Classics, Nonfiction, and Children's Literature
We have been “officially” doing unofficial kindergarten at home for a little over a month now. I’ve been teaching my son (now age 5) at home for much longer, of course, but I had to call it official at some point.(I am not legally required to track his schooling in my state until he is
Wumbers by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and illustrated by Tom Lichtenheld (Chronicle Books, 2012) is a beautifully illustrated tribute to William Steig’s C D B!, a favorite from my own childhood. In C D B!, Steig tells stories only using letters, the title, for example, becoming “See the bee!” Wumbers, then is a new creation, using numbers to create words: ca9 means
Baby Bear Sees Blue by Ashley Wolff (Beach Lane Books, 2012) is a different kind of colors book, and one of my favorites this week. It approaches color-learning from a new direction, much like Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See? or The Black Book of Colors approach colors from a different perspective. Baby Bear Sees Blue has a
One of the first books to catch my son’s attention was The Duckling Gets a Cookie!? by the ever-wonderful Mo Willems (Hyperion, 2012). My son has always loved Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!, and this spin-off takes the same spoiled, cranky, impolite pigeon and teaches him a lesson in manners. First, an adorable large-eyed duckling asks
Stuck by Oliver Jeffers (Philomel Books, 2011) is one silly book. A boy gets his kite stuck in a tree and so he throws his shoe up to knock it loose … which also gets stuck. He tries to think of other things to throw into the tree to get the shoe out, and then of
A Bus Called Heaven by Bob Graham (Candlewick Press, 2011) is a story of a community coming together over a junkyard bus, a bus labeled “Heaven” and left on the street. Young Stella, a somewhat mysterious girl whom we don’t know much about, adopts the bus and, with the rest of her community, they make the
Me Want Pet! by Tammi Sauer and illustrated by Bob Shea (Simon and Schuster, 2012) is the story of a cave boy who wants a pet. He tries a wooly mammoth, a saber-toothed tiger, and a dodo bird, and none of them seems right. How will he get a pet?! The humor is obvious, given the
In Kali’s Song by Jeanette Winter (Schwartz and Wade Books, 2012), a young boy who lives thousands of years ago in a cave with his mother finds joy in his life. His journey is serious. He watches his mother paint images of the animals on the wall of the cave, and then he must go out
White House Kids: The Perks, Pleasures, and Pratfalls of the Presidents’ Children by Joe Rhatigan (Imagine Publishing, 2012) provides a fun and colorful picture of the history of children in the White House. From George Washington’s stepdaughter to the Obama girls, White House Kids gives an interesting portrait of how life changed for the children
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,
Grammar has a reputation of being dull and dry, but a turn-of-the-century classic, Grammar-Land by M.L. Nesbitt (first published 1878), attempts to make it fun by turning learning the parts of speech into a game. In the imaginary world of Grammar-Land, the parts of speech have been arguing about which of them is most important.
In A Little Princess (originally published 1905), Francis Hodgson Burnett creates a turn-of-the-century London-based Cinderella story. The protagonist, Sara Crewe, is a truly remarkable heroine. Although raised with extravagant wealth and spoiled with whatever servants, toys, clothes, and so forth she could desire, she remained kind, pleasant, sensitive, and polite. But reading of a perfectly
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