It's Party Time

Isaac and I went to the bookstore to buy a birthday gift for his classmate this afternoon. Yes, I am that parent.

I really wanted Isaac to choose which one we would buy. I pulled a few off of the shelves that I thought would be fun and we sat in the children's section and read them. Isaac picked his favorites from my selections, but then he did take some initiative and began pulling books that caught his attention. So we sat and read those, too.

Here are a few we considered:

Ladybug Girl and Bumblebee Boy by Jacky Davis. Isaac loves Ladybug Girl and this is a cute story about compromise and imaginative play. I though it would make a cute gift since it was going to a girl, but in the end it did not make the cut.

Edwina: The Dinosaur Who Didn't Know She Was Extinct by Mo Willems. It's Mo Willems, and we all know how I feel about Mo Willems. The humor is too understated for kids to really get it, but it is still a good story about self-acceptance. I pushed it hard, but it was cut from the short-list.

City Dog, Country Frog by Mo Willems. Do you see the trend? This is one that Willems did not illustrate himself, and it has a completely different tone that his other books. It is a story of friendship, but the frog dies (or so I assumed) in the end. Isaac said he was hibernating. It, too, was set aside.

Knufflebunny Free by Mo Willems. Okay, so I obviously had an agenda. This is the third, and last, "Knufflebunny" book. It is more for parents than for kids and I cry every time I read it. Isaac does like this book, but we wanted something funnier for his school friend.

No David! by David Shannon. Isaac just wanted to read this one. It wasn't really under consideration.

So what did we get? I am sure you will be surprised to learn that we bought two "Elephant and Piggie" books by Mo Willems. Our choices were We Are In A Book! and I am Invited to a Party!

We thought they were both very appropriate for the occasion.

What to Read in 2011

The "Best of " lists are out and have been coming out for a few months. Various publications and organizations look back at the children's books published during the calendar year and give their opinion of what was "best." School Library Journal publishes its own list in the December issue. If you are looking for good books for 2011, here are some picture book highlights from the list.

Shark vs. Train by Chris Barton starts off the list. Isaac loved this book when we checked it out of the library. It's a great depiction of imaginative play.

Mo Willems makes the list with another Elephant and Piggie book, We Are in a Book! We love this author/illustrator, as I have said before, and this book is delightful. It is an easy reader and it brings an added element of reader interaction with the characters.

Here Comes the Garbage Barge! by Jonah Winter depicts the wanderings of the garbage barge that wasn't allowed to dock because no one wanted its load of trash. I remember this news story from my own childhood and Isaac enjoyed the humorous, though informative, portrayal.

There are many other excellent titles on the list. These were our favorites.

Happy New Year and happy reading.

Whatcha Reading?

I am more than a little pleased tonight. Isaac actually asked to go to the library after school tomorrow. We have been going just about every week this month and bringing home a nice pile of books to read. He likes to go and play and he specifically said that he wanted me to pick out the new books, but he WANTS to go! This is such a huge change from his adamant refusals over the summer that I am grinning from ear to ear. So we will head to the library after taekwondo tomorrow and I will choose another bag full of books to read this week.

Isaac has shown definite preference for a couple of the books we checked out on our last visit. He loves Mo Willems' newest series about "Cat the Cat." These books are simple and repetitive and after one reading he can "read" it to us. I prefer his "Elephant and Piggie" series, myself. They have a more sophisticated tone and drier sense of humor. But Cat the Cat and her friends (Hound the Hound, Horse the Horse, Pig the Pig, etc.) are exuberant and fun and Isaac requested them repeatedly.

Another book that he loved was Wendel's Workshop by Chris Riddell. Wendel is an inventor who has a bad habit of tossing anything that doesn't work. His backyard looks like a scene from Wall*E. He invents a robot to tidy his house, but his invention works a little too well and Wendel gets himself tidied right out of his own workshop. He has an epiphany while sitting on his scrap pile and uses his failed inventions to take back his space. Isaac loved looking at the pictures, especially the last one where the conquered Wendelbot has been made into an oversized flower pot. It is a story that teaches about perseverance and, indirectly, recycling and there is a lot of humor in the illustrations to get children giggling.

The last one I will mention from this week's library pile is Beverly Billingsly Can't Catch by Alexander Stadler. Matt and I probably like this one a bit more than Isaac does because the lesson is very timely for our family right now. Beverly is great at academics, but not so great at sports. She and her friend, Oliver, are always picked last for sports teams, especially softball. They decide to change that by learning how to play the game. Matt and I both appreciate the message that you can learn to do anything if you try hard and practice. You may not end up being the best, but you will get better. Isaac is playing t-ball again and taking taekwondo. We stress to him the importance of trying his hardest at both and I don't think there is another kid on the t-ball field that is as focused and intent on the game as Isaac is each week. Beverly just happens to be coached in softball by a pretty cool librarian who tells her not everything can be learned in a book, so that's another plus for this one, as well.

With school starting and taekwondo lessons and t-ball practices and church functions to shuttle to, not to mention the homework and other daily tasks that we are trying to keep up with, my goal is to try and post something once a week. If we can manage a weekly library trip, hopefully I will have some of Isaac's favorites to write about. So keep your fingers crossed that we keep up this momentum, otherwise we may be reduced to writing about one of the twenty "Curious George" books that Isaac has collected.

Times, They Will Be A-Changin'

As I sit typing this on my laptop, Isaac is across the room playing on his Fisher Price Cool School computer that is hooked up to our PC. He doesn't play on the computer much and has not used the Cool School program often since he got it for Christmas last year. But he rediscovered it over the holidays and requested that I set it up for him when he came downstairs this morning. While I am glad that he prefers playing with his toys or setting up a board game to being in front of the computer, I also know that he needs some exposure before he begins school next year. I hear comments from friends and acquaintances about their children playing computer games or with their DS Lites or knowing how to "google" at 3 years old and I worry that he will be behind. But I am not going to push him to use the computer. When the time comes, I am confident that he will acquire the skills he needs and soon enough we will not be able to drag him away from the computer or video games. For now, I will enjoy the fact that he still wants to curl up with a book.

We have been reading his new Christmas books over and over again this past week. I predicted correctly that the Fly Guy books would be a big hit. Last night, 4 of his 5 bedtime books were Fly Guy. Knuffle Bunny, Too by Mo Willems is also a favorite. He is the same age as the main character in the story and can relate to her anxieties. And Mo Willems is just fun to read. Superhero ABC, on the other hand, wasn't as popular as I thought it might be. Isaac prefers books about superheroes he knows, like Batman and Spiderman, but I think that book will come out again in about a year and become a favorite. We also read Bear Feels Sick and Bear Feels Scared a couple of times since Christmas. The characters are familiar and the repetitive rhyme scheme helps Isaac participate in the reading.

We did discover something very surprising and exciting when opening Tedd Arnold's Hooray for Fly Guy the first time. The book is dedicated to Arnold's alma mater, The University of Florida, and it's great sports teams. (In the book Fly Guy plays football.) Being the avid Gator fans that we are, we were very excited to read this. I knew there was a reason we liked Tedd Arnold's books so much. Go Gators!

Isaac has finished on the computer and is now sitting next to me badgering me to close my laptop and play. While I feel a bit rushed to wrap this up, how can I fuss at him? I am sure the situation will be reversed sooner than I think.

Can I Have Some Mo?

My favorite author/illustrator for young readers right now is Mo Willems. He has written a number of award winning children's books recently, but that isn't why I like him. I like him because his books make Isaac laugh. And they make me laugh, too.

Willems' books look simplistic when you first open them, but they have a depth to them that will surprise you. He is able to put more expression into his characters with his simple line drawings than many illustrators can with much more complicated art work. His characters are real, to children and adults. Kids laugh at the Pigeon throwing a temper tantrum because tantrums are funny. Parents and teachers laugh at the Pigeon's histrionics because we have been there and done that more times than we want to admit. Children laugh at Willems' characters. Adults laugh with Willems because we get the joke.

My favorite Willems book is Leonardo The Terrible Monster. It is poignant and cute and funny and very, very readable. It is my favorite of Willems' books to read out loud to classes and has a wonderful lesson about friendship and self-acceptance. Willems doesn't dumb down his vocabulary and he isn't afraid to use wordplay and puns in his books for young children. He respects and understands kids and that comes across in his writing.

Why will boys like his books? Boys like silly characters and absurd situations and Willems delivers both. The illustrations are simple so the pictures do not overwhelm the story or distract from the humor. And young boys will relate to his characters, even the female ones, because they are ultimately just like them or someone they know. There is no use denying it. We all have a bit of the Pigeon in us.