imagination

Kids Corner: Friday Fun Night Books

Published on March 29, 2013 | Leave a response

Friday nights are “fun night” for our family. Usually, this means we watch a family/kid friendly movie. Recently, now that Raisin is five, we’re branching out to board games. (When the favorite board game was Candy Land, I really did not like that option every week.) Today, Raisin requested that we read books together.

Yes, my five-year-old son wanted to spend an hour and a half reading with me. This is why I did my 1000 books project with him, and why I’m doing it all over again with my baby. Reading together as a family truly is fun. I’ve grown my son into what I am certain will be a life-long reader.

Here are some of the books we enjoyed. (more…)

(Cybils 2012) Monsters

Published on October 25, 2012 | 1 Response

In our neighborhood, it is definitely Halloween season: pumpkins, Halloween parties, bags of leaves. In honor of the season, I think it would be appropriate to share some of the “monster” books on the Cybils 2012 nomination list. Here are three that I’ve enjoyed so far. (more…)

(Raisin Reads) Sideways Stories from Wayside School by Louis Sachar

Published on September 21, 2012 | 6 Responses

I have been looking forward to introducing my son to the favorite books of my childhood, and I’m delighted to find he is finally old enough to appreciate them!

Sideways Stories from Wayside School by Louis Sachar (originally published 1978) is a perfect chapter book for young readers. The chapters are less than five pages, the stories are compact and yet still inter-related, and the silliness factor meets the needs of a child. My son loved the time we spent reading these together, and as soon as we finished it, he took it from me and informed me he was going to read it again to himself. He is more than half way done.

As an adult, I still enjoyed it. It is silly and yet it does play off of realistic challenges: adults telling you to do things that seem impossible (going to take a note to a non-existent teacher), falling asleep when you should be awake, getting along with other kids, and overcoming stereotype, for example. I really enjoyed revisiting it as an adult. (more…)

Raisin Reads: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

Published on August 3, 2012 | 8 Responses

Raisin and I saw the musical of The Wizard of Oz two years ago (when he was two years old), and he greatly enjoyed it. Somehow, he loved the movie too, even with the scary monkeys. Over the past two years, I’ve occasionally spied him acting out the story line (four friends go on an adventure down the Yellow Brick Road) with his stuffed animals. It definitely was time to visit the original story.

It’s hard to read the original for a story well known in another format (in this case, the well-popularized movie is much more familiar to me than the novel on which it was based). It’s probably scandalous for me to admit that the original story of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum (originally published 1900) leaves me unsatisfied. True lovers of classics, especially children’s classics, will probably be upset with me. But I can’t deny it: I don’t particularly like the book (and I’m ducking to avoid the rotten tomatoes). I feel that while the movie’s plot is tight and clever^(more…)

Because this post is about the book and not the movie, I’ll relegate these thoughts to a footnote: In the movie, Dorothy, who doesn’t believe in herself, must find the strength within herself to get home, and in the end her dreams come true as she does so. I love how the entire movie story was actually a dream, and yet it still helped her find her place. ↩

Awakening Children’s Minds by Laura Berk (Thoughts on a Reread)

Published on April 23, 2012 | Leave a response

It’s interesting how a year and a half changes one’s perspective. In the early fall of 2010, I read a wonderful nonfiction examination of how parents can help children embrace imagination. Revisiting Awakening Children’s Minds: How Parents and teachers Can Make a Difference by Laura Berk (2001, Oxford University Press) provided me with some necessary reminders in the how to’s and why’s behind parenting a young child that is becoming an intelligent and creative individual. Rereading the book gave me encouragement as a parent. I am immensely glad I revisited it: I see it from a new perspective. (more…)