A "DO UNTO OTHERS" KIND OF STORY

A Sick Day for Amos McGee by Philip and Erin Stead is a love of a book about faithful friends. As the debut project for this husband and wife team, it won the 2011 Caldecott Medal!  And I'm sure it will win over you and your child. 



Though the story has the timelessness of an old classic, the muted woodblock print and pencil illustrations bring a freshness that perfectly complement this gentle, yet rather quirky, sweetly told tale.

We meet Amos, an elderly gentleman, and observe his early morning routine as he gets ready for work:  he wakes up to his alarm, swings his legs out of bed, puts on his freshly pressed uniform, winds his watch, and sets a pot of water to boil.

Nothing out of the ordinary -- until he arrives at his job via the number five bus. He works at the City Zoo, where (among other things) he lovingly plays chess with the elephant, wipes the rhinoceros' runny nose, and reads stories to the owl (who's afraid of the dark). 

But one day Amos wakes up with the sniffles, and realizes he is too sick to make it to his job at the zoo... 

He swung his achy legs out of bed, curled them back again and said, "Ugh.  I don't think I'll be going to work today."  

So the animals catch the city bus to visit him. 

They spend the whole lovely day keeping him company...the rhinoceros is even ready with a handkerchief.

Because that's what faithful friends do.

GOOD BOOKS FOR CHILDREN WITH DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITES

Reading aloud to children helps with language development and literacy, as well as listening skills.  This can be especially important for kids with various developmental disabilities, including ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder), because understanding and using language can be very difficult for them.


Dr. Monica Ultmann has created a "Developmental Disabilities Literacy Promotion Guide", that can be obtained here at ReachOutAndRead.org. This guide (specific to seven different disabilities) includes handouts, activities and reading tips, suggested books, and lists of resources for parents.

CLICK HERE for the "Doctor Recommended Book List" for children who suffer from developmental disabilities...the seven that are addressed include: Speech and Language Problems; Autism Spectrum Disorder; Intellectual Disabilities (mental retardation); Inattention and Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder; Cerebral Palsy; and Vision and Hearing Impairments.

A CLOSER LOOK AT AUTISM & READING
As a follow-up to my post on Library Story Time for Autistic Readers, I want to highlight some specifics about Autism Spectrum Disorder and how books can help.  ASD  impacts the way children react to situations and people.  Children with Autism often have trouble making eye contact and sharing their thoughts with words or gestures. Non-verbal communication is especially difficult for a child on the autistic spectrum.   Body language, gesture and facial expressions are not understood as clues to communication.

TIPS FROM REACH OUT AND READ:
 Borrow books from the library that have photos and drawings of babies and people’s faces. This can help your child recognize emotions.
 Read the same story again and again. The repetition will help her learn language.
 Read aloud. Talk about the pictures and read the text.
 Find books that have lots of repetition of phrases. Also find books with rhymes. Softly clap your hands and help your baby clap along to the rhythm.
 Find books that have buttons your child can press that have sounds.

PREDICTABLE STORIES ARE IMPORTANT:
"Predictable books play an important role in developing early language and literacy skills for infants and toddlers (Miller, 2000). Books that allow children to guess what will happen next in the story, books that provide repetitive catch phrases (e.g., Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Martin/Carle, 1996),
and books with a predictable rhyme pattern (e.g., Fox in Sox by Seuss/ Geisel, 1965) contribute to language and literacy growth. Cumulative patterns also contribute to predictability, with new events being added with each episode, as in the book I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly (Westcott, 2003). 
All books become somewhat predictable with repeated readings and children enjoy hearing them over and over again. Books with familiar sequences and those in which pictures exactly match the text are usually predictable for children. Predictable books provide the emergent reader with a satisfying and enjoyable first experience."  -from the article Birth to Three: Building a Foundation for Literacy, SpeechPathology.com

Even MORE book recommendations...from AbilityPath.org


Leave a comment to let me know your favorites!

PUBLIC DOMAIN MONDAY: A MOTHER'S LIST...

...OF BOOKS FOR CHILDREN by Gertrude Weld Arnold.  I would love to own a copy of this gem.  Click HERE to look through this amazing book, which is full of great quotes and an exhaustive list of all types of books for ages 2-14 (first published in 1909).

SOME MEMORABLE EXCERPTS ABOUT CHILDREN'S LITERATURE:

"The baby's first book will naturally be a picture-book, for pictures appeal to him early, and with great force.... If we understood children better, we should realize this vitality which pictures have for them, and should be more careful to give them the best." -W. T. Field.

"What an unprejudiced and wholly spontaneous acclaim awaits the artist who gives his best to the little ones! They do not place his work in portfolios or locked glass cases; they thumb it to death, surely the happiest of all fates for any printed book." -Gleeson White.

"The mother sits and sings her baby to sleep; here is one of the very best opportunities for the right literature at the right time." -Mrs. H. L. Elmendorf.

"As color appeals to the child before he has much notion of form, his first picture-book should be colored, and as his ideas of form develop slowly, his first pictures should be in outline, and unencumbered with detail." -W.T. Field.

"Blind Homer and the chief singer of Israel and skalds and bards and minnesingers are all gone, tradition is almost a byword, but mothers still live, and children need not wait until they have conquered the crabbed types before they begin to love literature." -Mrs. H.L. Elmendorf.

"Babies do not want," said he, "to hear about babies; they like to be told of giants and castles, and of somewhat which can stretch and stimulate their little minds". -Dr. Johnson. (Recorded by Mrs. Piozzi.)

"And as with the toys, so with the toy-books. They exist everywhere: there is no calculating the distance through which the stories come to us, the number of languages through which they have been filtered, or the centuries during which they have been told. Many of them have been narrated, almost in their present shape, for thousands of years since, to little copper-coloured Sanscrit children, listening to their mother under the palm-trees by the banks of the yellow Jumna--their Brahmin mother, who softly narrated them through the ring in her nose. The very same tale has been heard by the Northmen Vikings as they lay on their shields on deck; and by Arabs couched under the stars on the Syrian plains when the flocks were gathered in and the mares were picketed by the tents. -Thackeray.

"So, in this matter of literature for the young, the influence of the home teaching is enormous; all the school can do pales before it. Let the mother add to the poet's rhyme the music of her soft and beloved voice; let great fiction be read to the breathless group of curly heads about the fire; and the wonders of science be enrolled, the thrilling scenes and splendid personalities of history displayed. Children thus inspired may be trusted to become sensitive to literature long before they know what the word means, or have reasoned at all upon their mental experiences." -Richard Burton.

HOW MO WILLEMS MAKES US LAUGH

photo credit:  Marty Umans

Mo Willem's wildly popular picture books about pigeons, piggies, elephants and kunffle bunnies have kids laughing, and reading.  The books - with simple illustrations and word bubbles - are perfect as family read alouds and also as first readers for young learners.  Perhaps it's his past writing and animating for Sesame Street that make his short (sometimes only one-word) sentences fit so perfectly with his simple pictures.

Parents and kids alike will get the quick wit.  And new readers will feel the satisfaction of reading a whole book from start to finish by themselves.  I fondly witnessed this last week when I brought my friend's kids WE ARE IN A BOOK!

(I knew I had to get it into the hands of her middle child Jonah, who is a new reader, after I stood - laughing out loud - in the middle of the bookstore!)

and when another friend's daughter, Sophie, delighted in ELEPHANTS CANNOT DANCE!  all by herself.

The PIGEON books are just as hilarious...  

I was introduced to DON'T LET THE PIGEON DRIVE THE BUS

at a family camp during "Skit Night".  

THE PIGEON FINDS A HOTDOG

In fact, several of Mo's stories have been turned into plays and musicals!  I think the appeal of these books is the humorous, yet simple, way that Mo deals with kids' emotions and challenges (such as learning to share and not being jealous). That and his funny characters help his stories translate perfectly to the stage.

From "Don't Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late" Musical

Mo's KNUFFLE BUNNY books are also adorable and endearing, with his simple illustrations and signature word bubbles, this time against a photographic background.  In the first story, KNUFFLE BUNNY: A CAUTIONARY TALE,
a little toddler named Trixie accompanies her dad to the neighborhood laundromat and loses her stuffed bunny.  Panicking, she tries communicating this to him, as he unsuccessfully tries to interpret her "flabble-babbling" on their way back home...

Click HERE to read about KNUFFLE BUNNY: A CAUTIONARY MUSICAL and watch a video interview with Mo Willems (at the end of the post).

And have fun perusing Mo Willem's website with your child.

A PARADOXICAL SETTING FOR THE BIRTH OF A KING!

CHRISTMAS NIGHT, FAIR AND BRIGHT by Julie Stiegemeyer, illustrations by Melissa Iwai. (ages 3-7). If you're looking for a book that emphasizes the true meaning of Christmas for even the youngest of children, look no farther!

In simple rhyming words, Julie Stiegemeyer expertly recreates the sights and sounds of the first Christmas and at the same time, emphasizes the two natures of Christ -- His abject humility in his simple birth and His ultimate divinity as our King and Saviour. With each verse, Jesus' perfect life and death on our behalf is communicated:  "Jesus, born for us."

Most of this telling takes place in the humble stall -- the paradoxical setting for the birth of the King of kings and the Lord of lords:

Frankincense hangs in the air.

Stars are twinkling everywhere.

A child is born beyond compare -

Jesus, born for us.

Jesus has no kingly hall.

Jesus has no fortress tall.

Home becomes a cattle stall

for Jesus, born for us.

So sequined stars become a crown,

night, a robe to wrap around;

God's own Son to earth came down.

He's Jesus, born for us."

This book predictably recounts the events of that first Christmas, but it includes the flight to Egypt as well. It also alludes to the crucifixion. Melissa Iwai's illustrations are perfect for the 3-7 age group.  Her brightly colored images have less detail than those for older children, but still capture the drama and reality of the events on that dark night in Bethlehem, when Christ, the Light of the World, was born.

To see more books by Julie Stiegemeyer, click here.

THE CHRISTMAS MIRACLE OF JONATHAN TOOMEY

This story is sure to draw you and your child in immediately, as you get a glimpse at the empty and hurting heart of a bitter woodcarver, Jonathan Toomey.  We come to find a secret about him that the village townspeople don't know.  Like Scrooge's "bah-humbug", his description of Christmas is cynical:  "pish-posh".

One December, the gruff woodcarver is visited by a widow, new to the town, and her young son, Thomas.  They ask him to carve a set of Christmas figures to replace their original Nativity creche that has gotten lost.

The widow and her son begin to visit Jonathan Toomey's cottage, so that Thomas can watch the wood carver at his craft.  As his mother looks on in quiet alarm, the young boy whispers quiet observations such as, "Mr. Toomey, excuse me, but you're carving my sheep wrong", noting that his original sheep had "looked happy...they knew they were with the baby Jesus, so they were happy".

Slowly, after accepting gifts of food brought with each visit by the widow, and getting used to the company of this mother and son, Jonathan Toomey's heart begins to soften and heal.  He begins to teach Thomas how to carve a robin.

I won't spoil the ending, but you're sure to shed some tears as you read how Jonathan Toomey finally faces his past and finishes the figures of the Nativity scene.  This is a beautifully told and illustrated tale.  The pictures by P.J. Lynch, in shadow from sunlight and firelight, focus on the emotions shown in the faces and actions of the characters.

The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey (ages 5 to adult) by Susan Wojciechowski is one of our family's favorites and is a touching read aloud.

A RUSSIAN ARTIST, GENNADY SPIRIN, ILLUSTRATES CLASSIC TOLSOY AND CHEKHOV STORIES FOR CHILDREN

Born in a small town near Moscow, Russia, on Christmas Day, 1948, Gennady Spirin had an artistic talent recognized at an early age.  He graduated from Surikov School of Fine Art at the Academy of Arts in Moscow and Moscow Stoganov Institute of Art.  He developed his own style over the years, combining traditional Russian contemporary art technique with the great traditions of the Renaissance.  His sumptuous colors and delicate lines set his unique illustrations in a class of their own; they are full of realistic precision, but also have an ethereal quality that lends itself perfectly to both classics and fairy tale stories.

My next post will feature some of his fairy tale adaptations, but today I want to share two of his picture books written by classic authors of Russian literature...

PHILIPOK - this is a retelling of Tolstoy's simple tale set in 19th-century Russia. Young Philipok wants nothing more than to go to school with his elder brother, Peter. He waits until his grandmother falls asleep, gets his hat and coat, and sets out through the snow to the schoolhouse on the other side of the village. Cold and frightened when he arrives, he earns the privilege of staying at school.

KASHTANKA In this rather quirky story by Anton Chekov (also set in 19th-Century Russia), a dog, separated from her master, is taken in by a kindly circus performer.   Kashtanka quickly adjusts to her new surroundings, which are shared with a goose, a white cat, and a pig - but in the end she is heartwarmingly reunited with her original owners. (ages 8 and up)