That’s Not My Snowman – Saturday Story Spotlight

Feb 052011

Welcome to Saturday Story Spotlight, my feature where I discuss books my husband and I are reading with our son, Daniel. These are books that he, we, or all of us particularly enjoy.

That’s Not My Snowman by Fiona Watts, illustrated by Rachel Wells
Published by Usborne Books

Hey, that’s not my snowman! His hat is too fuzzy!

And that one’s arms are way too wiggly, definitely not my snowman.

That’s Not My Snowman is one in a series of books from Usborne where the reader is looking for his or her something (snowman, dragon, puppy, etc.). All of the first few pages are somethings that can’t be the reader’s because some attribute or another is wrong, but finally, on the last page, the reader finds his or her something. These books are great for young kids, because they provide a tactile experience (that fuzzy hat really is fuzzy, buttons are corrugated), as well as providing rich vocabulary for those tactile experiences.

Daniel actually slightly preferred That’s Not My Dragon to That’s Not My Snowman, but this whole series is great for young children.

Buy this book from:
Powells | Indiebound | Amazon*

Source: Personal copy
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

Little Rabbit Lost by Harry Horse – Saturday Story Spotlight

Jan 292011

Welcome to Saturday Story Spotlight, my feature where I discuss books my husband and I are reading with our son, Daniel. These are books that he, we, or all of us particularly enjoy.

Little Rabbit Lost by Harry Horse
Published by Peachtree Publishing

Little Rabbit, of selfish at Christmas fame, is having a birthday! He and his family are going to a theme park. Of course, flawed child that he is, he is convinced he is all grown up, and that he can – or should be able to – go on any ride he wants, because he is clearly Grown Up now. Frustrated at not getting his way, Little Rabbit wanders off to one attraction he actually can go on, and suddenly realizes he doesn’t know where any of his family is anymore.

In all honestly, this books is still a little too old for Daniel. It is a little more complex than most of the other books we read together. However, it does seem to keep his attention most of the time. There are so many things for him to look at on each page, things he can point to and ask me about. These are fairly complex pages, though, and in some moods that can be just too much. On every page, though, is Little Rabbit with his red balloon, something that Daniel could track from page to page to keep himself centered and concentrating on the book.

“Little Rabbit Lost” is a book I am going to keep reading to Daniel over and over. It might be a little over his head, but it keeps his attention, and it uses fabulously rich language. Little Rabbit’s balloon isn’t big, it is “enormous,” as his brothers and sisters ride the roller coaster, the “zoom,” and when Little Rabbit gets into the bouncy house he “clambered on and jumped and bounced.”

Buy this book from:
Powells.*
A local independent bookstore via Indiebound.*
Amazon.*

Source: Publisher
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

Just Like Daddy – Saturday Story Spotlight

Jan 222011

Welcome to Saturday Story Spotlight, my feature where I discuss books my husband and I are reading with our son, Daniel. These are books that he, we, or all of us particularly enjoy.

Just Like Daddy by Cecilia Johansson
Published by Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing

Animals! Tactile experience! Repetitive text! What more can you really want from a toddler’s board book?

Actually, Daniel is sort of over the tactile portion of this book, although younger children (he’s almost 19 months) may still enjoy it. Each page has an animal and his or her daddy, and some part of each animal’s fur is actually sort of soft and fuzzy. My favorite part about this book is that it goes into descriptors of each animal. For example, the giraffe: “feel the patterns on my skin, I stretch up high, I’m tall and thin.” Daniel’s favorite part, though, is the predictive text. At the end of each animal’s page, the text ends with “just like Daddy.” Here’s how it goes in my house:

Me: “…just like…”
Daniel: “DADDY!”

So fun! We love books where Daniel can participate in the ‘reading.’

As an indication of just how much he likes this book, Daniel actually stole “Just Like Daddy” from me while I was writing this, and flipped through it for at least 5 minutes saying, among other things “where’d daddy go?” and “tada daddy!”

Buy this book from:
Powells.*
A local independent bookstore via Indiebound.*
Amazon.*

Source: Personal copy
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

Where’s Spot – Saturday Story Spotlight

Jan 152011

Welcome to Saturday Story Spotlight, my feature where I discuss books my husband and I are reading with our son, Daniel. These are books that he, we, or all of us particularly enjoy.

Where’s Spot by Eric Hill
Published by Putnam Juvenile, an imprint of Penguin

Spot has not eaten his supper, but his mother Sally cannot find him anywhere! She begins to look all over the house for him: in the clock, under the bed, under the rug. Although Spot is not any of these places, there is always a helpful animal (or even multiple animals) to let Sally know that, no, Spot is not there.

Of all the books we read, “Where’s Spot” is probably the most interactive.On every page, Spot’s mother Sally asks “is he in the ____?” and the response from the animal in that hiding space is always “no.” Not only does Daniel get to lift a flap on every page, he also gets to help tell the story. He figured out the pattern very quickly to lift the flap and respond “no” to Sally’s question. Plus, he’s a toddler, so “no” is his favorite word anyway. I sometimes find Daniel sitting down on his own with “Where’s Spot” lift flaps and saying, “no!”

We have other Spot books, which we enjoy, but I – and Daniel – like “Where’s Spot” the best, because of the degree of autonomy it gives Daniel in interacting with the story.

Buy this book from:
Powells.*
A local independent bookstore via Indiebound.*
Amazon.*

Source: Personal copy
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

Sheep in a Jeep – Saturday Story Spotlight

Jan 082011

Welcome to Saturday Story Spotlight, where I discuss books my husband and I are reading with our son, Daniel. These are books that he, we, or all of us particularly enjoy.

Sheep in a Jeep by Nancy Shaw, illustrated by Margaret Apple
Published by HMH Books, an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Oh, these sheep and their jeep! They are not the most responsible of car owners. First their car stalls, then they push it into a big mud puddle. Finally, when the car has been removed by some friendly pigs, they are so elated that they forget to even steer and crash their jeep once again.

This is perhaps my very favorite book to read to Daniel. I absolutely love Shaw’s rhymes, everything flows perfectly. What I like best about “Sheep in a Jeep,” though is opportunity it gives me for vocal expression. Things start out peachy keen, but before long the sheep are shrugging, leaping, and grunting. It is great fun to read all of these descriptives with the appropriate inflection, plus it provides additional clues, besides simple context, for Daniel to learn this vocabulary. The most fun of all? Daniel definitely understands the book enough to know that unfortunate things are happening. The first word on page 2 is ‘uh oh,’ so he likes to shout that as soon as I flip from page one. He also adds his own commentary of ‘uh oh’ when the jeep ends up in a heap at the end of the book.

So much fun, and great for phonemic awareness. I just became aware when writing this post that there is a whole series of sheep books, where they get on a ship, go to a shop, take a hike. Daniel and I can’t wait to check them out.

5210693610 37ae2ff460 m picture Buy this book from:
Powells.*
A local independent bookstore via Indiebound.*
Amazon.*

Source: Personal copy
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

The Busy Christmas Stable – Saturday Story Spotlight

Dec 172010

Welcome to Saturday Story Spotlight, where I discuss books my husband and I are reading with our son, Daniel. These are books that he, we, or all of us particularly enjoy.

The Busy Christmas Stable by Juliet David, illustrated by Sarah Pitt
Published by Candle Books, an imprint of Lion Hudson

“The Busy Christmas Stable” is a fun, interactive version of the Christmas story for young toddlers. It is a nice, sturdy board book sized more like a traditional children’s hardcover or paperback book. It picks up the story with Mary and Joseph arriving in Bethlehem and, in 4 page spreads, concludes with the wise men presenting the baby Jesus with his gifts. Clearly, this is a highly abbreviated form of the nativity story, but it is just about the right length for my not-quite-18 month old.

Daniel also particularly likes the interactive aspect of “The Busy Christmas Stable.” The tabs shown at the bottom of the book move back and forth to cause different characters to appear on different pages. This does make “The Busy Christmas Stable” a book that needs supervision, because the characters at times need cajoling to slip smoothly back off-stage. Our Joseph already has a tendency to catch at the edge of the scene.

If there’s one thing that bothers me a bit about this book, it is the fact that the majority of the characters look far too Caucasian. They look perhaps a bit dark-skinned, but certainly not Middle-Eastern, which saddens me. We do have one other interactive board book from Candle Books, “The Very First Christmas,” about the Christmas story that does a somewhat better job at racial representation, but it is still slightly on the long side for Daniel, and right now he prefers “The Busy Christmas Stable.”

5210693610 37ae2ff460 m picture Buy this book from:
Powells.*
Amazon.*

Source: Personal copy/gift
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

Oh My Oh My Oh Dinosaurs – Saturday Story Spotlight

Nov 272010

Welcome to Saturday Story Spotlight, my new feature where I discuss books my husband and I are reading with our son, Daniel. These are books that he, we, or all of us particularly enjoy, since we are definitely reading more than one book a week!

Oh My Oh My Oh Dinosaurs by Sandra Boynton
Published by Workman Publishing

“Dinosaurs happy,
dinosaurs sad.
Dinosaurs good,
and dinosaurs bad.”

Ah yes, another of Daniel’s books that I can recite virtually all of without even glancing at the page (a very helpful skill, that, when he is being a squirmy wormy).

“Oh My Oh My Oh Dinosaurs” is and has long been our favorite Sandra Boynton book, and we do love Sandra Boynton. The dinosaurs in this book are hilarious and endearing, and appear in pairs of opposites. Like so many of Boynton’s books, this one has a great rhythm, and really lends itself to fun vocal expression.

Now, at 17 months and after reading this book since we received it at his first birthday, I must say that Daniel is starting to get the slightest bit tired of the book and doesn’t ask for it or automatically bring it to me as he used to do, but nearly five months worth of daily readings says to me that this book holds up pretty well. Honestly, even my husband and I didn’t get tired of reading it so often, because it is such a fun book.

I highly recommend “Oh My Oh My Oh Dinosaurs.”

Buy this book from:
Powells.*
A local independent bookstore via Indiebound.*
Amazon.*

Source: Personal copy
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

Thank you to Sheila from Book Journey for creating my button for this feature!

My First Thanksgiving – Saturday Story Spotlight

Nov 202010

My First Thanksgiving by Tomie dePaola
Published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons, an imprint of Penguin

When I was looking at Thanksgiving books for Daniel this year, I went in two directions. One book I bought was a flashy turkey counting book with crinkly turkey feathers, the other was Tomie dePaola’s “My First Thanksgiving.” I’m not going to lie, part of the reason I’m writing about dePaola’s book is because we seem to have lost the crinkly feather book somewhere in Daniel book piles after a couple of readings and I cannot recall the title but, surprisingly, it never really captured his attention like I thought it would.

I originally bought “My First Thanksgiving” on the strength of Tomie dePaola’s name alone. To be completely honest, I thought that it looked a little boring, especially for someone Daniel’s age. My original intention was that this would be for the future and the flashy Thanksgiving book would be for this year. Surprisingly, though, Daniel actually seemed to enjoy this one, which gives the young child version of both the first Thanksgiving and basic modern American Thanksgiving traditions in a few concise pages, more than the other. I think it had a lot to do both with the laconic yet informative style, and with dePaola’s trademark fabulous illustrations.

dePaola proves that you don’t need to be flashy to create a great children’s book, and I can definitely recommend “My First Thanksgiving.” What are your kids’ favorite Thanksgiving picture books?

Buy this book from:
Powells.*
A local independent bookstore via Indiebound.*
Amazon.*

Source: Personal copy
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

Newer Entries

Devourer of Books

That’s Not My Snowman – Saturday Story Spotlight

Little Rabbit Lost by Harry Horse – Saturday Story Spotlight

Just Like Daddy – Saturday Story Spotlight

Where’s Spot – Saturday Story Spotlight

Sheep in a Jeep – Saturday Story Spotlight

The Busy Christmas Stable – Saturday Story Spotlight

Oh My Oh My Oh Dinosaurs – Saturday Story Spotlight

My First Thanksgiving – Saturday Story Spotlight

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