Junie B. Is In the House

We have been ambushed. Our nightly reading ritual has been overrun by a precocious (my nice way of saying really annoying) little girl who goes by the name of Junie B. Jones. The B. is for Beatrice but she prefers just B. Isaac bought a Junie B. Jones book at the used book store the other day and then checked one out of the school library this week. After he reads to us, we now read 3-4 chapters detailing Junie B.'s latest adventure.

If you haven't had the pleasure of reading a Junie B. Jones book, I don't want to give away the surprise. All I will say is that the kids love her. Even the older students, boys and girls alike. Parents and teachers are bit a less enamored with her, especially when the children start talking like Junie B. and using words that adults usually prohibit. Nothing profane, of course, but words that cross a line to rudeness.

Isaac is just starting to be interested in listening to chapter books at night. Our ritual used to be 5 books at bed time. It morphed into him reading 1 or 2 and us reading 3 or 4. With the addition of chapter books to our repertoire, our ritual will change again. While I may not be in love with Junie B. Jones, I do like that Isaac wants to read, and has the attention span to follow, a longer story that is not fully illustrated. Easy chapter books like the Junie B. Jones series are good introductions to longer books, most of which will be more pleasing to my literary palate.

A Whale of a Good Time

Isaac has been bringing non-fiction books home from his school library the past couple of weeks. The last one was a rather lengthy book about frogs. I will be honest. We didn't read it. That was the first time we neglected to read one of his library books, but it just never made it into the nightly story time. Although, I think it would have definitely put him to sleep. It was more of a read-for-a-report type book than a let's-snuggle-and-read book.

This week's book, however, was much better suited to bedtime. The Best Book of Whales and Dolphins by Christiane Gunzi is an illustrated guide to, of course, whales and dolphins. On each spread there is a main paragraph about the animals, with smaller side paragraphs to add detail and explain illustrations. It was the kind of children's non-fiction that I can get lost in, perusing all the tidbits of information spread throughout the book. Isaac liked it, too.

After we finished the book and were about to turn out the lights, Isaac decided he needed to switch sleep toys. He dug through his closet to find his stuffed orca. Said orca is currently in bed with Isaac, dancing to "House of Bamboo" by Southern Culture on the Skids. Maybe we need to get Isaac a copy of Jimmy Buffett's "Fins" for his whale to dance to, though I guess that would be better suited to the nights he sleeps with his hammerhead shark.

Picturing Snow

We have gotten an above average amount* of snow so far this winter. I have a love/hate relationship with snow. It is beautiful, but it causes way too much trouble, especially in a southeastern state that doesn't have the resources to deal with it.

One day last week, during our snow break, Isaac asked me if you can take pictures of snowflakes. After I told him that is it possible, but not something we have the equipment to do, I remembered a book that I had at school about a man whose passion was doing just that. So I brought it home to read to Isaac.

Snowflake Bentley by Jacqueline Briggs Martin is about Wilson Bentley, a Vermont farmer who dedicated his life to studying and photographing snow. It is fascinating to read about his process and even more fascinating to look at his photographs of snowflakes.

After we read the book, Isaac and I looked at some of his photographs online and then perused some more modern snowflake pictures. It was one of those rare times when the perfect book was available to answer Isaac's question and broaden his knowledge.

Snowflake photographs are stunning and the complexity and variation of the crystal formations is amazing. But I am content to look at them on a computer monitor. I have no desire to see anymore flakes up close, thank you very much.

*I have no actual data to prove this, but it certainly feels like it is true.

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.

My Next Book Purchase

I saw a book listed on ALA's list of Notable Children's Books for 2011 that I will be buying this weekend. I haven't read it, but it sounds like something that I would write about here.

Guyku: A Year of Haiku for Boys by Bob Razcka, illustration by Peter Reynolds

Here's a review since I can't give my opinion yet. Peter Reynolds, who wrote The North Star, has developed a companion website, also called Guyku, to encourage boys to write and give them a place to display their poems.

I see a Guyku project in my future.