Educating Risa

I’ve decided to only post those books that we gave an ‘above average’ rating to, and not list every single book we read. The boys and I have been on an absolute tear lately, reading 10 or so picture books each evening and more through the day at random points (e.g., waiting in dentist offices, for sibling’s Sportball class to let out) and we’ve been at the library an average of 4 days per week! Still, what a nice thing to complain about, eh? So here’s the best of the best of the past week; hover your mouse over the book image for title and author details.

  

Round Trip is a very quirky book that you read through, and then flip upside-down and read through again. It covers a journey beginning from a house at daybreak, and ventures to a city, then home again. The pictures, all in black and white, are what make the book, as your eye sees different images depending whether the book is right-side-up (the trip to the city) or upside-down (the trip home). Our favourite page was the one with the bridge with water running under it that became telephone poles when upside down, though the restaurant / movie theatre ran a close second. Bubble Bath Pirates is a light read about two brothers about to take their bath, pirate-style. “Yo ho ho, it’s off to the bath we go!” Waiting for Winter was a simply hilarious read—we laughed and laughed. Squirrel, Hedgehog and Bear, who normally sleep through winter and have never seen snow, decide to keep themselves awake long enough to see the first snowfall. They employ comical means to stay awake, and then later, when tired of waiting, they wonder if perhaps the first snowflake has already fallen and is lying somewhere waiting to be discovered. So hedgehog goes off and finds something “white and wet and cold”, thinking it must be the first snow. (What he has found instead sent the boys into giggles, particularly when he imagines this item fluttering down from the sky and piling up into "snow”drifts.) Squirrel also comes back with something while and cold and a little wet inside, and then bear corrects them both, holding something behind his back. What bear has found is white and wet and cold AND SOFT! (But not snow—and this one sent the boys into hysterics). The story ends with the animal friends staring at their possible snow finds, until real snowflakes begin to fall, and the final page shows a snowman that they built, very cleverly (and comically) incorporating their ‘found snow’ items. Highly recommended!

 

How Santa Got His Job looks at Santa’s career path, beginning with him as a thin young man: he cleaned chimneys (but got fired as he was so tidy he never got soot on his clothes); he delivered mail (but got fired for making deliveries in the middle of the night to avoid traffic); he gained lots of weight working at an all-night diner, etc. A refreshingly original Santa story. One Year with Kipper takes a very simple idea—one fun moment with his friend Tiger each month, of which Kipper takes a picture with his new camera—and at the end Kipper puts the pictures together on a posterboard with the title “What We Did this Year” and gives it to Tiger as his Christmas gift. Very kid-friendly and gave my boys the idea of doing similar for some relatives for next Christmas. Jingle Bells is one of many Iza Trapani books in which she reworks the lyrics to a popular song. To the tune of Jingle Bells, her lyrics cover how Christmas is celebrated in different countries around the world. Superb pictures too!

Enormous Elephant begins in olden days, when certain animals looked very different: Python was short and fat, Ostrich had a short neck and very short legs, and Elephant had a short stump of a nose and a short tuft of a tail but a very BIG body. One day Enormous Elephant goes to the water hole where one Very Large Crocodile lived…and through a series of events we learn how the python, ostrich and elephant came to have their modern appearance. Clever story that even my 5-year-old could follow; one of a series. The Fossil Girl was a big hit here. It’s a quasi-comic book format of the true story of young Mary Anning and  her discovery of an Ichthyosaur fossil in 1810 in England. The book  has a brief biography about her at the back. I particularly loved seeing children portrayed as competent and capable or real work (when their father died Mary and her brother helped her mother by collecting ‘curiosities’ (fossils) to sell at their shop). Mary shows resourcefulness in many ways: looking up what her find could be in a book, asking for help from other adults on her own to get the fossil out, going up the rickety ladder herself to dig out and lower the pieces of the Ichthyosaur herself, her coming up with her own reasoned theories (e.g., she notices a nostril and says to herself, “So did you breathe…and spout?”), and in the end, negotiating a higher price from the Lord of the Manor, who buys the fossil and sends it to London. Highly recommended.  Up the Hill and Down is one of several poetry books for kids we’ve been reading lately, and the best of the bunch, in our view, with thoughtfully chosen light-hearted poems, and matching playful illustrations. 

Snowflake Bentley was a book both Daegan (age 7.5) and I loved, about the true story of Wilson Bentley and his quest to show folks the beauty of snowflakes. A story of perseverance (the first winter he had his camera he did not get a single pic to work!), being true to yourself and your passions, of sharing your gift with the world even if others laugh at you, of parental love (his parents bought him the camera, despite wanting him to do something “more useful” with his time than study snowflakes—and at not an insignificant cost for the time!). An absolute gem. My Parents are Divorced… is a very quirky book told by a boy who’s parents have divorced, and how he feels about it, and how that doesn’t make him weird or strange. Well, maybe some of the ‘facts about him’ do (like giving his elbows nicknames!), but that’s ok. A funny, yet serious look at divorce, one that both children of divorced/divorcing parents as well as kids who have friends in this situation (and who doesn’t these days!) will relate to. Led to some interesting conversations here with my 7-year-old. Roberto the Insect Architect is another story about being true to yourself and your dreams and sharing them with the world. Roberto is a termite who—unlike just about every other termite—has a passion for creating buildings, rather than destroying them. Funny illustrations and lots of puns and word play for the adult reading along (such as the great architect Hank Floyd Mite).  A fun read.

The Amazing Bone is a book that I am still mulling over—I can’t say I simply liked it, but it was strangely compelling. It’s about a happy-go-lucky pig named Pearl who finds a talking bone, a bone that once belonged to a witch and ends up saving her life. Weslandia is a book that both boys found very engaging (I thought it would go over the 5-year-old’s head), about a misunderstood boy who designs his own civilization one summer. He grows his own food, designs his own clothes, language, and number system, and makes his own games. It led to my boys wanting to do the same—they were particularly intrigued by the idea of making their own language. That Pesky Rat was one of Gareth’s (age 5) favourite reads this week. It’s about a common city rat that longs to be a pet, and creates his own ad to hang in the pet shop window. Finally a man comes in and wants to take him home—this man has bad eyesight which led to him misreading the ad, but the Rat figures its worth playing along to get the perks of being a pet. A funny read. By the same author we also read Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Book, about a boy who falls into a book of fairy tales while asleep. Apart from one very funny line from Goldilocks (“…this story is called ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’ not ‘The Little Show-Off in Pajamas has Breakfast!’"), it fell flat for us. A great premise, however.

Happy reading!