As I sat in my MOPS group this morning listening to a Children’s Librarian speak on early childhood literacy, I realized that it’s been a while since I posted about children’s books we’re enjoying. My oldest daughter is 5 and my son is 3 and we have had a lot of fun reading over the summer. We were kind of slackers on actually going into the library and getting our Summer Reading prizes, but we did manage to finish two days before the deadline. Newborns and libraries are sometimes a great combination…and sometimes not. But our two-month-old Violet is a little more predictable now, so we’re trying to get back in the swing of weekly library trips.
As I’ve mentioned before, I like to let my kids pick some of their own books out. Here are their favorites out of what they chose:
The Princess and the Dragon, by Audrey Wood: A fun story about a princess who is dragonly and a dragon who is princessly. Isaac always picks books with dragons if he can find them. He wants to be a knight when he grows up.
A World of Food: Discover Magical Lands Made of Things You Can Eat!, by Carl Warner: This book is so gorgeously fun. My artistic 5-year-old loves it. I like that it introduces new foods we can try, too, and that the poem that goes along with the pictures is actually quite lyrical.
What I picked out:
Amber on the Mountain, by Tony Johnston: a beautiful book with a sweet and sometimes sad story about an Appalachian girl and her longing for friendship and learning. I’ve been dabbling in the Five in a Row curriculum, a literature based unit study for young children. This book was a fun way to talk about geography near us and some more serious topics like friends moving away. I’ve already said something along the lines of “You need to practice writing so you can write letters like Amber!”
Jam and Jelly by Holly and Nelly, by Gloria Whelan: Poetic and pretty, this book tells the story of a girl and her mother living in rural Michigan. Holly’s mother Nellie is set on Holly not missing school on account of no coat or boats for cold days. She and Holly spend the summer gathering berries, and Holly finds out how hard work can turn into something valuable. I think it’s great that Holly ends the story by saying her summer memories are what keep her warmest, showing that there was value in the work itself, too. And I love how my daughter says, “A red pepper ant stuck his needle in me” when she gets an ant bite now. The imagery in this book is vivid and nostalgic for anyone who has spent a summer day outdoors in the woods.
I could write all day about children’s books, but I’ll leave it at four for today. I’m thinking of starting a Favorite Friday series, in which the blog will feature our favorite children’s books of the week. Also, October is coming up, and last year that meant a 31 Days of Children’s Book Series. I won’t be committing to blog every day for a month this year because I can hardly post once a week right now! But if you want to re-read some posts, click here.
The Long Awakening
A Long Time Gone
The Aviator’s Wife
Sarah Jio has been my favorite summer read author this summer. Her plot lines can get a little predictable, though. By the time I got to Morning Glory, the fourth book I’ve read by her, the mystery element of it was not quite so fun and the characters from other books were starting to mesh together in my mind. Jio’s books are probably all enjoyable in their own right if you don’t read them back to back to back. Then I read Goodnight June, Jio’s most recent book, which really didn’t have the artistry that Jio usually puts into a book. Still, if you like literary fiction and you like the children’s book Goodnight Moon, it was a fun trip into an imagined history of the book. As I mentioned earlier, imagined histories of literary figures kind of bother me, but I was able to suspend belief for this book and I wasn’t too attached to Margaret Wise Brown to begin with. Besides, she is quite endearing in this fictional account of her. And I actually didn’t see the twist at the end coming, so it wasn’t all that bad. I just missed the descriptiveness and felt the character and plot development was very rushed. Some events transpire too suddenly and neatly to be believable.
The worm hole opened with D. E. Stevenson’s book 
Then 
Though the book I read next isn’t written in the 1930s, it is set in that time. Her Royal Spyness is about Lady Georgiana, 34th in line for the throne, penniless, and skill-less. She decides to provide for herself by being an undercover house cleaner, but finds herself an undercover spy. Written by Rhys Bowen, it is a fast paced mystery with some pretty likable characters. I thought the plot was a bit too easy to figure out. I knew who had committed the crime by about 1/4 through the book. But it was still a good, light read, without any of the gory details I’m not too fond of in mystery novels. I could have done without all the “you’re still a virgin, what’s wrong with you?” talk included between Lady Georgie and her best friend, but I guess that’s par for the course in a modern novel. This is the first book in a long series. I may give one more a try, but I wouldn’t say that I’m hooked. I’m much more likely to go for something actually written in the 1930s, as I’ve mentioned before in a post about 
Now, I’m climbing out (or falling further in?) the worm hole and reading 
A few nights ago I looked up from a book and said to my husband, “Remind me to never read sad books about children when I’m pregnant.” He looked at me in exasperation and said, “Gah! When is it ever a good time for you to read sad books about children?” That’s a fair question. But I chose to read