking at it for a little bit, but we will just do a page or two before he loses interest. That's fine with me, but I just have to make sure to start at a different page each time.

Legible Capital and Lowercase: A. The capital letter is shown in a very large font at the top left of each page, and the lowercase at the bottom right (a few pages mix it up and use top-right/bottom-left). The illustrations do interact with the letters, which has the potential to be a little bit confusing, but I don't find that they detract from the legibility.

Filler Words: A. A few comments about the format of this book are necessary at this point. Most letters get a full two-page black and white spread, with the large capital and lowercase and a bunch of things that start with that letter illustrated and labeled. Some of the less popular letters share a two-page spread, for example E on the left page and F on the right. Interspersed with these are two-page color spreads, but when two letters share a black and white page, only one of those letters gets a color page (E, G, I, K, O, Q, U, V, X, and Z do not have color pages). All of the black and white pages use the same format, but the color pages vary widely. A is contemplative: "A is for alone, / all by myself . . . / Hi, there, frog! / Can I play with you?" The illustration shows mostly sky and empty swamp, with just a lone girl standing, looking at frog on a rock. B is an entirely different experience: "B is for busy babies!" is the sole text, and the illustration shows literally dozens of babies and toddlers engaged in all manner of activities, interspersed with animals--and there are no labels. An infant or young toddler could spend easily 20 minutes with a parent pointing out all the things and activities on this page.

So, the black and white pages have little opportunity for filler words, since they are just labeled illustrations. Even so, there are some. One picture on the C page is labeled "Clara is crawling;" another is "Cat and copycat." The color pages do use filler words, but they are so carefully chosen and poetic (not in a rhyming way, but in an evocative way) that I have trouble thinking of them as "filler." Other color pages have hardly any words, or are highly alliterative ("F is for friends, fairies, flowers, fish, and frogs.")

Cheat Words: A-. In general, the author was extremely creative in coming up with words for unusual letters (zinnia, zero, zombie, zipper, zebra, and zoom!). She does sometimes use different starting sounds for a letter, but all of them very normal alternate sounds (under vs. unicorn). I'm not a fan of the X page, however (x-ray, X marks the spot, XXXXXX is for kisses, X is for railroad crossing, xeranthemum, xylophone).

Understandable Words: A. Okay, some of them are weird (didn't I just mention xeranthemum?), but they are all understandable. The xeranthemum is clearly illustrated and labeled, and even though I'd never heard the word before, I'm quite certain now that it's that kind of flower pictured right there. Unusual flower, bird, and animal names make lots of appearances, but I think that's fine because they are very concrete. A lot of abstract words are mixed in, but they are ones that a child can easily grasp, like "pout" and "hungry" and "crybaby."

Sounding Out: B. There are plenty of good sounding-out words here (eggs, fox, fish, lark, milk), but the font is pretty small for a little kid and it would be hard to focus that well. These words are mixed in with a lot that are not phonetic.

Hidden Pictures: (none). There is plenty of detail to notice in many of the color spreads, but there is no particular emphasis on including things that start with the same letter.

Illustrations: A. I did not recognize the name Gyo Fujikawa, but apparently she was a celebrated children's author and illustrator from the late 1950s through 1990. You will immediately recognize the illustration style when you pick up the book. My immediate thought was that this looked like a sappy-sweet 1950s gender-stereotypical morality-play type of illustration. But as soon as you start looking at what is actually there, you will discover amazing talent and depth in the illustrations. Faces are expressive in innumerable ways. Contrasts in subject matter leap off the page. Composition is just gorgeous. Reality and fantasy are equally well portrayed. It's a gem.

Theme (none).

You should buy this one. It's a bargain at twice the price.

The Alphabet from A to Y with Bonus Letter Z

2011-07-08T07:47:00.000-04:00

&lt;p&gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;a-&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&lt;/p&gt;I desperately wanted to like The Alphabet from A to Y With Bonus Letter Z!. Partially because it's co-written by Steve Martin (yes! the actor!), partially because the title is so fun and hilarious, and partly because the inside cover has a series of great cartoons in which non-English letters like ash, thorn, and a-circumflex complain about not being included in the book. Tragically, however, the book is terrible as an alphabet book.

Legible Capital and Lowercase: F. Each page features a very large capital letter. There is no lowercase version featured. This would be fine, except that they use a highly embellished font for the large letters, so some of them are completely unrecognizable to a child just learning the alphabet. You can see what I mean by going to Amazon's look-inside feature and scrolling down to the A page. The A has a long flag flying off to the left from the top, and the left leg of it curls into a spiral. I pointed to it and asked Charlie what letter it was, and he said, "I don't know that one." FAIL. A few of the letters are normal-looking, but with this font, Charlie had trouble identifying A, E, F, G (honestly, I had a little trouble with this one!), M, N, Q, U, and W (this one, too! it looks like an X with wings!).

Filler Words: D. There are a lot of them, and the authors seem to be intentionally putting confusing sounds together. More on this under the Cheat Words section, because in this case, they kind of go together.

Cheat Words: D. This book goes out of its way to play with unusual starting sounds. That can be fun for grown-ups, but it's just plain confusing for children. The N page, for example, is an extended play on words that start with "kn." It reads, "Needle-nosed Nigel won nine kinds of knockwurst / By winning a contest to see who could knock worst." The W page uses "weally" instead of "really" to be cute, but try reading that to a child who has trouble saying the difference. The X page not only puts X's in the middle of words, but also intersperses them with ct and ck making the same sound: "Ambidextrous Alex was actually axed / For waxing, then faxing, his boss's new slacks." They also sometimes, randomly, use foreign words.

Understandable Words: C. This book is probably written for an older audience. It has a lot of gross-out jokes going on, and the vocabulary can be pretty abstract and/or obscure at times. Words include clingy, clueless, dapper, derby, frijoles, gravlax, heaven, and hunchbacks.

Sounding Out: B. The sentences have a mix of long and short words, some phonetic and some not. If you're intent on sounding something out, you'll find opportunities for it here.

Hidden Pictures: A. This is one area where the book shines. Each letter has a full-page illustration filled with things that start with the letter. The A page, for example, shows a scene of three women eating sandwiches in a living room. Checking out all the details in the picture, you can find aces (from a deck of cards), aardvark, angel, acorn, a tube of "Acne Away," alligator, abacus, apple, axe, and books labeled "Art of Antarctica," "All About Algebra," "Asparagus Acres," "Aaron's Appendicitis Almanac," and more.

Illustrations: B+. The pictures are cartoon style and kind of ugly, but full of the rich detail described above. They also show the characters and activities listed in the sentence for each letter.

Theme: (none).

Wow. Overall, this is one of the worst reviews I've ever written. The book does have a couple of redeeming features, mostly the illustrations. Some of its humor is good, but other jokes are very potty-oriented and gross-out, so I wouldn't recommend reading it just for the adult humor value. But the main problem here is that this is not a book designed to teach the alphabet to kids. It certainly does not accomplish that very well at all.

The Teddy Bear ABC (DK Publishing)

2011-07-07T08:42:00.001-04:00

So many good books are out of print. I picked up The Teddy Bear ABC at a garage sale, and fortunately there are dozens of copies available on Amazon for very cheap. Finally, here is an alphabet book that Charlie and I can agree on. We both love it!

The gimmick with this book is that every letter has a different teddy bear with a name starting with that letter. This is kind of neat because the bears are cute, and because it introduces names as well as ordinary words that start with the letter. Of course, a lot of alphabet books do that just by using sentences, but this is another way to do it. Weirdly, there are two pages that combine letters and only give bear names, with no other words, for those letters. "I is for Ivan, J is for Jerry, K is for koala, kangaroo, and Kerry," and "X is for Xavier, Y is for Yo, Z is for zipper, Zack, and zero."

Legible Capital and Lowercase: A. The capital and lowercase letters are at the top left of each page, in a large, clear font, in bright colors. Very easy to see and recognize.

Filler Words: A. This book doesn't present sentences, it just gives three items starting with each letter and puts them in a sentence of the form, "A is for apple, ants, and Adelle, B is for Bruno, butterfly, and bell." The last words given for the two letters in the spread always rhyme, which is a nice touch and makes the text flow very well. The down side of this presentation method is that all of the words are nouns and names, with no other parts of speech mixed in.

Cheat Words: A-. Most of the words are fine, but they do inexplicably use Phil as a P name. They skip out on words for X and only present the name Xavier, which doesn't use the standard X sound.. Everything else is fine.

Understandable Words: A+. All of the words in this book are understandable, relevant to kids, easily illustrated, and actually illustrated. The sentences run across the tops of the pages. The bottom 2/3 of each page has photographs of the items, each labeled with its name.

Sounding Out: B. Some words are puzzlers (crumb, feather, Hugh), but there is at least one word that can be sounded out on each page.

Hidden Pictures: B. At the top of each page, there is a drawing of a cartoon teddy bear. On almost every page, the bear is doing or holding one thing that starts with the featured letter. For example, on the C page, the bear is taking a picture with a camera. However, when two letters share a page (I & J, X & Y), only one of the letters has a hidden picture, and on some pages, the hidden picture is the same as one of the things mentioned in the text. Some books have a lot more, and more clever, hidden pictures, so I'm giving this one just a B.

Illustrations: A. I love, love, love all of the DK books for their amazingly beautiful photography. This is actually one of the least impressive of the series, but it is still gorgeous. Everything is realistic and colorful and expertly placed on the page. This book also works well as a vocabulary-builder for infants and young toddlers.

Theme: A-. The theme of this book is teddy bears. Each letter's page has a photograph of a different teddy bear, and that bear is given a name starting with the letter. It's pretty interesting to see how much variation there can be among instances of a simple toy like a teddy bear. Additionally, cartoon bears appear at the tops of the pages, as mentioned above.

So, high marks in general here. I certainly recommend this book, especially for younger children and anyone who loves teddy bears.

Basher: ABC Kids

2011-07-06T06:21:00.000-04:00

Basher: ABC Kids is a book that I love in theory, but in practice it has trouble holding Charlie's attention. He'll be interested for a few pages, maybe even half of the book, but then he'll wander off to do something else. I haven't figured out why. It's not too long, just a sentence for each letter. The illustrations are funny and attractive, with vibrant colors. Maybe the words are a bit too complex, or he's put off by the lack of rhymes. But I want so much for him to like it.... It scores very high on most of my alphabet book criteria.

Legible Capital and Lowercase: A. This is a large book (8.5 x 11 pages) with little content, so everything inside is big and bold. The individual letters are showcased in huge font on the entire bottom half of the left-hand page, capital and lowercase. The bottom of the right-hand page shows the entire alphabet in small lowercase letters, with the featured letter for that page in bold with an underline. The font is not too fancy, though Charlie did have a bit of trouble identifying the Q because of a weird tail. Some of the illustrations show characters standing or sitting on top of the letters, which can be a little bit distracting but is also really cute.

Filler Words: A+. This book has zero filler words, even though it is written in sentences! I cannot emphasize enough how rare this is. They pull off this trick by being imaginative with verbs and by writing a lot in plurals so no a/an/the is needed. "Arthur's angry ant ate apples." "Brianna bounces beautiful bugs." "Claude's crafty cuckoo collects coins." All the way through "Zack zaps zeppelins!" It's brilliant.

Cheat Words: A. They've done an excellent job picking words that legitimately start with the letters and have the correct sound. X is the hardest, of course, and they've gone with "Xavier x-rays xylophones." Not perfect, but not terrible either. I'm happy to forgive this because they did such a great job on "Queenie questions quivering quails."

Understandable Words: C. This is certainly part of what loses Charlie's interest. The book gets pretty abstract at times with words like quivering, elegant, crafty, irritable, marvelous. He has to ask what they mean, and they're not easy for me to define, either. And they can't really be drawn in the illustrations.

Sounding Out: B. Each letter gets a two-page spread. The left side has the sentence at the top and the large letters at the bottom, with an illustration of the sentence. The right side has the full alphabet at the bottom and at the top, it repeats a single word from the sentence and shows a large illustration of just that one thing. These words are pretty good for sounding out. Apple, bug, cuckoo, dog. Not all the words in the book are phonetic, but the majority of these featured ones are.

Hidden Pictures: (none).

Illustrations: A. I love the visual style of this book. It manages to be vibrant while using pastels, somehow. The characters are manga-inspired, with round faces and horizontal lines for eyes. The sentences are cleverly illustrated, even if not all of the nuances of the words can come across to a child. It's very well done.

Theme: (none).

I didn't realize until I was writing this review that Basher books are a series. There seem to be a variety about science and math topics, mainly aimed at somewhat older kids. They have great reviews on Amazon, so maybe this author is better at appealing to older kids than to the 3-year-old set. Perhaps Charlie would appreciate this book more if he were older and had a more extensive vocabulary. I suspect that he'll be well beyond alphabet books by the time he understands what an elegant elephant is, but that will not be true of all children. I love this book so much that I hope the target market manages to find it.

Dr. Seuss's ABC

2011-07-05T03:18:00.002-04:00

At the risk of sounding unprincipled, I'm going to admit that Dr. Seuss's ABC is one of our favorite alphabet books even though it scores pretty low on several of my pre-announced factors. I think the reason is mostly familiarity. I read this so many times as a child that my parents can still, decades later, recite most of it from memory. I acquired a copy when Charlie was very young and started reading it to him frequently. It grew on all of us.

I had originally planned to rank the factors on a 1-5 scale, but letter grades is just way more appropriate, don't you think?

Legible Capital and Lower-Case: B. The book has a big capital letter on each page, and features a lowercase sample by itself on almost every page (not on O, P, and X for some reason). The lowercase letter is in the ordinary font size, though. The letters are included in the lines of text rather than set off by themselves. Still, it's pretty effective, and Charlie will point them out, often without prompting.

Filler Words: B. I'm not counting sentences like "What begins with B?" as filler, because they introduce the letter. This book is very mixed about filler words. Some pages have almost none: "Big B, little b, What begins with B? Barber baby bubbles and a bumblebee." Others have more, but they're used to pretty good effect: "O is very useful. You use it when you say: 'Oscar's only ostrich oiled an orange owl today." The only one that makes my skin crawl is the use of an N on the M page: "Big M, little m. Many mumbling mice are making midnight music in the moonlight . . . mighty nice." You might actually call that two N's and an L, as lots of kids will parse mid-night and moon-light as separate words.

Cheat Words: D. Duck-dog. Fiffer-feffer-feff. Googoo. Kerchoo. Lola Lopp. Quacker-oo. Tuttle-tuttle. Uncle Ubb. Zizzer-Zazzer-Zuzz. It's Dr. Seuss. He makes up words. You're going to have to live with it. I do want to point out that there are a bunch of a different kind of cheat words for X, that he uses to great effect: NiXie KnoX, aX, eXtra, foX.

Understandable Words: A. This is one place where the book really shines. Dr. Seuss did an excellent job of picking out words that are recognizable and relevant to kids. Sometimes he chooses exotic animals like a Yak, but these are easy to explain and terrific for imagining. All of the words he chooses are easily illustrated, not abstract, even the verbs.

Sounding Out: C. I just don't think he paid much attention to this aspect. Some of the words are easy to sound out, others not. I believe he was writing for a company that was really into "sight words" instead of phonics. That doesn't spoil the book at all, it's just not a bonus. Anyway, by the time Charlie got interested in figuring out the other letters in a word, he'd already memorized this book.

Hidden Pictures: (none). I'm not scoring this factor in books that don't have hidden pictures, because it's optional. The illustrations here show just what's in the text, and that's that.

Illustrations: B. First the good. Every single word beginning with the featured letter is illustrated on the page, nouns, verbs, and adjectives alike. You can point to them while you're reading. One of my favorites is the letter P, which reads, "Painting pink pajamas. Policeman in a pail. Peter Pepper's puppy. And now Papa's in the pail." A completely bizarre set of things and activities, but each one is clearly drawn. The reason it's a B instead of an A is that I'm just not a huge fan of the Dr. Seuss illustration style.

Theme: (none). Also optional. No theme here, unless you count Dr. Seuss as a theme.

One unusual and very nice feature of this book is that it stops three times to review "the alphabet up until now." You read A through F, and then the G page begins with "ABCDEFG." And it fits the rhyme scheme, too! The entire alphabet-so-far is reviewed again at P and just before Z. Charlie loves this, and gets so excited to read along or sing the alphabet song at these points. I always let him say the last letter himself, and as a young toddler he was always so proud of choosing the right letter to come next. I think this is a huge part of the appeal of this book.

As an added bonus, here's Charlie at 15 months "helping" me sing the alphabet song. It's hard to believe he was ever this little!

Overall, this is a pretty good alphabet book that can draw you in with rhyme and accessibility. There are definitely some negatives. It's not my theoretical favorite, but in practice we read it over and over again. Charlie will often pull it off the shelf again after I "rotate" the active books and try to hide it, so it must be doing something right. I'll call this a moderate recommend, despite the cheat words.

Alphabet Books

2011-07-04T19:41:00.000-04:00

I've been thinking a lot about alphabet books lately as Charlie has learned the name and sound of each letter. There are so many alphabet books on the market, and they range from fantastic to terrible, like all other books. I did a sweep of our bookshelves just now and found 18 different alphabet books, believe it or not. And that's not counting the Russian ones.

Alphabet books have their own factors to consider in addition to the things that I think about when selecting other types of books. In this post, I'm going to discuss the major factors to look for in alphabet books. Then, over the next several days, I'll review some of my favorite (and least-favorite) alphabet books and talk about how they stack up on these factors.

Legible Capital and Lowercase: Ideally, an alphabet book should have a large-print, clearly legible sample of the capital and lowercase letters by themselves. I do think it's okay for any particular book to feature just capitals or just lowercase, but it's better to show both. Overall, make sure your child is exposed to both capitals and lowercase letters. Montessori introduces lowercase letters first, because most of the letters you encounter in everyday reading are lowercase. Good theory, but too limiting in practice with all the awesome books out there that use capitals. I think kids are smart enough to catch on to seeing both at once.

Filler Words: Some alphabet books just showcase one or more individual words for each letter. Others are written in sentences. Both ways are great, but with sentences, you should watch to make sure there aren't too many filler words that start with different letters to complete the sentence. Even more important, you should check that the filler words are not made especially confusing by starting with words that look or sound similar (M on the N page, D on the B page, F on the V page).

Cheat Words: There are three types of words that I consider cheating in an alphabet book. The first type are simply made-up words -- things that have the right sounds but are not real words (e.g. Zeep). The second type are words that have the featured letter in them but don't start with that letter (e.g. fox to illustrate X). The third type are words that do start with the letter, but the letter is pronounced in an unusual way (e.g. chicken to illustrate C). These are most commonly found on the unusual letters, so check those pages carefully: Q, X, Y, Z. Some of these can be used effectively, but usually they're not.

Understandable Words: No child is going to be thrilled with an alphabet book full of words he doesn't know and has no need for. A is for Apple and Ambulance and Angry, not for Amphitheater and Algae.

Sounding Out: You're reading an alphabet book because your kid is starting to learn how to read. Once he catches on to the initial letters, you're going to want to extend the book by pointing out the other letters in each word. It gets really frustrating really fast if the words are long and complicated and have unusual pronunciations in them. On the other hand, a book full of three-letter phonetic words is really boring. This is a delicate balance.

Hidden Pictures: Many alphabet books have detailed illustrations that have many objects starting with the featured letter hiding on each page. They aren't mentioned in the text, but you can look and look and keep finding more things that start with A on the A pages, and so on through the book. I love these! They grow with the child.

Illustrations: Just like any book, the illustrations matter. They're what draw the child in, and they help alleviate the adult's boredom at going through the book a million times. Additionally, in an alphabet book, the illustrations should clearly show the words in the text. It helps the child figure out what they're reading, as they begin to do it themselves.

Theme: Alphabet books usually don't have any story to them, but some have a theme. Some themes are obvious (e.g. Texas ABC's!) and others are more subtle. Having a theme is not at all necessary, but it can be fun.

Those are the basics. Starting tomorrow, I'll review some of those 18 alphabet books that are now sitting in a stack on my desk.

A Good Day

2011-05-17T11:15:00.000-04:00

Ever since Charlie moved from the toddler classroom to the primary classroom at his Montessori school, he's been telling me every day that he did not have a good day. I know that this is not true. His teachers tell me that he loves the classroom. I've observed through the windows and seen him absorbed in his activities, wandering around the room, and talking with the other kids. When I pick him up from the playground in the afternoon, he is almost always having a great time. And yet he keeps telling me, for a month now, that he's had a bad day.

I've been dealing with this situation on several fronts, but the aspect I want to talk about today is the concept that even though some bad things happen, or you have some sad feelings, you can still have a good day after all. I think that Charlie misses his old teachers and friends from the toddler classroom, and even though he has a great time in primary, that sad feeling (or a couple of bad incidents like falling on the playground) is turning the entire day bad in his memory.

A Good Day has been an excellent book to help with this problem. This is a very, very simple book. The first page states, without illustration, "It was a bad day. . . ." The next four pages introduce us to four different animals. Each animal has had something bad happen that day. The bird lost a tail feather. The dog got his leash tangled in the fence. The fox couldn't find his mom. The squirrel dropped her nut into a creek. "But then . . ." four more pages, each with a good thing happening that gets the animal out of its bad situation. On the last two pages, a little girl is introduced. She find the bird's tail feather and puts it in her hair, exclaiming to her mother, "What a good day!"

I used this book to introduce the idea to Charlie that bad things and good things can happen in the same day, and that even though some bad things happen in your day, it can still be a good day. I think he's catching on. From the moment I brought the book home, he was very interested in it. He's concerned for the animals as the bad things happen to them, and then he's happy together with them and the girl as good things happen. After we read the book, I usually ask him whether he can think of a bad thing and a good thing that happened in his day. He usually can't, but at least he's started being more talkative about what he's done. When he tells me things that happened, I try to point out the good things and remind him that they were good and/or fun.

The illustrations in this book are quite nice. They're done simply, but with bright and vivid colors. You can definitely see the expressions of sadness and worry in the animals' faces in the first half, and their joy in the second half.

Despite, or perhaps because of, the simplicity of this book, I've found it to be a great parenting tool for this problem that we've been having.

Caps for Sale

2011-05-16T09:18:00.000-04:00

Caps for Sale is an awesome book. If you don't own it already, you need to go buy a copy right now. I'll wait here until you get back. Okay, okay, you can read the review first if you really have to. But trust me, this is a great one. I loved it as a child, Charlie loves it now, and I still love it as an adult.

The story of this book is very simple. A peddler sells caps, walking around town with all the caps stacked on top of his head in a huge tower. One day, nobody wants to buy any caps, so he goes for a walk in the countryside and falls asleep under a tree. When he wakes up, he finds that all the caps are missing, except for his own cap. Looking around, he finds that a group of monkeys have taken his caps and escaped up a tree. How will he get them back?

This book has some serious staying power. Charlie is as obsessed with the book at almost-three years old as he was at 18 months. The story is cleverly told, but with lots of repetitive phrases to draw in young children. For example, whenever the book mentions his caps, it talks about "[the peddler's] own checked cap, then a bunch of gray caps, then a bunch of brown caps, then a bunch of blue caps, and on the very top, a bunch of red caps." There are plenty of opportunities to count the caps and point out their colors.

The best part of the book is the story of how the peddler tries to get his caps back from the monkeys. The illustrations are great -- the peddler in his suit and cap standing at the base of the tree, looking up, and the monkeys hanging from the branches, each wearing one of his caps. The peddler is a little bit angry, but he's pretty sure he can work things out with a simple appeal.

"You monkeys, you," he said, shaking a finger at them, "you give me back my caps."
But the monkeys only shook their fingers back at him and said, "Tsz, tsz, tsz."

This made the peddler angry, so he shook both hands at them and said, "You monkeys, you! You give me back my caps."
But the monkeys only shook both their hands back at him and said, "Tsz, tsz, tsz."

A few pages later, the peddler is so angry that he's essentially having a temper tantrum, stomping his feet and waving his fists and shouting at the monkeys up in the tree. And the monkeys are still playing their game, imitating everything he does. And then the peddler gives up.

At last he became so angry that he pulled off his own cap, threw it on the ground, and began to walk away.

The monkeys have been copying everything he does up to now, and surprise, surprise, they copy this action, too. They throw the caps to the ground and leave the peddler alone.

So the peddler picked up his caps and put them back on his head--first his own checked cap, then the gray caps, then the brown caps, then the blue caps, then the red caps on the very top.

And slowly, slowly, he walked back to town calling, "Caps! Caps for sale! Fifty cents a cap!"

I absolutely love the way they show the peddler's temper tantrum progressing bit by bit as he gets angrier. And particularly, how all of his yelling and screaming and shouting doesn't work at all. It's a great lesson for kids (and grownups!) about how not to convince someone to do what you want.

The other thing I really love about this story is the way the mood progresses in a cycle. It's very calm at the beginning, and then it builds up the huge emotional temper tantrum in the middle, and then once the peddler gets his caps back, it returns to the same calm and peaceful tone of the beginning. I've been looking for books to help Charlie deal with his emotions, and I think Caps for Sale gives an excellent model of how to calm back down and accept the good after an emotional outburst.

A note on versions and ages: I bought the board book version of Caps for Sale when Charlie was about 18 months old. He loved it and wanted to read it every day. Unfortunately, we lost the book while we were on vacation a few months later. Eventually I got around to buying a new one, and since Charlie was two and a half by that time, I went for the paperback instead of the board book. It turns out that the board book leaves out some interesting details of the story, but nothing crucial. I would recommend going straight for the paperback. You can buy the paperback alone, or for just an extra two dollars, you can get it packaged together with a CD that narrates the story and adds some songs. In my opinion, the songs are just so-so, but Charlie loves listening to it in the car. This is the first book-CD package I've tried, but I will certainly be doing some more in the future.

Caps for Sale gets my absolute highest recommendation. It's a wonderful story, well-written, with great lessons, and has excellent power to hold a child's interest.

This Is the Rain

2011-05-02T19:56:00.002-04:00

We've been on something of a kick with cumulative poems lately, with some I've reviewed before and another one that I'm planning to review soon. Today's cumulative poem is This Is the Rain. I was a bit nervous when I picked it up at the library right as we were running to check out, because I thought it might be full of environmentalist nonsense. But in fact it's not, and it turned out to be a solid choice.

The book is about the water cycle, and with each verse of the poem it introduces a new phase of the cycle. It begins, "This is the ocean, blue and vast, that holds the rainwater from the past." Next it introduces sunshine, then water vapor, then clouds. Finally we see actual rain, and then the land that absorbs the water, and the puddles that form after a storm. On the last page, we see running water, creeks and rivers that flow back into the sea. It's a very effective introduction that touches all parts of the water cycle in a catchy poem without cumbersome scientific explanation that would be too much for a toddler.

The illustrations are not really my style, but some people might like them. It's that sort of modern style that I sometimes describe as "throw a lot of relevant things onto the page in random places." So, the night sky is full of ... starfish, and the seahorses stick their noses out of the water. Oh yeah, and there's a random apatosaurus at the bottom of the ocean. Whatever. The colors are quite vivid, however, and all of the items are real if their placement leaves something to be desired.

In sum, this is a nice one to read a few times, but I wouldn't have purchased it.

Birds

2011-05-01T19:36:00.000-04:00

I am thoroughly impressed with Birds, a book I picked up at a garage sale last weekend. Have I mentioned how much I love garage sales? Anyway, Birds veers wildly back and forth from straightforward to whimsical, somehow managing to tie the two into a lovely package.

One page points out all the different colors birds can be. Another remarks on their variety of sizes. And another imagines (and illustrates!) what the sky would look like if birds made marks with their tail feathers when they flew through the air. Vibrant colors woosh through the sky. Brilliant!

Other pages are told from a child's first person perspective. One two-page spread is illustrated with seven birds sitting on a telephone wire, copied three times, with the birds in exactly the same positions from picture to picture. "Once I saw seven birds on the telephone wire. They didn't move and they didn't move and they didn't move." I looked away for just a second . . . " (page turn) "and they were gone." A thick black telephone wire slices through the otherwise empty page.

Charlie cannot read this book just once. He's asked for it many times since I brought it home, and each time he has to read it at least twice in a row, sometimes more. He loves to point out all the colors of the birds and says some of the surprising punch lines along with me. This is a real gem!

Cat Up a Tree

2011-04-28T14:36:00.000-04:00

We found Cat Up a Tree at the library this week, and I like it so much I might buy a copy. Charlie and I have both enjoyed it very much.

At the beginning of the book, an old woman notices a cat stuck in the tree outside her window. Naturally, she calls the fire department to help. But they won't help. "Sorry, we do not catch cats up a tree anymore. Call back if that cat starts playing with matches."

By this time, there are five cats stuck in the tree, so the old woman tries calling the police station. They won't help either. More cats show up. She calls the zoo. They don't catch cats. And so on, and so on, and so on.

This is a fantastic book for a number of reasons. It teaches about different institutions and what services they provide. The old woman calls the fire department, the police, the pet store, the zoo, the post office, the library, and city hall. Each of them says they don't rescue cats up a tree, but mentions something about the job they actually do. Notably, most (but not all!) of these institutions are governmental. If it weren't for the inclusion of the pet store, one could make a nice little lesson about government services versus the free market here. Still, it does provide an opportunity to talk about all of these institutions that are set up for specific helpful purposes, but not for anything you might want them to do for you. And it's quite funny, too, particularly when city hall offers to put up a sign that says "Danger! Look up for Falling Cats."

The book also provides some fun counting practice, and in particular, counting by fives. It starts with one cat, then five, and then adds five more on each page, up to forty. This is quite a lot, compared to most counting books that only go up to ten or twelve. And since they're scattered all over the page, it's a challenge to keep track of which cats you've counted already.

So, what happens in the end? Are the poor cats stuck up the tree forever? Fortunately, no. The old woman gets so frustrated that she throws her phone out the window. But she doesn't unplug it from the wall first! The cats walk across the phone cord into her apartment, safe and sound. Good thing it wasn't a cell phone!

There's a nice little coda at the end, too. The old woman gets a call from city hall (presumably after reeling her phone back in to the house). There are mice everywhere, all over town! Can she help? "Sorry," she tells them. "The cats do not catch mice anymore. Call back if you wish to hear cats purr." I was so pleased that she didn't get altruistic in the end, but refused to help the people who had refused to help her. You might look at this as a sort of modern re-telling of The Little Red Hen, the classic fable in which nobody helps the hen with her planting and harvesting of wheat or baking of bread, so she refuses to share the bread with them in the end. This is a little different, because the old woman didn't actually do any work to rescue the cats herself, but just happened to rescue them by chance. Still, the principle is pretty similar.

We've had tons of fun with this book. It was a great find.

The Midnight Farm

2011-04-02T20:41:00.000-04:00

The Midnight Farm is a nearly perfect bedtime story. Once again, I've chosen a book that is out of print, but plenty of used copies are available on Amazon. I've written before about books that create a mood, and this one is an excellent example of the genre. Charlie is usually wide awake when we finish reading his bedtime stories, but this one makes even him a little bit sleepy.

The story is simple and intuitive. A mother gets her son ready for bed by walking around the farm with him, looking at all the animals ready for the night. Some of the animals are settling in to sleep, while others are nocturnal and engaged in their activities.

The book is written in very nice poetry, which contributes to the mood. I'm sure there's a name for this form, but I don't know it -- the first line of each verse is the same as the last line of that verse, with a different beginning. Each verse begins, "Here is the dark of [place]" and it ends, "In the dark of the [place]." Here's one verse to give you a sample:

Here is the dark of the maple tree
Where a raccoon family, one, two, three,
Is making a home in a place that was free
In the dark of the maple tree.

I didn't notice until I was on page five or six of my first reading, but this is also a counting book. After the introductory verse, each page counts up one more animal, to ten. We start with one dog, then two cats, three raccoons, four geese, five horses, etc. This is very subtle, without calling attention to it and without the numbers printed on the pages.

My only complaint about this book is that two of the verses don't rhyme properly. It's very disappointing, since the rest of the book (and the poetry!) is so fantastic, and I wish the author could have fixed this. One verse rhymes stove/glove/love, and another rhymes pond/around/sound. It's annoying, but I'm willing to overlook it because the book is so wonderful in other ways.

The illustrations are also amazing. They are extremely realistic paintings. The people and animals look almost like you could reach out and touch them. The colors are varied, yet muted for evening and bedtime. Just looking at the pictures here is a real treat.

This is a wonderful book for a quiet and peaceful bedtime or naptime story. Charlie sometimes asks for it during the day, too, and then he likes to count the animals and point out the ones that aren't mentioned in the text ("One, two, three raccoons, and an owl!"). I really can't believe this one went out of print.

If You Made a Million

2011-03-20T14:15:00.000-04:00

&lt;p&gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;CC&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&lt;/p&gt;Charlie is way too young for this book. But I'm blogging about it now anyway, even though I haven't shown it to him, because it is such a great find. I am guessing that If You Made a Million is best for the 6-8 age range, but I don't have all that much experience with kids that age, so read the rest of this review and make your own judgment. (NOTE: At the time of this writing, there is something wrong with Amazon's "look inside" feature for this book, such that most of the illustrations are missing.)

This book explains money and various financial transactions in ways that are clear, straightforward, and highly accessible to kids. We work up to the title concept of a million dollars, but we start all the way at the beginning, with a penny.

"CONGRATULATIONS!" the first page announces. "YOU'VE EARNED A PENNY." A little girl is shown feeding a goldfish under a sign that says "Feed the Fish - Earn 1 cent." There's a photograph of a single penny, and the text explains, "It will buy anything that costs one cent." As an example, a boy has set up a stand where he's selling pebbles for one cent each.

When you turn the page, you've earned a nickel. (How, you ask? By dusting a duck, of course.) The book shows a photograph of a nickel and five pennies. It explains "ONE NICKEL is worth the same as FIVE PENNIES." We continue down the page and earn a dime, which we are clearly shown, in the same way, is the same as two nickels or ten pennies. Obvious. Straightforward. Clear. Countable. I particularly like that they mix up the fronts and backs of the coins.

Once we get to a dollar, the book starts to mix things up a bit. After explaining the various low-cost items we could buy with that dollar, the book makes a very different suggestion.

Or perhaps you'd like to save your dollar. You could put it in the bank, and a year from now it will be worth $1.05. The bank wants to use your money and it will pay you five cents to leave your dollar there for a year. The extra five cents is called interest. If you waited ten years, your dollar would earn sixty-four cents in interest just from sitting in the bank. Are you interested in earning lots of interest? Wait twenty years, and one dollar will grow to $2.70.

Dude.

Then we're back to explaining how much $5 is, and $10, and we do another interest calculation with putting $10 in the bank, and on up to $100, and then at long last we earn $1000. We'd like to buy a pet hippo with our $1000, but that's a huge wad of cash.

If you don't like the idea of carrying a thousand dollars around with you, you can put it in the bank and pay for the hippo with a check. The check tells your bank to give $1,000 to the person who sold you the hippo.

To illustrate how this works, the book presents a picture of a check written out for a thousand dollars.

Okay, that's a pretty good explanation. But wait, we're not done! There's a whole two-page explanation of how the process works in detail. You write the check and give it to the person who sold you the hippo, who gives it to his bank, who sends it to a clearinghouse, which tells your bank to take the money out of your account and the other person's bank to put the money into his account. Why did nobody give me this book when I was a kid?

All right. Now we've managed to earn $50,000 and we've decided to use it to buy a castle that's on sale for $100,000. But wait a minute. We don't have $100,000. We only have $50,000. What should we do? Get a mortgage, of course! Fully explained in clear detail.

Finally we earn a million dollars, and we have tons of saving and spending choices. What should we do? Well, the book tells us, it's really all about you and your personal values. What would you like to do? What would you like to have? Where would you like to go?

If you keep your million, you can probably live on the interest without doing any more work for the rest of your life. You might like that, or you could find it rather dull.

Making money means making choices.

So what would you do if you made a million?

Fantastic.

An Island Called Liberty

2011-03-12T15:15:00.000-05:00

When an acquaintance pointed out a book that was described as "a cross between Dr. Seuss and Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged," I knew I had to have a copy. Unfortunately, An Island Called Liberty is sorely disappointing.

The story is about an Island called (you guessed it) Liberty, which begins as a libertarian paradise. Then, one by one, the people think up great new ideas that can be implemented with government regulation. As the taxes and government workers add up, the economy tanks. It's very Road to Serfdom.

There are a lot of problems with this book, which I will go into in detail, but I think the fundamental problem underlying all the others is that it was not actually written for kids. I have no proof of this, but it strikes me as very likely. The text is a Dr. Seuss style poem about the economy-killing results of government regulation, but it doesn't explain anything on a level that children can understand. It reads much more like a poem that was written as a joke for grown-ups, as many Dr. Seuss parodies are. Add some illustrations, and bingo, instant kids' book! Or not.

At the most basic level, the poetry is awful. There are rhythm problems throughout, and some of the rhymes are pretty awful, too (e.g. "agency" in no way rhymes with "urgency"). The rhythm problems begin on page one, which begins:

There once was an island called Liberty,
Where people lived happy and free.
Life was not perfect, as any could see,
But the Islanders made it the best it could be.

As anyone should be able to recognize, the second line is two syllables short, with no obvious place to put pauses to make up the difference. The word "Liberty" in the first line also makes the rhythm awkward. The author didn't even have the sense to fix it up with easy filler words which, while still cheating, would have made it flow better. My own edit:

There once was an island they called Liberty,
Where all of the people lived happy and free.
Life was not perfect, as any could see,
But the Islanders made it the best it could be.

Simple, simple, simple. And so disappointing that the author didn't bother to fix these things. Such errors appear at least once on every page.

The illustrations are also amateurish. They're cute enough, but not really evocative or interesting. They don't add anything to the text. Reading the book, I felt that the illustrations were there mainly because children's picture books have to have illustrations, and for no other reason. Still, I have no particular fault with them.

If you manage to get through the clunky text, you'll find that the story does not do a very good job at explaining why all of the newly-enacted government regulations are bad. Near the end, we get a close look at the effect of taxes on one company, Bridget's Widgets & Wodgets, but this illustrates only the problems with the tax burden, not the problems of regulation in and of itself. (Additionally, I wish the character of Bridget had been introduced earlier in the story so the reader would identify more with her.) The regulations and government programs all sound like great ideas -- that's why the citizens of Liberty vote to adopt them -- but unless the reader is already in on why these sorts of things (welfare, medicare, standardized education, interstate highways, an "unsafe baby-toy ban") are inherently bad ideas, the reader is left with the impression that these things would be great if only they didn't cost so much money. That is (1) not true, and (2) nearly impossible for a child with a limited grasp of economics to understand. Concepts like personal responsibility, freedom of choice, and the importance of variety rather than standardization are almost completely absent in this book.

The publisher's comparison of this book to Ayn Rand is also off the mark. Certainly, the message of economic freedom is consistent with Rand's views on government. But that's where the similarity ends. There is no sense in the book of the moral values underlying capitalism and freedom that Rand stressed so strongly. While the text expresses disgust at rules limiting personal freedoms like smoking, flag-burning, and eating fattening foods, it does not talk about the importance of hard work and personal responsibility. It doesn't treat tax as an immoral theft, as Rand did, but instead as a purely economic burden that is fine when small but overwhelming when it gets too large. And though the text stresses the well-functioning private welfare system that operated before the government took it over, it doesn't explain the motivation for helping others in need. It just blithely recites that "caring for others fits our Islander goals," leading readers to think that the commonly-accepted virtues of altruism and charity are the primary motivation, rather than the enlightened self-interest that Rand would have identified.

The lack of philosophical underpinnings for the economic system create a depressing ending for the book as well. After the economic collapse caused by high taxes, the citizens have an epiphany. They thought the government regulation was helping, but it was actually hurting! They need to dismantle that structure and go back to a liberty-based society! Hooray! Except, then you turn to the last page and discover that after a while they forgot all this again and went back to massive regulation in an unending cycle. And they all lived unhappily ever after. The end.

Okay then. I guess there's still a market opportunity available for someone to write a good children's book about government regulation.

Green Eggs and Ham

2011-03-03T09:44:00.000-05:00

Dr. Seuss books are most commonly marketed to beginning readers in kindergarten and first grade. But some of them are excellent for barely-verbal young toddlers as well. Charlie fell in love with Green Eggs and Ham when he was about 15 months old, and it was a constant favorite in our house until he turned two.

Most people know this story already, but here's a brief recap for anyone who, like me, did not actually read this book as a child (I think my mother disliked it because ham is unkosher). Sam asks his nameless Friend if he'd like some green eggs and ham. Friend says that he does not like green eggs and ham. Sam then asks Friend if he would eat green eggs and ham in various exciting situations (in a house? with a mouse? in the rain? on a train?), but Friend repeatedly insists that he will not eat them anywhere. Finally, after much harassment, Friend agrees to take a bite if Sam will finally leave him alone. Lo and behold, Friend turns out to really like green eggs and ham.

The story is written as a cumulative poem, introducing concepts of repetition and rhyme. The incidental words change (for example, "I do not like them in a box" changes a few pages later to "I would not, could not in a box") but the major subjects appear every time in the same order as new situations are added. The easy rhymes allow a child to think of the correct word to fill in the blank at a very young age.

The simple story is also easy to follow from a very young age. This was the first book that Charlie ever tried to read to me. He must have been about 18 months old, and his rendition went something like this: "Green eggs and ham? No! In car? No! In boat? No! On train? No! All gone!" It was completely adorable.

A friend reminded me yesterday that many Dr. Seuss books have made-up nonsense words throughout. This can be problematic for babies and toddlers who are still trying to acquire a basic vocabulary. Montessori advocates talking to even very young children in ordinary English, without baby talk or nonsense words. Fortunately, Green Eggs and Ham doesn't have any nonsense words. It's composed entirely of short, simple, real words.

This is a classic that served us well for many months. It's back on the storage shelf now, but I plan to bring it out again during the early reading stage if not sooner.

For a hilarious coda, here is Jesse Jackson performing a dramatic reading of this book on Saturday Night Live.

It Takes a Village

2011-03-01T14:31:00.003-05:00

This review is a "don't judge a book by its cover" tale. Sometime last summer, Charlie and I stumbled across a garage sale held by a recently retired elementary school teacher who was selling off enormous quantities of kids' books for twenty-five cents each. I bought about forty books there, I am not kidding. Some of them were fantastic. Others just okay. It's hard to go through hundreds of books while a squirmy toddler sits in his stroller, and at twenty-five cents a pop, I erred on the side of purchase more often than I otherwise would. When I saw It Takes a Village, judging by the title alone, I assumed it would be terrible. I bought it so that I could have a good laugh and then chuck it in the trash.

It actually turned out to be a rather good book.

Who would have thought?

The only thing I actually dislike about this book is the title and its repetition on the last page of the book. The rest of the story is great, and the pictures are quite nice also.

The story takes place in an African village. (If you look closely at the signs in the background images, you'll notice a French influence. The author's notes on the last page of the book say that it's Benin.) A mother and her daughter and son take their mangos to the market to sell them. The girl, Yemi, around 7 or 8 years old, is given the task of looking after her younger brother, Kokou, who is probably 2 or 3. They set off to look around the market together, but Kokou soon wanders off and Yemi spends the rest of the book looking for him.

Yemi is worried, but Kokou is having a grand time walking around the market and meeting all the friendly people who are selling their wares. Different people give him food, water, entertainment, and a place to nap. Yemi finally finds Kokou and walks back through the market with him, thanking all of the people who helped him throughout the day. Finally they return to their mother, who is not surprised or worried at all. She knows that "it takes a village to raise a child" -- by which she means that the community members are friendly and benevolent and can be trusted.

I really like this moral, just not the words that it is phrased in. In the first place, the children are very free-range. Their mother lets them wander around the market without supervision even though they are quite young, and then the pre-schooler manages to set off on his own and is perfectly fine. This wandering is not shown as subversive or dangerous, but actually quite natural and expected by the mother and all the other adults in the story. And the reason that it's so safe for the kids to wander around freely is that the adults in the community are trusted, even if they are strangers, and they are all relaxed and friendly. This is exactly the kind of community that everyone wants to be a part of. The phrasing is not perfect. It doesn't take a village to "raise" a child. It takes a benevolent community to create a society in which children can exercise full age-appropriate independence. But that's not such a catchy title, I guess.

The illustrations in this book are realistic and use vibrant colors. Charlie loves to point out all the different items for sale in the market and all the activities that Kokou does with the grownups he meets. He is particularly intrigued by the fact that Kokou doesn't wear a shirt or shoes. ("Mommy, why him go outside with no shoes?") My only minor complaint about the illustrations is that on a couple of pages, there are multiple "time-lapse" pictures of the same characters on the same page. This can be confusing to kids who don't understand why there are four Yemis on this page. But it's a small point compared to the valuable things in the book.

So. You can't judge a book by its title.

No, David!

2011-02-28T14:32:00.001-05:00

I first heard about No, David! from Charlie's day care teacher, who recommended it as a perennial favorite in her class. Then, when he switched schools a few months later, I heard about it from his new day care teacher. Within a couple more months, I was hearing about it from Charlie himself. Really, it's completely understandable. What could toddlers possibly like more than watching a kid do all the things they're not allowed to do, and getting to tell him "No, David!" on each page?

David writes on walls. He balances precariously on top of a chair to reach the cookie jar on a high shelf. He tracks mud through the house and splashes water out of the bath. He runs outside without any clothes on!!! He bangs pots and pans together, plays with his food, shoves everything into his mouth at once, and chews with his mouth open. He jumps on his bed, picks his nose, and breaks a vase by playing baseball inside the house. David is in sooooooooooo much trouble. But his mother still loves him, and gives him a big hug on the last page.

The story is told with an absolute minimum of words. Each two-page spread is an illustration of a single bad thing David does. The only words are variations on "No, David!" The illustrations are not really to my liking. They're done in a style I refer to as "dumb cartoon," so I was surprised to see that this is a Caldecott Honor Book. Still, they do provide a fair amount of detail to discover, and they manage to tell the story entirely on their own.

Charlie loves to tell me rambling and semi-coherent vignettes from this book. "Mommy say 'No, David!' Maybe he fall and bump his head because he trying to reach the cookie jar waaaaaay up high and it on the shelf and he maybe fall and bump his head so she say 'No, David! That is not ok!' Ask for a cookie maybe?"

This is on my kid's all-time most-loved toddler books list. Highly recommended.

Have You Seen My Potty?

2011-01-31T16:55:00.000-05:00

Yes, yes, I know. Bear with me.

Despite the gross subject matter, Have You Seen My Potty? is a really great book. I was skeptical at first. But this story is actually humorous, and kids of potty-training age will be riveted, just as they are with all things poop. Best of all, no actual poop appears in this book!

"This is the story of Suzy Sue," the book announces on page one, "who had something very important to do." Suzy Sue appears in the illustration, smiling and proudly holding up her bright red potty chair. Unfortunately, just as she's sitting down to use it, a cow grabs it out from under her and she lands smack on her bottom on the ground.

"What a terrible thing. What an awful to-do. Who would play such a trick on poor Suzy Sue?" A good question, indeed. Why would "a rascal quite ruthless and rotten . . . steal someone's potty from under their bottom!" (At this point, Charlie always interjects, "Suzy Sue fall down! Oh no! Why she fall down?")

Meanwhile, on the other side of the barnyard, the cow, sheep, goat, horse, and several chickens are gathered around to examine the "poo pot" the cow has found just "lying around on the ground." The animals all line up to give it a try while Suzy Sue, stuffed rabbit in tow, searches the farm for her potty.

In a series of clever twists, Suzy Sue asks each of the animals if they've seen her potty, while that animal is actually using the potty. But the potty is hidden from her view each time--by a newspaper, a clump of grass, a scarf being knitted, or just around the corner. A failure of communication arises because Suzy Sue calls the object a potty while the animals are calling it a poo-pot. As the horse puts it, "Of course he'd not seen her potty. He knew this because he had no idea what a potty was!"

Suzy Sue eventually gives up, and since she really really really has to go, she decides to do it au naturale behind a plant. (This, by the way, is the most hilarious thing ever to a two-year-old. "No, Suzy Sue! We not poop in the grass!") Fortunately, the animals realize what she's about to do and provide the poo-pot for her use at the last minute. Whew! So, "That was the story of Suzy Sue, who had something very important to do."

The text is almost laugh-out-loud funny for grown-ups, and the illustrations are great, too. I love all the ways the potty is hidden from Suzy Sue's view, and also the numerous hold-it-in poses of the animals waiting in line for their turn.

My only real complaint with this book is that the story is hard to follow at Charlie's age. It depends on understanding that the animals (and the reader) can see something that Suzie Sue can't, which I believe is a concept developed more around the age of three and a half or four. The text goes back and forth from Suzy Sue's perspective to the animals' perspective, and I'm certain that Charlie isn't following it entirely. This doesn't seem to bother him in the least, however, since he asks for it every time we go to the bathroom and can nearly recite the entire text from memory. It's a huge hit in our household, and I definitely like that it stresses the importance of getting to the bathroom and not just the how-to aspect of using the potty like most other potty training books cover. Highly recommended!

Wave

2011-01-27T13:58:00.001-05:00

Don't attempt to read this book unless your preschooler has been to the beach. Wave is an adorable wordless story about a little girl having a conversation, entirely in body language, with the ocean. What I learned when I bought this book several months ago is that the ocean is an unbelievably difficult concept to explain, and even more so when the person you're explaining it to doesn't have a perfect grasp of the English language yet. Water as far as you can see? That's hard to imagine. Why on earth would huge amounts of water move back and forth like that? None of the water I've ever encountered moves of its own accord that way. Seashells? What?

But your trip to the beach need not be long and involved. We took a trip to Los Angeles in December and spent an hour or so walking along the beach, piling up sand, watching the waves, and sticking our toes in the water (until that became too cold and scary). When we returned home, suddenly Wave was infinitely more comprehensible and more interesting.

The book shows a little girl at the beach "talking to" or playing a game with the waves of the ocean. She stands on the beach at first, watching. She runs away when the water comes toward her, then turns and threatens it back with her arms up over her head. She sticks her toe in, finds it's fun to splash, and kicks up a storm. But when a very large wave appears, she gets nervous and flees again, stopping at a safe distance to stick out her tongue with a "can't catch me" attitude. But she hasn't run far enough! The wave does catch her with such force that she's knocked off her feet. Drenched and seated on the beach as the wave recedes, she's thrilled to find a treasure trove of perfect seashells left behind. When her mother finally takes her home, she looks back over her shoulder in a visual pun--waving goodbye to the wave.

The author and illustrator has set up quite a challenge for herself in this book. Not only is it wordless, which requires her to tell the story entirely in pictures, the illustrations are limited to three colors: black, white, and blue. The scene is nearly identical page after page. A little girl, an ocean, some sand dunes in the background, and a flock of seagulls. Near the end we see some shells and the girl's mother, but most of the pages have nothing but these four elements. Nonetheless, the challenge is met beautifully, with evocative illustrations that are appreciably different from each other and tell a real story.

Once Charlie understood the concept of the ocean, he fell in love with this book. He loves to tell me the story, making "woosh" noises and waving his arms around to illustrate the waves moving back and forth. He points out the seashells and the starfish, and talks about the animals that live in the ocean (which he knows about from other books and from visiting the aquarium). It's a great way for him to remember his one brief trip to the beach, which probably won't be repeated for another year or so. This book is lots of fun, and very nice to look at.

A Chair for My Mother

2011-01-25T13:21:00.000-05:00

A Chair for My Mother is a wonderful story about the importance of work, savings, and family. I remember this book from when I was a child, and it was featured on Reading Rainbow, but judging by the number of Amazon reviews, it's not too widely known. If this is your first introduction to it, you are in for a real treat.

The book is narrated by a young girl who lives with her mother and grandmother. About a year ago, their house burned down. Everyone was safe (even the cat!), but all of their possessions were completely destroyed. The mother works as a waitress, so the family doesn't have very much money. They move into a new apartment, and their extended family and neighbors all pitch in to donate furniture and other necessary items. But there is not a big, comfy chair for them to relax in. So the mother brings home a huge glass jar from the restaurant, and they save up their coins until they have enough to buy the perfect chair.

The story is told somewhat out of order, beginning with working at the diner, moving through how they save up the coins, taking a flashback to tell the reader about the fire and moving into the new apartment, then culminating with filling up the jar, shopping for a new chair, and bringing it home to enjoy. This structure adds a lot of interest compared to the straightforward narrative arc of most picture books. It means the story is a bit more complex to follow, but I don't think Charlie had much trouble grasping that we were moving back and forward in time.

This is an incredibly useful book for introducing children to two major economic concepts: the importance of work for earning money, and saving and spending.

Work enters the book on page one. The opening line is about work ("My mother works as a waitress in the Blue Tile Diner."), and by the end of the first paragraph, the little girl has a job, too. She visits her mother at the diner after school, and the owner pays her to do small tasks like refilling ketchup bottles. The girl clearly takes pride in her work and in her ability to earn money to spend herself and to contribute to her family's finances.

Work is fulfilling and necessary, but it's also exhausting. When mama comes home from work, "[s]ometimes she's so tired she falls asleep while I count the money out into piles." And making ends meet is not easy. When there are not many tips, mama "looks worried." Grandma apparently does not work, but she's responsible for the shopping in the family, and is always looking for "a good bargain on tomatoes or bananas or something she buys." Life is not all just candy and roses in this book. I really like the way the budgeting issues are presented. They are clearly there, but the book doesn't beat you over the head with them. This is a family that is not exactly struggling to make ends meet, but that has to stick to a pretty strict budget. They're not lacking for food or clothing or other necessities of life, but they've suffered a setback and they don't have much extra to go around. Nobody whines and cries over not being able to have the newest shiny toy, but working, earning money, and saving are central to this family's life.

The family has a clear savings plan for this concrete goal of buying a comfortable chair. The little girl always puts half of her earnings into the jar. Mama puts all the change from tips into the jar, presumably because her salary goes to providing necessities. And grandma puts the savings from her shopping trip into the jar as well. Charlie is too young yet to understand the value of money (he likes to use a shiny coin to buy pretend train tickets, but that's about it). For an older kid, this would be a great illustration of not only budgeting and saving, but also setting goals, making plans to achieve them, and following through.

When the jar is full, nobody can quite believe it. They set out, first for the bank to change the coins into bills, and then out to the stores to shop for a chair. Having saved up for an entire year to buy this chair, they will not settle for anything but the best. They search and search until they find the perfect chair that they all love. The achievement of this goal is something to celebrate, so they take a picture of the three of them sitting together in the chair. Most importantly, they chose a goal that was truly a value to all of them. The last page of the book explains how the chair materially enhances their lives: "Now Grandma sits in it and talks with people going by in the daytime. Mama sits down and watches the news on TV when she comes home from her job. After supper, I sit with her and she can reach right up and turn out the light if I fall asleep in her lap." This is not a whim or a waste of money. This is a real value they have worked hard to add to their lives and will appreciate for a long time.

The portion of the book dealing with the fire and its aftermath is also rich with values. First, the family has its priorities straight: check to make sure that all the people are safe, and then the cat. There's no mourning for the lost physical possessions here, interestingly. Instead, there's a sadness that the rooms of their new apartment are empty. The book doesn't say so explicitly, but it seems to convey the idea that physical things are just things. They're replaceable. We might miss them, but generally we can get new ones. "[W]e're young and can start all over," as the grandmother puts it.

This family is struggling financially, though, and not able to buy everything new all at once. Fortunately, they live in a loving community made up not only of extended family, but also friendly and generous neighbors. When they move in to the new place, their friends and family bring everything from furniture to dishes to toys to curtains to pizza. This outpouring of benevolence is especially touching because it is unforced. The people in the community are reaching out because they care about their neighbors and are able to help.

The illustrations are rich with color, but in my opinion, somewhat simplistic. I was surprised to find that this is a Caldecott Honor Book, because the illustrations didn't really do much for me. I think the rich, complex, value-laden story is the true appeal of this book.

Wow, It's a Cow!

2011-01-24T16:32:00.000-05:00

We had a lot of fun with Wow, It's A Cow! in the 18-months to 2-years range. It's a cute little book, but I wouldn't advise anyone to rush out and buy it. There's nothing particularly special about it. This is just a fun little romp that's easily interchangeable with a bunch of other, similar books.

Still, Charlie really enjoyed this one for several months. It seemed to have a lot of staying power for him. The story is about a farmer looking for his cow. He comes across lots of animals, but they are not the cow. Finally, on the last page, he finds the cow in the barn.

The amusement factor in the book is that on each page, the cow is drawn doing what some other animal does, and then you lift the flap and it shows the actual animal underneath. So the cow gets to pull a plow (horse), swim in the pond (duck), and perch on a tree branch (bird), among other things. Charlie always liked to lift the flap and announce the animal that was actually doing those things.

The book is also written in rhyme. "If it goes 'Neigh, neigh,' / And it's pulling a plow, / It's not a cow! / Of course, / It's a . . . horse!" These are relatively cute but uninteresting from an adult's perspective (except that I always wanted to rhyme a certain swear word with "duck" ...). The illustrations, too, are cute but nothing special.

It's a cute book for learning about animals, their sounds, and their jobs or characteristics. It's also fun as a lift-the-flap book and general entertainment. But it's not great literature.

Have You Seen Birds?

2011-01-23T17:53:00.002-05:00

I do a lot of my children's book shopping at garage sales, so I am frequently dismayed to discover that some of my favorite second-hand finds are out of print. Thank goodness for used sales on Amazon, where you can find a copy of just about anything, because Have You Seen Birds? is just awesome. The premise is simple: A cat looks out the window longingly, describing all the different types of birds she likes to watch.

Since so many kids' books are written in rhyme, I've been thinking about when I should use the "poetry" tag on my posts and when not. I've decided it should be reserved for poems with some level of literary merit, and this book fits the bill. The text is a treasure trove of complex and hyphenated adjectives strung into a fun rhythm that reminds me a little bit of The Song of Hiawatha. Let me give you a taste:

Have you seen birds?
Long-legged tall birds,
tiny bug-sized small birds,
brightly breasted,
gaily crested,
meadow tan or fancy fan.
Have you seen birds?

. . .

Have you heard town birds?
Rapping-at-the-bark birds,
Cooing-in-the-park birds,
quarreling-in-a-rage birds,
tweeting-in-a-cage birds,
squealing, squawking,
screeching, talking.
Have you heard birds?

. . .

Look up -- see the sky birds,
flying-way-up-high birds,
racing-up-to-space birds,
wind-wheeling,
freedom-feeling,
diving, dipping, gliding, tipping.
Have you seen birds?

Okay, that was probably too much to quote, but I just love it so much!

The illustrations are also very interesting. They're all done with clay models, like a claymation movie. The detail is amazing, with individual feathers and little texture grooves carved in. Background details appear as well, not just the birds themselves. There are plants with flowers and berries growing, worms, insects, gardening implements, individual twigs in a nest, even snowflakes and flecks of foam on the waves.

There's no moral lesson here or anything, just a catalog of all the detailed variety of this one particular aspect of nature. Nevertheless, it's one of my absolute favorites.

Puff, the Magic Dragon

2011-01-22T13:36:00.000-05:00

The beauty of this picture book version of Puff, the Magic Dragon perfectly matches the beauty of the original song by Peter, Paul, and Mary. I fell in love with it the moment I saw it. The book comes packaged together with a CD of the song performed by Peter and his daughter Bethany, but I can't tell you anything about the recording because I bought this book used and the CD was not included.

The song has always made me cry a little bit, and this book did the same. As I've mentioned before, I'm a sucker for growing-up or cycle-of-life stories, and this certainly is one. Jackie has so much fun with Puff, and then grows up and stops playing with him. This book adds a happy ending to the story, though. The words are the same as in the song, but on the final chorus, the illustrations show a new little girl coming to play with Puff. The last page reveals a grown-up Jackie Paper peeking in on the scene, implying that the girl is his daughter.

The illustrations in this book are unbelievably beautiful. The front cover image really does not do justice to the illustrations, and Amazon doesn't have a look-inside feature for this book, so you'll have to take my word for it. They are stunning. The inside covers show maps of the land of Honalee. The pages are gorgeous fantasy paintings that combine realistic and fantastical elements to create the effect that you're truly seeing inside Jackie's imagination. There are many details and hidden elements throughout: fairies, buildings in the distance, rocks that look like faces. I haven't read the book enough times to notice even half of them, I'm sure.

This is quite a sad story, with a deep friendship breaking up as Jackie grows older, and I was a little bit concerned about presenting it to Charlie. And indeed, Charlie was upset when we first read it. He kept asking me why Jackie and Puff are not friends any more. We talked about it at length, discussing how Jackie grew up and dragons are friends with little kids, not grown-ups. I pointed out the little girl who comes to be Puff's new friend, and explained that Jackie is her dad. I don't think Charlie understands exactly what's going on, but he's not traumatized by it. He likes to point out the little girl's dad hiding behind the tree, but I don't think he makes the connection yet that the dad is Jackie as a grown-up. Still, Charlie requests the book frequently and loves the pictures and the song, and he will certainly grow into it.

I adore this book. It's very emotional for me, so it's difficult to explain exactly what I love about it so much. The story is sad yet sweet, the pictures are beautiful, and the song is a folk classic, but together these elements add up to something even more.

Good Dog, Carl

2011-01-21T19:54:00.000-05:00

Good Dog, Carl is yet another one of our nearly-wordless friends. It's about a mother who goes out to run some errands, leaving her baby in the care of a large black pet dog, Carl, while she's gone. Carl and the baby get in all kinds of exciting but messy adventures around the house, but Carl cleans everything up and puts the baby back to bed before the mother gets home, so she is none the wiser.

The illustrations in this book are very realistic drawings, but often two scenes, or a before-and-after, are shown on the same page without any lines in between. I've noticed that this is rather confusing to Charlie, thinking that there are two dogs or two babies instead of understanding the time-lapse. That's exactly why Montessori advocates a single picture on each page at this age. Still, this is an interpretive skill that kids need to learn, and a wordless book invites lots of discussion, so I haven't found it to be too much of a problem.

Charlie enjoys narrating this book to me, much more so than his other wordless books. I'm not sure whether that's something inherent in the story, perhaps it's more familiar or easier to follow, or whether it's just that I introduced this book at a slightly older age than our other wordless books, so he has more ability and less history of being read to from this book. This is generally a fun book, but not one of our all-time favorites.

Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel

2011-01-16T07:33:00.000-05:00

Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel is one of those books that's so famous it's even written about in other famous books. (Anyone remember Ramona Quimby asking her teacher, in Ramona the Pest, how Mike Mulligan took bathroom breaks?) Since everyone surely already knows this book, why am I writing about it? Because it has really excellent economic and ethical lessons that deserve attention.

Here's the basic recap: Mike Mulligan is a steam shovel operator who owns his own steam shovel, named Mary Anne. They have worked together for many years on big, important projects. But times have changed, and now all of the major projects in the cities are being done by gasoline, electric, and Diesel shovels, not the outdated steam shovels. Most steam shovels are being sold for scrap, but Mike can't face doing that to his beloved Mary Anne. Then one day Mike hears that the small town of Popperville is going to build a new city hall, so he and Mary Anne drive out there and offer to dig the cellar, promising that the work will be free if they can't complete it in a single day. One by one, the residents of Popperville turn out to watch, followed by the residents of other towns. All of the spectators motivate Mike and Mary Anne to work very fast, and they complete their job in just one day. But they've forgotten to leave a ramp to drive Mary Anne out of the cellar! After some discussion, everyone agrees to let Mary Anne stay in the cellar, where she will become the furnace for the new town hall, and Mike is hired as the janitor.

This book can be read as having an anti-development bias. It displays a certain amount of sadness for the technological changes that have made steam shovels obsolete. But there is plenty to counter this, unlike in, for instance, The Little House, another Virginia Lee Burton book with a very strong nostalgia for old-fashioned country living. The first few pages of Mike Mulligan are aglow with praise for technological and economic developments. Mike and Mary Anne are proud of their work digging canals, cutting paths for new roads and railroads, smoothing out landing fields for airplanes, and digging cellars for skyscrapers in the cities. The only technological development they seem to dislike is the one that puts them out of work--the invention of better digging technology.

Perhaps Mike's affection for Mary Anne led him to make some poor economic choices. He could have invested in a diesel shovel instead of taking "such good care of Mary Anne she never grew old." But it can also make good economic sense to keep your capital equipment in good working order as long as possible. This being a children's story book instead of a corporate balance sheet, we don't have the necessary information to decide whether Mike made the right choices or not. But this makes a great discussion topic as your kids get older. And little kids can relate in the right context, too: should we repair this toy or buy a new, upgraded model?

Mike and Mary Anne embody the value of productive work. They are extremely proud of all the work they have done on important development projects. When they are replaced by newer equipment and can no longer find work, "Mike Mulligan and Mary Anne were VERY SAD." (In all caps, no less!) There's nothing worse than being unemployed and useless. Their solution is not to give up, but to prove how useful they can be in the right context. They head out to the small town of Popperville, where it doesn't make economic sense to hire a big diesel shovel, but a steam shovel can still be very useful. They like other people to appreciate their work, too. When they know they are being useful and entertaining to spectators, they work even harder and faster.

The solution reached at the end of the book is pretty much perfect. Even if Mike hadn't forgotten to leave a ramp out of the cellar, turning Mary Anne into a furnace might well be the best economic solution out there. There can't be too many places like Popperville left for very long--economic development will continue to spread from big projects to small ones--and traveling between far-flung little towns with a day's work in each is not likely to be economically viable for Mike and Mary Anne. If Mary Anne can function efficiently as a heating unit, why not? It provides steady, useful work. Mike and Mary Anne are both thrilled with the situation; nobody treats it as a demotion (though perhaps it's a form of semi-retirement, sitting around with visitors telling stories and eating pie every day). Certainly it is much more productive than what other steam shovel operators did, scrapping their machines or leaving them to rust. Mary Anne goes on to have another whole phase of productive life because she was so well kept up by her operator. Mike gets to continue working with Mary Anne, clearly important to him, instead of having to give her up for a different machine. The solution is not only efficient, it also makes everyone happy.

Overall, I think the theme of this book is not nostalgia and anti-development. It's finding a productive niche for yourself given your capacities and limits. Not all of us can be CEOs of Fortune 500 corporations. Maybe we don't have the skills or capacity, or maybe we have other values, like family or leisure, that make other paths better for us. This book is about finding the work you can do, taking pride in it, and finding a situation that gives you the best life possible.

Blue Hat, Green Hat

2011-01-15T19:04:00.000-05:00

There's not too much I can say about Blue Hat, Green Hat. We have enjoyed many of the Sandra Boynton board books since Charlie was a little baby, but they're just so simple that there's not much to say. Don't let the simplicity fool you, though. Boynton's books are excellent for babies and very young toddlers.

I chose Blue Hat, Green Hat to review today because it's enjoying a resurgence of popularity in the eyes of two-and-a-half-year-old Charlie. The story is extremely simple: A series of animals get dressed, one piece of clothing at a time, but the turkey always manages to put his clothes on wrong. Hat on his feet, socks on his hands, coat on backwards, that kind of thing. The only words are the color and name of each item of clothing, and then the word "oops" under the turkey each time. It's up to the parent and child to point out and explain what went wrong for the turkey.

This is a great book for learning colors and the names of items of clothing, but Charlie has those down like the back of his hand at this point. The reason he's interested in it again is that he can dress himself now and he just loves pointing out the turkey's mistakes and explaining what he should have done instead. Additionally, the words are so simple that Charlie can "read" the entire book himself. That is, there are no words other than what he can easily observe from the pictures and say out loud. No parental involvement necessary! (Though he still likes to read it together with me.) I'm glad to see that this book has a bit of staying power past the infant stage.

Sunrise, Sunset

2011-01-14T20:22:00.001-05:00

We received Sunrise, Sunset from PJ Library, an organization that provides free books to Jewish kids. I would wholeheartedly recommend PJ Library to anyone raising their kids in the Jewish religion. I recommend it with reservations to people like me, who want their kids to have a cultural connection to Judaism without pushing the religion aspect. PJ sends out one book or CD per month. We signed up for the baby level (under two years old), and over the course of the year, there were two books that I refused to give to Charlie because of religious or mystical content. The rest were straightforward explanations of Jewish holidays that we read but didn't love.

Sunrise, Sunset was one of the first books we got from PJ after graduating to the 2-3 year age group, and it's certainly my favorite book from them so far. It's the story of Motel and Tzeitel from Fiddler on the Roof, told in pictures accompanied by the words of the song Sunrise, Sunset. I am a sucker for happy cycle-of-life stories, and this one totally made me cry.

The religious content of this book is subtle and almost non-existent. There's nothing about religious beliefs or anything in the text. All of the characters are shown wearing religious dress, namely head coverings and tzit tzit. The Jewish wedding ceremony is shown and briefly described. One page appears to depict the discarding of bread before Passover, but it's not explained. All of these are elements that I want my kids to know about, and I like that they are presented mainly in the background to discuss but not as part of the actual story.

The illustrations are colorful and very expressive, and the characters are drawn to look very similar to the actors in the movie version of Fiddler on the Roof. Motel and Tzeitel are shown as children and then as young adults falling in love, then after their marriage Tzeitel is shown pregnant and then the couple with their new baby. Other elements in the illustrations also show the passage of time (A white kitten becomes old and fat. Tzeitel's parents appear to get older as well.). There is also a theme of sunflowers on almost every page, taken from the lyric, "Seedlings turn overnight to sunflowers, blossoming even as we gaze."

The words of the song are just as they appear in the movie or play, so they will be quite familiar. It's a sweet reflection on the passage of time and how quickly children grow up. The final page of the book prints the sheet music to the song, so you can play or sing along.

I probably would not have paid money for this book, since it's essentially the same content one could get from the movie. But I'm glad we have it. It would have been nice to take out of the library, I think. It makes the story accessible to a much younger child than the movie would be appropriate for. Charlie has certainly enjoyed reading it.

One to Ten and Back Again

2011-01-13T20:10:00.001-05:00

We've been working on counting a lot lately, and one of our fun counting books is One to Ten and Back Again. This is a board book with two special gimmicks. First, there are ribbons that are strung through the book, with one new ribbon appearing on each page. Second, each page has text written right-side-up and upside-down. The last page instructs you to turn the book over and read the opposite side. The very minimal story is that insects and other small animals all come to sit on a big flower (one bee, two butterflies, three grasshoppers, etc.), and then when you flip the book over, they all leave, one set at a time.

Both of these gimmicks work really well. The ribbons make a very fun swooshing noise when the pages are turned. The ribbons are actually integral to the book, since the animals you're counting appear on the ribbons.

Turning the book upside-down is very exciting to a toddler. It also allows the book to lead you through counting both up and down without having twice as many pages. The design of the book actually makes it very easy to read without getting confused. In fact, the first time I picked it up in the store, I didn't even realize that it had this upside-down feature! (To be fair, I was distracted by keeping Charlie entertained while I shopped.) All of the text to read is written on the right-hand page for the direction you're holding it, so your eye naturally is drawn there. In addition, the upside-down pages have a black background while the right-side-up ones have a white background. This means that you don't even really notice the black background pages while you're reading it the first way, and then when you turn it upside-down, you are already on alert.

My only complaint here is that the slots in the pages for the ribbons to go through weaken the structural integrity of the pages, so it's easier to bend and crease the pages than in an ordinary board book. So far, the creases haven't prevented the pages from turning properly, though.

The illustrations are pretty cute, too. The black and white background serves to highlight the brightly colored flower and insects. As the creatures pile on to the flower, it starts to bend over, ending up pretty smushed by page 10. Then as you count back down to 1 in the upside-down part, the flower gradually stands back up. There's also a little preview on each right-side-up page--the bottom right corner lets you know which animal is coming next.

Oh, and perhaps this counts as a third gimmick--there's a cutout running all the way through one side of the book that serves as a handle. Even a very little kid can hold this book easily in one hand, making it very portable for restaurants or waiting rooms.

The Day the Babies Crawled Away

2011-01-12T14:01:00.001-05:00

When I first read The Day the Babies Crawled Away, I thought the pictures were stunning but the text was pretty lame. Apparently, I am not a two-year-old, because the moment Charlie first heard it read to him, he was enthralled. And after just a couple of readings, it began to grow on me. This is nowhere near great literature, but it's not annoying or boring, either. And the pictures definitely make up for it.

The pictures! All of the characters, scenery, and details are done in black silhouette, intricately detailed. There are many details to notice--butterflies, bees, blackberries on a bush, caterpillars--all pure black silhouettes. What really grabs you, though, are the luminous backgrounds. All the jeweled colors of the sky appear, subtly different page after page, giving the feeling that the entire book is happening at sunset even though we see the tones slowly change from day to evening over the course of the story. The book is just gorgeous to look at.

The story is pretty cute. The adults aren't paying attention one day, and the babies all crawl away. The only person who notices is a very young boy wearing a fireman's hat. He chases after the babies, trying to get them to come back. The babies crawl through forests and caves, take rides on birds, and end up at the bottom of a cliff before the boy catches up with them. He then takes over a parental role, finding them food and serving as a pillow for their nap, before leading them back home to their grateful parents. Nice and free-range: The babies get along reasonably well without their parents, and it's a little kid who steps up, takes responsibility, and successfully brings them home.

So, what is it about the text? I think it's a bit choppy in parts ("I say! What a day / When the babies crawled away.") and not very interesting. Charlie, on the other hand, found it immediately compelling for two reasons. The most important thing is that the book is written in second person, putting the child-reader in the role of the little boy saving the day ("Remember the way / You tried to save the day? / You hollered, 'HEY! / You babies, STAY!'"). Charlie becomes very excited, pointing to the silhouette of the boy and announcing, "That's me! That's Charlie!" and sometimes repeating the little boy's lines of dialogue. The repeated use of the word "remember" draws the child into the story even further, framing the whole thing as a retold story that happened to him personally just the other day.

The other thing Charlie loves about the text are all the exclamatory phrases he can add to his vocabulary: I say! What a day! Nice play! Okay! Hey, hey! He picked these up much faster than I expected.

The upshot is, I was skeptical at first, but this is definitely a worthy addition to our library.

The Train to Glasgow

2011-01-11T08:28:00.000-05:00

The Train to Glasgow is a new (2004) picture book of an old (1954) poem that is a recent favorite of Charlie's. It is a cumulative poem in the style of The House that Jack Built, or There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly, or, for that matter, Green Eggs and Ham, which is another of our favorites. The poem has a bit of substantial variation; that is, the lines change a bit as new things are added, and the last verse is completely different.

The story is about a boy named Donald, maybe around ten years old, who almost misses the train from Donibristle to Glasgow. The guard grabs his hands and yanks him into the train as it is leaving the station. But then a cage full of chickens falls over and the chickens escape and begin running around the train. Donald gathers them back up for the guard, who is so pleased that he invites Donald to have tea with him and his wife.

The illustrations provide the opportunity to anticipate what is going to happen next, at least once you've read the book through a few times. As the guard blows the whistle to start the train, for instance, you can see Donald in the background, running across a bridge, trying to catch the train. As the guard yanks Donald into the train, a corner of the cage of chickens is visible just beside him. When the chickens get out of their cage, you see them running toward the passengers they'll be stepping on top of on the next page.

The main attraction of this book, though, is the poem, which is very cute and not boring. Charlie has started to recite it along with me as I read the book, something he rarely does with other books. Oh, and the train. Everyone loves a good train.

This is also a great free range book. This boy is traveling alone on a train between two cities which, Google Maps tells me, are about 50 miles apart. He doesn't even have an adult bring him to the station! Once on the train, he saves the day by rounding up the chickens. And then at the end, he is allowed to go to tea, again without any parents, with this man and woman he's apparently never met before. This kid is capable, independent, trusting, and friendly--all excellent qualities.

I Am a Backhoe

2011-01-10T13:57:00.000-05:00

The hilariously-named I Am a Backhoe has been the source of more than one joke among the adults in our household (see, e.g., the second item that showed up when I searched Amazon for the title, T-Shirt Men's Black "KISS ME, I AM AN [sic] BACKHOE OPERATOR"). But in my view, that just adds to the fun.

This one is great for a younger truck-obsessed kid. Charlie enjoyed it most in the 18-month to 2-years range, though he still likes reading it on occasion. The story is simple: a little boy pretends to be various trucks, one at a time. He describes and acts out what the truck does ("I dig my hand into the sand, my scooper hand."), including some good action words ("Dig. Dig. Dig. Lift, turn, tip.") and then you turn the page to reveal what truck he is. On the last pages, his father shows up, pretending to be a flatbed truck, and gives the little boy a ride on his back. Then they sit down on the couch together and read a book about trucks.

The drawings of the people and trucks are very realistic, and the backgrounds are simply gently-shaded bright colors. The front and back inside covers have close-ups of parts of the various trucks from the book, so you can use that page to play a vocabulary game, as well as color identification. There's not too much of interest for parents here (aside from the title), but Charlie always enjoyed it a lot.

Just a Little Critter Collection

2011-01-09T13:56:00.001-05:00

There are approximately nine million books in the "Little Critter" series, and I readily admit, I have not read them all. The ones I have read range from fantastic to very boring. That's why I was pleased to discover Just a Little Critter Collection, a hardcover collection of seven really excellent Little Critter stories. There is no hit-or-miss here. Every single one in the book is great.

Most of this review discusses the stories, but before I launch into that, I want to mention the totally cute illustrations for a moment. These are not great works of art or anything, but they are adorable and interesting. There are many background details to discover, particularly a spider, cricket, and mouse that follow Little Critter around to many places. The facial expressions on the parents and kids are also priceless.

Each of these stories is also available as an individual paperback. The included stories are:

One of the major overriding themes of these stories is a free-range childhood. The main character, who I guess is the Little Critter himself, is probably around four or five years old (old enough to have a little sister who is a kid, not a baby), but his parents give him a huge amount of freedom and responsibility. In Just for You alone, his mother lets him cook eggs, mop the floor, put away the dishes, carry the groceries home from the store, mow the lawn (with an old-style mechanical mower), and set the table for dinner. In every picture, the mother is in the background, looking on, encouraging Little Critter to do things on his own. When he messes things up, which he does repeatedly, she is clearly aggravated but always kind and helpful. This is also the main story of the rather obviously-titled All By Myself.

Despite his age-appropriate freedom, Little Critter has clear rules and limits imposed by his parents. When I Get Bigger is about his fantasies of the exciting things he'll do when those limits are removed. All of them are very reasonable things that bigger kids can do ("I'll go to the corner store by myself."), or at least could back in the 1970s ("I'll have a two-wheeler and a paper route. I'll make lots of money.").

Combining both free range philosophy and good parental limits, I Was So Mad describes what happens one day when Little Critter was prevented from doing a series of activities he wanted to do (putting frogs in the bathtub, climbing inside his sister's dollhouse, painting the exterior walls of the house, and juggling eggs, among other things), and decided that he was so mad he would run away. His parents look on in quiet amusement as he packs his wagon full of toys and cookies and heads out the door. But right outside, he runs into his friends and decides to go play baseball with them instead of running away.

The two ideas also intermingle in the last story in the book, which is my favorite, I Just Forgot. Parents sometimes have trouble understanding exactly how many things a kid has to learn and remember. Things that are second-nature to us--like turning off the bath water when we are done!--are just one more habit that a kid is in the process of forming. Little Critter is doing his best to remember all the things he needs to do, but he only gets about half of them right. The writing in this story is just adorable and captures a little kid's voice perfectly. Some of the things are presented straightforwardly ("I put my dishes in the sink after breakfast, but I forgot to put the milk away."), and others are almost laugh-out-loud funny ("I didn't forget to feed the goldfish. He just didn't look hungry. I'll do it now, Mom.").

I can totally relate to Little Critter's parents. They rarely say anything in these stories, but their facial expressions and body language always mirror exactly what I'd be feeling if my kid did whatever it is that Little Critter is doing just then. They are by turns proud, amused, frustrated, angry, worried, annoyed, and loving. But they generally stay in the background, letting Little Critter work out his problems for himself. This is most evident in Just a Mess, when Little Critter can't find his baseball mitt and his mother suggests that maybe he'll find it if he cleans his unbelievably cluttered room. She refuses to help, commenting, "You made the mess, so you can clean up the mess." You go, Mom Critter! In the whole story, she only intervenes to prevent Little Critter from washing his bedroom floor with the garden hose.

And parents are not perfect. I completely identify with Dad Critter as he gets increasingly annoyed with Little Critter's refusal to cooperate with the bedtime routine and ends up shouting "Just go to bed!"

Yet the love always shines through in these books. No matter how frustrated and annoyed the parents and child get with each other, there is always a tender moment. You just know that this is a strong, close-knit family. To a parent, one message of this book is that kids can be aggravating as heck, but they are still awesome. To a kid, the message is that parents can be aggravating as heck, but they are still awesome. Capturing both of those messages at once is, in my opinion, brilliant.

Life-Size Aquarium and More Life-Size Zoo

2011-01-09T12:26:00.001-05:00

This is just a brief update. In my post about Life-Size Zoo a few days ago, I mentioned the two sequels I had just discovered, More Life-Size Zoo and Life-Size Aquarium. These arrived from Amazon, and I want to report that: (1) these are just as awesome as the original, but (2) I would recommend them for a somewhat older age group.

Charlie loves the original Life-Size Zoo at under two and a half years old. Life-Size Aquarium scared him, and he ran away crying after seeing a few pages. Sea creatures just look weird, even the friendly ones like dolphins. More Life-Size Zoo isn't scary, but the fold-out pages are more extensive and I'm worried about the book getting damaged until he's able to handle it a bit more carefully. So these will go back on the shelf for at least six months, and probably more.

Nonetheless, the pictures are just as exciting as the original. I enjoyed looking through them myself, and I would certainly recommend these for 3- or 4-year olds.

Outside, Inside

2011-01-07T16:27:00.001-05:00

Outside, Inside is a gem of a book, and sadly, out of print. Used copies are available on Amazon. I picked mine up at a garage sale, where I was told that it had been a favorite book in the seller's household when her kids were younger. Charlie enjoys it as well.

The book is about a thunderstorm that lasts a whole morning. One sentence and accompanying illustration describe what is happening outside, and the next sentence and illustration describe what is happening indoors in a little girl's house at the same time. The text is highly evocative of the sounds, textures, sights, even smells associated with a rainstorm and a day spent indoors. ("Outside, the rain spills from the clouds, shussh-wissh, shussh-wissh, shussh-wish. Inside, the clock ticks in the hall, tink-tunk, tink-tunk, tink-tunk. Outside, puddles bubble and churn with the falling rain. Inside, maple syrup slips down a pancake mountain.")

The illustrations are made of cut-paper and are very neat to look at. They feel both simple and complex at the same time -- simple in their use of few colors per item, but complex in the intricacy of the shapes that have been created. A number of animals make an appearance also--a cat inside, birds, frogs, and rabbits outside.

The entire book has a quiet, peaceful, natural, uplifting feel to it. The story is told with a minimum of words, and largely implied. This contributes to the quiet atmosphere that is created when reading it. The girl is not bored or unhappy that it's raining and she's stuck inside for the day. She simply finds indoor ways to amuse herself (playing marbles, baking cookies). When the storm ends, she is also happy to open the door and breathe the fresh air. I love books that can create a mood for their readers, and this book certainly does that.

The Gruffalo

2011-01-06T14:28:00.001-05:00

The Gruffalo (I've linked to the board book edition, which we own, but it's also available in paperback) is a cute little story about a mouse who keeps himself from being eaten by other animals in the forest, using his own cleverness. Whenever an animal wants to eat him, he scares them off by claiming that he's about to be joined by a scary monster called a gruffalo. This works great until the gruffalo turns out to be real, not imaginary, and also threatens to eat the mouse. But then the mouse parades back with the gruffalo to all the creatures he talked his way away from before. Each one looks at the gruffalo and runs away immediately. The gruffalo is convinced that they are actually afraid of the mouse, and runs away, leaving the mouse in peace. I'm almost certain that this is some kind of familiar folk tale, but I can't put my finger on what the original version was.

The book is written in very clever and nicely-flowing verse. So nice, in fact, that I'm going to reproduce the entire first animal encounter here so you can read it:

A mouse took a stroll through the deep dark wood.
A fox saw the mouse and the mouse looked good.
"Where are you going to, little brown mouse?
Come and have lunch in my underground house."
"It's terribly kind of you, Fox, but no--
I'm going to have lunch with a gruffalo.
"A gruffalo? What's a gruffalo?"
"A gruffalo! Why, didn't you know?"
"He has terrible tusks, and terrible claws,
And terrible teeth in his terrible jaws."
"Where are you meeting him?"
"Here, by these rocks,
And his favourite food is roasted fox."
"Roasted fox! I'm off!" Fox said.
"Goodbye, little mouse," and away he sped.
"Silly old Fox! Doesn't he know,
There's no such thing as a gruffalo?"

What I like most about this book is the subtlety and politeness of the text. The fox doesn't come in growling, "I'm going to eat you up!" and the mouse doesn't say, "No way, my friend the gruffalo is going to come and eat you up instead!" It's all very genteel and implied. Not only does this make for a more fun book, it also brings in more parent-child conversation about the book, if your kid is too young to make these connections on his or her own.

The illustrations are nothing particularly special. They're nice enough, and the gruffalo is drawn such that it is more silly than scary. There are a few details to find in the backgrounds--birds, butterflies, mushrooms, but nothing major is of note here.

One possible objection to this book is that the mouse gets himself out of his predicament through lying, a strategy we shouldn't glorify to our children. But it is morally proper to lie to protect your values, and your life, from criminals who would do you harm. So this really just becomes an opportunity to discuss the ethics of a difficult situation with your children. It's also quite a clever solution for the mouse to come up with, so we can respect him for his creativity and quick thinking.

The author, Julia Donaldson, is apparently quite well known in the U.K. for writing a large number of popular children's books. I haven't read any of the others, but I did want to point out that there's a direct sequel to The Gruffalo, called The Gruffalo's Child, which apparently involves the gruffalo telling his child about the very scary mouse he once met in the forest. I'm also kind of in awe of anyone who can get an entire professional website and Christmas TV special (sadly, not available for the U.S. market) made from just two books. That is some impressive marketing!

Life-Size Zoo

2011-01-05T16:43:00.001-05:00

Ever wondered exactly how big a koala is? Sure, you can go and see one at the zoo, but it's likely to be pretty far away and might be hiding or sleeping when you're there. For an up-close look, check out Life-Size Zoo: From Tiny Rodents to Gigantic Elephants, An Actual Size Animal Encyclopedia.

This book is a show-stopper. When they say life-size, they are not kidding. The book itself is gigantic, more than 14 inches by 10 inches, which is larger than any other book we own, including the large I Spy books you may be familiar with (post on that series forthcoming). Each page shows a photograph of a single animal in actual life size. Some are small enough to fit on a single two-page spread, like the aforementioned koala. Others feature just the head (panda, tiger). Still others have a full four-page foldout to showcase just the head (giraffe with her tongue sticking out).

The detail you can see in photographs this big is stunning. You can see gradations of color in a gorilla's fur, tiny spots on an aardvark's face, and the wrinkles around an elephant's eye. Detail-lovers will enjoy this book more than most.

The book includes a few facts about each species that is featured, and about the individual animal that is photographed. Our giraffe, for example, is a 6-year-old female named Lulu. The scientific name is listed, a few features of the photograph are pointed out in sidebar text, and some fun facts are listed as well ("Giraffes can gallop up to 35 miles an hour."). But the focus of this book is clearly on the pictures, not the textual information.

My only gripe about this book is the limited number of animals featured. There are only twenty. I wish they'd added a few more pages. Instead, they've gone the sequel route: I've just discovered More Life-Size Zoo: An All-New Actual-Size Animal Encyclopedia and Life-Size Aquarium on Amazon, and I'm ordering them right now!

Good Night, Gorilla

2011-01-04T19:03:00.000-05:00

Good Night, Gorilla is an adorable little nearly-wordless book. A zookeeper walks through the zoo at night, saying goodnight to all the animals. ("Good night, [animal name]" are the only printed words.) Unbeknownst to him, the gorilla has stolen his keys, slipped out of his cage, and followed him around, letting out each animal after he says goodnight. The animals all follow the zookeeper home and curl up for the night in his bedroom. But the zookeeper's wife notices, and leads them all back to the zoo... except for the sneaky gorilla.

I think this was the first wordless book we got. I picked it up at a garage sale, and Charlie immediately fell in love with it, setting off a major phase of obsession with gorillas and monkeys. I'm not kidding when I say we probably read this fifteen times a day at one point.

I originally assumed that this story was decades old, for a couple of reasons. The style of drawing looks very classic 1950s, the house (and the wife in a nightgown and cap) also look very old-fashioned, and the zoo animals are kept in old-fashioned cages with bars, not at all like a modern zoo. But it turns out that it was written in 1994 and just stylized to look like the past. In any case, I will readily call this a modern classic.

The story has the potential to be very boring for adults, since it's repetitive and the illustration style is fine but not particularly gorgeous. But actually, there are a lot of "visual jokes" that you won't spot on the first (or third, or fifth) reading but that you'll notice in the background later. Just to give one example of the kind of thing I'm talking about, since I don't want to spoil it for you, the elephant has a Babar doll lying on the floor of his cage. Things like that. I always managed to notice a new one right when I was at the point of extreme aggravation at having to read the book "one more time" for Charlie.

Cute story, obsessive interest from child, and interest thrown in for the parents -- that all adds up to my highest recommendation.

My Little Word Book

2011-01-03T14:20:00.000-05:00

Our copy of My Little Word Book is tattered and held together with clear packing tape, despite being a board book. This is because Charlie slept with it in his bed from when he was about 9 months to when he was about 18 months, and we read it every night (not to mention in the daytime as well). It's your standard word book, with a photograph of something and its name written below, but extremely well done.

Montessori prefers the one-item-on-a-page style of word book, but that format is limiting for the simple reason that you can only have a certain number of items before you run out of pages. This book has between five and twelve items on each page. Most pages separate each item into its own box (as shown on the cover), but a few pages (flowers, vegetables, actions) are in a more freeflowing, overlapping format). Even on the item-in-a-box pages, at least one item takes up two or more squares. So, for example, on the toys page, the doll is two squares tall and the train is two squares long. This adds some visual interest and makes the book a bit more fun to look through.

What I really love about this book is how each two-page spread shows a category of items. First is body parts and people (boy, girl, man, woman).Next is actions (walk, sing, dance, kick). Next is clothing, then household items (clock, sofa, cup, computer). Next come toys, then food, then flowers and other outdoor items (tree, fence, frog). There's a vehicles page, then farm animals, then pets and birds, then wild animals (from squirrel to camel to tiger). The page labeled "our world" combines pictures of the sun and moon, a street scene, and a park on one page, with things like jungle, farmland, and beach on the opposite page. The last page is colors and shapes.

Charlie would go through phases where he was interested in particular pages/categories and ignored others. It was fascinating for me to watch him enthralled by the parts of the body one month, then skipping that page and heading right to vehicles day after day the next month. It allowed me to easily figure out what his little brain was focusing on, and then to enhance that focus by talking about it and bringing out other books on the same subject while he was most interested.

During his animal phase, Charlie also very much enjoyed My Little Animal Book, in the same series. It's the same size, shape, and style as the Word book, but obviously, focusing entirely on animals. The animals are categorized on pages for different types: farm, pets, African, jungle, ocean, forests, polar, rivers and lakes, reptiles and amphibians, bugs, birds, and Australian. The last three pages offer interactive activities that are not found in the Word book: match moms to babies, match patterns to animals, and counting.

Both of these books get my absolute highest recommendation for the under-18-months crowd.

The Little Engine That Could

2011-01-02T15:20:00.000-05:00

Charlie received The Little Engine That Could as a present from a relative about a month ago, and he fell in love with it immediately. He's definitely a train kid. But even for the non-train-obsessed out there, I'm sure you're familiar with this classic book. It was first written in 1930, and the story and pictures are almost sickeningly sweet at first glance. It strikes me, though, that the ethics behind this book are more complicated than I first thought. There are lots of good points and bad points here.

Let me recap the story first, in case it's not fresh in your mind. A train filled with dolls, toys, and fresh food is making its way over the mountain to the children who live in the town on the other side, when suddenly their engine breaks down. The dolls flag down passing engines and ask each one to help. The first three refuse, but the fourth engine, which is very small, agrees to help. This little blue engine has never been over the mountain before and is not sure she can make it, but with will power and determination, pulls the train over the mountain to a happy ending.

I'd like to briefly mention and then put aside the economic issues, because they are disappointing but not all that important. Stuck in a bad situation, the dolls do not try to hire a new engine or trade value-for-value, but instead start begging passers-by for help. Even if they don't have any cash, they surely have things they can trade: toys, food, empty space in the train cars after the goods are delivered on the other side of the mountain, fuel from their broken engine. It's also unclear how the toys and food are going to get into the hands of the "good little boys and girls" on the other side of the mountain. Will they be sold in a shop, or given out for free? Or are these items already owned by the boys and girls, and don't want their late-night partying on the other side of the mountain to be discovered? These questions are not addressed; it's just imperative that they get there by morning.

Why do I say that these economic issues are not very important? Because they're not a major focus of the book. You'd have to come up with the idea yourself to ask about it, and Charlie is way too young to do that. The book doesn't claim that begging is the best thing to do in the situation, and there's no discussion about alternatives; it's just what the dolls do. The focus is on other moral issues, which I discuss below: solving problems, helping others when you can, and the importance of a positive attitude and determination. Just because the setup for these issues is questionable doesn't mean that the book as a whole is a waste of time.

I'd be remiss if I didn't also mention the slightly sexist aspect to the book, which is not surprising since it was written 80 years ago. The main character taking responsibility for getting the train across the mountain is a toy clown, who is male. The two female dolls fret in the background and then start to cry. Though to be fair, a toy elephant cries, too.

Now on to the good stuff.

Solving your own problems: I see this as a very free-range-friendly book. The child-readers identify with the dolls and the little clown who were on the train and are now trying to convince another engine to pull them over the mountain. There are many parental figures who might have shown up -- the engineer, the manufacturer of the toys, the shopkeepers waiting to receive the merchandise, the parents of the children across the mountain -- but none of them are ever mentioned. The dolls are in a bind, and they use their own intelligence and resources to find help. (Another free-range note is the inclusion of a jackknife as one of the toys on the train.)

Helping others -- or not: The second or third time we read this book, right when Charlie was beginning to engage with the story, he scolded the first engine that refused to help. "No, choo-choo train! That is not okay!" He was very adamant, shaking his finger at the book and frowning. This provided possibly the first occasion for me to verbally explain rationally selfish ethics to him. It is okay for the engine to refuse help, but it's not very nice. We probably don't want to be friends with him. The author and most readers would probably characterize the non-helpers as morally bad, but there is nothing in the text or pictures that demands this interpretation. There's also a great opportunity to differentiate between the first two engines, who are just snooty and mean, and the third engine, who is old and tired and might suffer actual pain if he helped.

The fourth engine agrees to help because she is friendly and nice. She doesn't have to, nobody forces her to, but she decides of her own free will that she will take on what is for her a very difficult task in order to help others. She has nothing to lose, and she has a sense of benevolence and of adventure that are inspiring.

Positive attitude: This last message is what the book is known for. The little blue engine has never even been over the mountain, let alone pulling a train behind her. She's very small and is not sure she can make it. But she gives it her best try anyway, and the positive attitude ("I think I can. I think I can. I think I can.") helps her succeed in the end. Woohoo!

Overall, this is a recommend. It's not perfect, but it has a number of very good elements and teaching opportunities. The text and pictures are a bit boring to an adult, but the book is a childhood classic and Charlie absolutely loves it.

We Are What We Eat!

2011-01-01T16:10:00.000-05:00

In this lovely and engaging book, We Are What We Eat!, the children build a food sculpture in the shape of a person, using a selection of fruits and vegetables. The Amazon product description claims it's a board book, but it's actually not. It's a hardcover with cardstock pages, each of which folds out. When you turn to a page, you see one of the fruits or vegetables in its whole form. Fold out the page to reveal the insides cut into various interesting shapes! Things like pits, seeds, and peels are labeled.

This book has been a staple in our household for over a year. Charlie likes to announce the various foods as they appear, and marvels over the differences between the insides and outsides. This is the first book where he ever pretended to grab the foods off the page and eat them, something he now does whenever a food appears in any book, anywhere.

This is a great one. The photographs are creative and engaging, the fold-out pages are used effectively to make the outside/inside distinction, and there's a positive health message because of all the fruits and vegetables. Definitely a winner.

The Handiest Things in the World

2010-12-31T17:27:00.002-05:00

The Handiest Things in the World is an intriguing compare-and-contrast book about using tools. The idea is that there are many things we can do with our hands, but we can do the same things more efficiently by using the proper tool for the job. Examples: Eat with your fingers, or with chopsticks. Shade your eyes with your hand, or with a hat. Mix dough with your hands, or with a mixer.

The concept of the book is very Montessori-friendly. Having the right materials for each task is key. It's also quite pretty -- an oversized full-color photograph illustrates each job done with the hands, and on the opposite page, done with the tool. Charlie loves it, even if he's a little bit too young to understand the underlying concept of the book.

I definitely recommend this book, but there are two things that I wish were a bit improved. First, all of the text of the book rhymes, but many of the rhymes are trite or fudged. ("Digging in and scooping down. Let's move lots of dirt around.") Second, not all of the hand-tool connections make a lot of sense. For example, chopsticks are a tool to help you eat, but how many small children actually can eat more efficiently with chopsticks than with their fingers? For another example, one page shows a child counting on his fingers, then using a calculator. I think at the ages this picture book would be interesting, most kids don't understand what a calculator does. Then again, other examples are much better, such as catching a butterfly in a net, and sweeping with a broom.

Despite those few reservations, I love this book. It's an interesting concept that I haven't seen in many (any?) other children's books, and Charlie always enjoys it.

The Lion & the Mouse

2010-12-30T19:13:00.005-05:00

Charlie sometimes gets angry when I try to discuss a book with him, page by page, instead of reading the printed text. "Sing it, Mommy!" he demands.

To get around this problem, I went out and bought a bunch of picture books with no words. As soon as he figured out that there was no printed text to read, he became much more engaged in thinking through the stories himself.

The Lion & the Mouse, by Jerry Pinkney, is our favorite wordless book at the moment. The only words written on the pages are a few animal sounds: "Screech" for an owl and "Roar" for the lion and so forth. The watercolor paintings are so expressive that the well-known story is clearly told. Charlie and I talk about what happened and what will happen next as we turn the pages, and also about how the characters might be feeling. The pictures are also quite rich with detail in the backgrounds and the expressions of the animals. This book won the 2010 Caldecott Medal, and in my opinion, it was well deserved.

The story of the Lion & the Mouse is also a worthy one. It's a tale of unexpected friendship and repaying one good turn with another. These are lessons that I'm happy to teach to my son.

EyeLike Nature: Leaves

2010-12-30T19:00:00.009-05:00

The EyeLike series uses amazingly beautiful photography of natural objects to tell stories and teach concepts. These have been some of our favorites, though Charlie is still too young for many of the more advanced EyeLike books. Perfect for the one-year-old set, though, are the four board books in the EyeLike Nature series: Leaves, Sticks, Stones, and Snow. For no discernible reason, Charlie fell in love with Leaves while merely liking Sticks and Stones. Understandably, since we live in Atlanta, he could never really relate to Snow. In my view, all four of them are lovely.

Each page features a colorful photo of a child interacting with some form of leaves. There are leaves growing on plants, fall leaves on the ground, piles of leaves, even a child eating salad for lunch. The text consists of a simple sentence or phrase for each picture, such as "There are leaves in my garden." I soon had the text memorized, but the pictures are so gorgeous to look at that I was rarely bored when rereading it multiple times.

Charlie also enjoys creating art projects with the various sets of EyeLike Stickers.