Rebecca Reads

In addition to the board books I usually read my son, I’ve also been reading a number of picture books with him this month. Because he’s still only a year old, he doesn’t pay much attention past the first few pages, but I’m having fun revisiting some old classics. Now I know what he should [...]

I admit: The Dangerous Alphabet by Neil Gaiman is the first Neil Gaiman book I’ve read. And it is a clever one. While it’s clearly a children’s book, it has an element of spookiness to it and somber, spidery illustrations that make it just right for adults too.

In medieval children’s primers, the alphabet was the main tool of learning and was often portrayed in a way that also taught religion (Seth Lerer, Children’s Literature, page 61). Poems and teachings would be in the order of the alphabet. This had biblical precedence, as the 22 stanzas of Psalm 118 “use the twenty-two letters [...]

The colorful illustrations, the rhythmic words, and the familiar animals make Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr. and Eric Carle a favorite picture book.

My baby turns one year old this week. I can’t believe he’s so old, and yet I can’t believe he’s only been in my life for one short year.
I’ve never really done Sunday Salon, but there are so many great books I’m finding at my local library for my son, I thought I’d share what [...]

Sandra Boynton’s children’s books are new classics. I first discovered her delightful picture books via my sister-in-law, who had an entire shelf of Boynton’s books for my nephew. Now, with my own little boy, I’m really enjoying them. Her books all claim “serious silliness” on the back cover. I’d agree: we all enjoy the light-hearted [...]

The Arrival by Shaun Tan is the story of all immigrants. By relying solely on pencil illustrations, Shaun Tan attempts to capture the emotions and the story of not just one man leaving his family to enter a new world but the story of all immigrants entering a new life. I was not completely convinced [...]

I was looking for a nonfiction picture book for my son at the library the other day when I saw Eats, Shoots and Leaves: Why, Commas Really Do Make a Difference by Lynne Truss. I enjoyed the grammar guide (Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation) by Lynne Truss so this caught [...]

While I loved the gorgeous illustrations in Brian Selznick’s Caldecott-winning novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret and I was entertained by the story, I found the writing amateur and the developing plot overdramatic. In the end, however, I liked this children’s novel, as “unbalanced” as it felt.

I love Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar, so when I saw Eric Carle’s Fairy Tales and Fables, I thought I’d enjoy it too. Unfortunately, I didn’t enjoy his retellings of Aesop, Hans Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm.