children's books
gregladen | May 30, 2017Installment # 1 is here
Without delay, here are four five star choices and four four star choices:
The Emperor's New Clothes, the classic story by Hans Christian Anderson, illustrated for the modern retro child by Virginia Lee Burton.
You know the story, so I won't give you a summary, and the whole point is the illustrations so you should just click through to see. (The graphic at the top of the post is from within the book, illustrating the overall reading level and quality).
So Few of Me by Peter Reynolds.
Alternate title: Calming the helicopter parent.
Leo's list of things to do keeps…
gregladen | May 25, 2017It is hard to find a good book for kids between the ages of 5 and 9. These are kids who can read, but at varying (and rapidly changing) levels, and who are too fancy for the little kid books (thick, big pictures, few words, boring).
Amanda and Huxley spend a lot of time figuring out what the good books are. They forage at two different libraries, they take home huge piles of possible good books, then narrow that down even more to identify just the best, and then, those are often re-acquired and re-read multiple times. We purchase some of these knowing that we can pass them on to the…
gregladen | November 6, 2016Children Just Like Me: A Unique Celebration of Children Around the World is a new edition of DK's famous diversity for children book.
From the publisher:
Children Just Like Me is an amazing children's book showing everyday life through the eyes and words of children around the world.
Offering a remarkable insight into the lives of children today all around the globe, Children Just Like Me is packed with photography of children, their friends and family, home, and school vividly illustrating different cultures, from rural farms to busy cities to river boats.
With distinctive DK design and text…
gregladen | September 21, 2016We went to the local library the other day to find books in the range appropriate for Huxley to read. It isn't sufficient to say he's in the first grade. Between preschool and second grade, there are (in English, anyway) probably about four or five levels of reading ability, and kids move through them fast. In addition to that, there are who the heck knows how many different scales, developed by various individuals and organizations, to reflect reading levels. It is so complicated that there is actually a company that you can pay to tell you what reading level a book is.
So we asked the…
oracknows | April 29, 2015As hard as it is to believe, there was once a time when I didn't think that acupuncture was quackery, an ancient "Eastern" treatment that "evolved" from bloodletting not unlike bloodletting in ancient "Western" bloodletting. This time was, hard as it is to believe, less than eight years ago, right around the time just before I got involved with my not-so-super-secret other blog. I figured that, because acupuncture involves sticking needles into the body, maybe there might be something to it. That doesn't mean that I thought that there was something to it, only that back then I was a lot more…
sastyk | May 8, 2012Speaking as someone with kids who pretty much are Alligators All Around and Wild Things most of the time, I'm going to miss him. Thanks, Maurice, for the books that fed my childhood and now the childhood of all the kids I love!
sciencewoman | December 4, 2009Gosh it's a difficult time of year, when the desire to frolic outdoors in the late fall/early winter chill is tempered by the mountains of papers to grade, endless meetings to be held, and the lurking danger of syllabi for next semester. It's the time of year, when you have every intention of taking dog and kid for a walk after work, but that by the time you reach daycare, it is pitch black, and even though you haven't gotten there any later than you did a few months ago, you feel terrible about leaving your kid in the care of strangers so late into the night.
Minnow and I have been trying to…
sciencewoman | November 27, 2009This week we are reading Judith Viorst's Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. This video was produced with a dedication to Kate, who explained to me why kids like this book so much even before they understand everything that's happening in it. She wisely told me that it's because kids rarely get to hear a story about a kid getting really mad, expressing their feelings, and without a neat fairy-tale or moralistic ending. Alexander just has a terrible, horrible, no good very bad day, and he's not afraid to tell us about it.
I'd also like to dedicate this post to all of…
sciencewoman | November 20, 2009I am not in charge of SciWo's Storytime. Sure, it might look like I'm the one reading the books and operating the video camera, but Minnow exerts the ultimate executive authority as editor-in-chief. Some weeks no videos whatsoever are allowed to be made, some weeks she's content to let me pick the book, and some weeks she is quite happy to make a whole string of videos, so long as she chooses the content.
With that proviso, Minnow presents this week's edition of SciWo's Storytime featuring the book Little Squire the Fire Engine by Catherine Kenworthy and illustrated by Nina Barbaresi.
Now…
sciencewoman | November 13, 2009Three weeks ago, I had no idea who Knuffle Bunny was. Then one of our loyal readers and DonorsChoose philanthropists, requested the Mo Willems' book "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus." Minnow seemed enthusiastic about the pigeon book, but when I opened up its Amazon page, she got really excited about another book by the same author.
One trip to the public library later, we came home with a book that we'd read 5 times before making it out of the library building. I think she must have read the book at her former daycare, but no matter where the source of her knowledge, Minnow was more than…
sciencewoman | November 6, 2009Taking a break from the science-y books and from the donor requests, this week Minnow and I want to share one of our new favorite books. This is the first book that we've checked out of the library that Minnow is still talking about more than a month after we returned it. In fact, she and I love this book so much that our Amazon wish list is delivering a Christmas present early and our very own copy is on its way to us right now.
Without further ado, we present Sally and the Purple Socks by Lisze Bechtold:
If you watched through to the end of the video, you saw that at the end of the book, I…
sciencewoman | October 30, 2009This week Minnow and I are pleased to honor the first request from a DonorsChoose Challenge giver. (There's still time, donate enough to complete a project, email me the receipt and you too can request a story.) I'll admit to being pretty excited when this request came it, because it was perfectly seasonal...and we already had the book in our queue. Today's featured book is Pumpkin Circle: The Story of a Garden, by George Levenson and exquisitely photographed by Shmuel Thaler.
But before we can get to the book, let's tell you about our trip to the pumpkin farm, where we learned some factoids…
sciencewoman | October 23, 2009This week, Minnow and I present "Where do Insects Live?" in the Science Emergent Readers Series, from which we've previously featured a book on oceans.
(Yes, I am using bugs in the colloquial sense and not just to refer to some Hemiptera.There's plenty of time for Minnow to learn those details later. Who knows, she may go on to a career in entomology.)
It's autumn in Mystery State and bugs are getting harder to find, but Minnow and I did see various bugs under a flower pot, ants on our sidewalk, and a spider on her swing set. On a walk with SciGram, Minnow also found a moth warming up on a…
sciencewoman | October 16, 2009This week on SciWo's Storytime, we're reading about Lakes and Ponds in a book by Cassie Mayer, from the same series as an earlier episode about oceans. While the text of this series of books is simple, I'm finding that they are a great way to engage Minnow in a conversation about the topic. Listen to how excited she gets about lakes and boats...
I wanted to take Minnow to a local lake for "No Child Left Inside Day" earlier this Earth Science Week, but instead we played with the neighborhood kids and dug in the dirt, which was pretty fun too. In any case, Minnow and I have a long tradition of…
sciencewoman | October 2, 2009In support of our on-going DonorsChoose challenge, this month Minnow and I will be exploring science-related books for SciWo's storytime.
I have to admit, I'm enjoying the challenge of finding sciencey books appropriate for a 2.5 year old's attention span. There seem to be a plethora of books for the 4-8 year old set, but fewer for the younger crowd. Well, that's not true. There are an awful lot of books about animals, especially farm animals, but Minnow has got her animals down pat, and we all know there is more to science than zoology.
I'm also discovering that it is easier to keep Minnow…
sciencewoman | September 25, 2009Last Saturday was International Talk Like a Pirate Day and Minnow and I got into the spirit of the day by reading the only toddler-appropriate pirate book I know: My Pop-Pop is a Pirate by Pat Croce.
(Even if you don't watch the whole video, check out 1:15 to 2:00 minutes for adorable Minnow talking like a pirate.)
Our local science museum was hosting special pirate day activities, so Minnow and I spent the afternoon at the museum, learning about pirates and shipwrecks and undersea exploration. Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of the pirates, because I made the mistake of going with…
sciencewoman | September 11, 2009Did you know that after a 26 year run, Reading Rainbow is no longer producing episodes? "Butterfly in the sky, I can fly twice as high. Take a look, it's in a book, a reading rainbow" is no longer enchanting thousands of young children. The series, in case you never watched it, featured the reading of a children's book, a related adventure, and reccomendations of other books by child reviewers. The whole thing was wonderful for creating future bibliophiles. Apparently, it's no longer the educational mission of public television to encourage a love of reading, rather the focus of educational…
sciencewoman | May 17, 2009One my friends lives outside of Anchorage, Alaska and recently had a black bear pay a visit to her backyard. Now her preschoolers are obsessed with bears.
Minnow too has a bit of a bear obsession at the moment, though she hasn't seen any bears in their natural habitat. At school, she's been reading "We're Going on a Bear Hunt" and at home one of her favorite books is the "Berenstain Bear's Big Honey Hunt." Saturday morning, Minnow announced that we were going on a bear hunt, or maybe that we were going to look for bees that would, presumably, lead us to bears. We made it all the way to the…
bioephemera | February 26, 2009
The Cheerful Cricket and Others (1907)
Children's Digital Library
The Children's Digital Library doesn't have a sleek interface and it can be a bit hiccupy, but if you poke around you'll find a surprising number of vintage children's books like The Cheerful Cricket and Others (1907) or The Illustrated Alphabet of Birds (1851).
Best of all, several of the Oz books illustrated by John R. Neill are here in their entirety! I remember checking these out of the library when I was sick as a child. I think my mom must have charmed the librarian because I remember taking literally stacks of books at…