Educating Risa

Full Disclosure: The book links below are through the Amazon Affiliates Program. The first link (Canada) is to amazon.ca, the second (US) to amazon.com.  If you buy a book through a link, I get more books from Amazon to sate our bibliophilic tendencies. For more book recommendations, see the “Books We Love” tab at the top of my blog.

Here’s the best of what we read recently:

Basil of Baker Street (Canada) (US) is a delightful—though again sadly out-of-print—chapter book from the 1950s, about mouse detective Basil and his assistant Dawson. They live in the cellar of Sherlock Holmes’ residence, at 221B Baker Street, and have learned everything they know about solving crimes at Sherlock’s feet—literally! Young twin mouselings, Angela and Agatha go missing, and Basil and Dawson, in Sherlock Holmes’ fashion, must solve the mystery of their disappearance and bring them back safely. One of a series. Silly Tilly  (Canada) (US) is such a silly goose she takes “her baths in apple juice” Her barnyard friends decide they’ve had enough of her goofy antics, and Tilly stops being silly. But then the animals get to talking and realize they haven’t laughed “since when? Since Tilly chased the garbage men!” The predictable solution to “dullsville on the farm” follows, with “Tilly back to her old ways” like “soaking her feet in mayonnaise”. The playful pictures and bouncy rhyming text had my boys giggling out loud. Temple Cat (Canada) (US) is set in Ancient Egypt (though this is never explicitly stated), and tells about the life of a cat who is pampered and treated as a god. He longs to escape, to catch his own fish, to play with children, to lie on a “dangerous” ledge in the sun as long he likes. And one day his wish comes true. An effective introduction to Ancient Egypt for Gareth (age 5), or any other very young kids who love cats. 

 

The Little House (Canada) (US) is a story ahead of its time. Originally published in 1942, BEFORE the post-war “baby boom” and rise of the suburbs, it tells the story of a little house, which was once happy in the country. The area around it changes over the years—the roads, the other houses, the train, skyscrapers, etc. arrive—and no longer can the little house watch the seasons change, or hear the birds, or see “the apple trees dancing in the moonlight.” Will the little house ever enjoy the peace and quiet of the country again? Led to some interesting discussions in our home about urban sprawl and light pollution. The now out-of-print Be Nice to Spiders (Canada) (US) is about a pet spider, Helen, that a boy leaves at the zoo, as they are moving to a new apartment that doesn’t allow pets. The spider proves useful to the animals at the zoo, keeping the fly problem down. But with the superintendant of zoos due to arrive, the head zookeeper orders the animal cages thoroughly cleaned—especially those ratty-looking cobwebs! The inspection goes well, but soon the zoo is as messy as ever, and the animals are bothered by flies. The zookeepers eventually realize their mistake, and treat Helen like a queen thereafter. Dinosaur Hunter (Canada) (US) was a surprisingly good early reader chapter book. It is about a boy, Ned, living on a Wyoming ranch, who dreams of finding a dinosaur fossil. He meets young George Sternberg one day, and the two find an entire dinosaur skeleton. George goes to tell his father, Charles Sternberg, but in the meantime, word of their find has gotten around, and Ned is visited by a collector from a rival palaeontology group who wants to buy the fossil for but a fraction of what it is worth. Ned has to think fast to outwit this collector—and he does! (My boys LOVED the way Ned, a boy, outwitted the adult collector.) The story holds its own even if you know nothing of dino-collecting and the “bone wars” of the late 1800s.

Happy reading!