Classics, Nonfiction, and Children's Literature
My Caldecott challenge: Although these Caldecott winner and honor books are not, for the most part, books I’ve read aloud to my son, I still found them interesting. A few I had strong negative opinions of; they show that even books that earned the Caldecott award do become dated! A River of Words by Jen
I own an adult poetry anthology, with accompanying CDs of the poets reading their work, called Poetry Speaks. While I haven’t read it cover to cover, I have listened to some of the poets and flipped through the book. I have enjoyed it. When I saw Poetry Speaks to Children on the juvenile nonfiction shelf
Yesterday began Black History Month in the USA! The Harlem Renaissance-themed Classics Circuit began yesterday as well, and I hope you follow along as bloggers unite in reading classic works by African-Americans. Although this post is not for the Circuit, in preparing for that Classics Circuit, I did a lot of preliminary reading about the
I wrote a “review” of Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner by A.A. Milne in my pre-book blogging days (reposted on Rebecca Reads here) when I first read A.A. Milne to my son at age 4 months. I reread both books to him again over the last two months, now that he’s almost 2
Poetry for Young People: William Shakespeare (edited by David Scott Kastan and Marina Kastan and illustrated by Glenn Harrington) goes beyond Shakespeare’s sonnets. In just 50 pages, the editors have also included some of the key speeches from Shakespeare’s repertoire. As with other volumes in the series, each page has a bit of explanation about
The Poetry for Young People series provides classic poets in a slim illustrated volume, complete with vocabulary glosses or background information as needed. I enjoyed how the Poetry for Young People: Lewis Carroll (edited by Edward Mendelson and illustrated by Eric Copeland) volume included background information about each poem so I knew who and what
Rose, Where Do You Get that Red? by Kenneth Koch is written for educators, and yet it is accessible to others. Reading it as a mother shows me that reading classic poetry to my young child can be inspiring in not just their own understandings of poetry but also in their own writing. There is
In the history of western children’s literature, after Pilgrim’s Progress came Isaac Watt’s elegies for children, Divine Songs. But while Pilgrim’s Progress was actually intended for adults and children learned from it, Divine Songs was intended to be for children. And while Pilgrim’s Progress actually does have some relevance for Christians today (even given how
I first read about Wynken, Blynken, and Nod by Eugene W. Field, illustrated by Giselle Potter (Schwartz & Wade, 2008), at The Well-Read Child. So when I saw it on the new books shelf in the children’s section of the library, I was very excited to check it out. I’ve read the Eugene Field poem before, but
My son is musical. As a newborn, his body would instantly start to relax if I started to sing to him. Now, at 13 months old, he doesn’t calm so easily. But if he hears music, he dances. He laughs when he hears any rhythm. His favorite toys make music. He likes to touch the
I’ve been reading The Complete Tales and Poems of Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne to my infant son. I can’t determine what he thinks of them — I read while he kicks and rolls around the floor — but I truly enjoy reading them. The Complete Tales includes the story books, Winnie-the-Pooh and The House on
My mother sent my son a book of Robert Louis Stevenson’s poetry for Christmas (he was three months old at the time). At first I wasn’t sure what to do with it: surely I don’t sit down and read him poetry before bed? That’s what picture books are for. But then I pulled it out
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