Saturday, October 31, 2009

Monday, August 17, 2009

My Favorite Pictures



A Child's Imagination and the Books it Ate

Ezekiel has finally gotten to a season in life where he enjoys reading 5 or 6 books at a time, one right after the other. Its never been so easy to stop what I'm doing and play with my child. He always points out books when he sees them and when he wants to get my attention he demandingly says, "REAH!" On the good days he selects one book at a time, carefully replacing the recently read book before pulling a new one off the shelf. "My what a good parent I am," I think smugly to myself. On the other days he sweeps all the books off the shelf, steps on them, picks a few, dumps them on my lap and settles in next to them. When he's finished reading he just runs away and appears to forget his own name as I call after him to "put back" the books.

I've quickly learned which books I enjoy and which ones I emphatically do not want to read even once a day, much less 5 times a day. These latter books have been stored in a dresser drawer. The remaining 20 or so books are beloved by me and the child. But 20 books seems like a paltry collection for the child of a book lover. I sat down last week and began a list of my favorite childrens' books that I would like to read over and over again to my children until they proudly announce that they can read it themselves. I want to watch them carefully turn the pages at the proper time, reciting each word, and not caring that the book is upside down.

My favorite things about childrens' books are original illustrations (especially Caldecott winners and Little Golden Books) and timeless plot lines (with basic themes of creation, fall, redemption, and gospel themes about messed up, broken, unlovely creatures who find love and a place to belong).

My least favorite things about childrens' books are knock-offs, series created only because the first book did so well (but the author doesn't seem to know why), new or bad illustrations, meaningless or stupid stories, stories that find their relevance from pop culture or television, sentimental self-congratulatory books, manipulative stories that try to modify behavior or teach the kid to just try harder or do better next time, overly didactic moralistic stories (especially Bible stories), well, you get the point.

I swear I'm not that picky. I just like the classics. Most of them. I'm not a fan of The Little Engine that Could. Or The Poky Little Puppy.

I guess I justify my pickiness because 1. I'm the mom so I get to choose (for now) what my kids will read, 2. either these books form an imagination or they don't which is another way of saying that what they read now matters a lot, 3. stories that come alive tell a child about how much, why, and under what circumstances they are worthy of love and respect almost as much as real life, 4. beauty is an objective thing that we learn to love and ugly illustrations don't tell the truth about beauty, and 5. good stories might make a child a lover of books while stupid stories will almost certainly turn them off to reading. I could probably come up with more reasons but those come immediately to mind.

Here is my (incomplete) list of cherishable young childrens' literature. I wish I were cool enough (or tedious enough) to include an amazon link to each title. But I figure its a better use of my time to let you type in the titles yourself at amazon. What are your favorite young childrens' books that I've forgotten? What do you look for in a child's book that makes it worth dropping the money?

  1. Katy No-Pocket by Emmy Payne
  2. Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
  3. The Going to Bed Book by Sandra Boynton
  4. Madeline
  5. Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel
  6. Dr Seuss, esp: Oh The Places You’ll Go, Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, Horton Hears a Hoo, ABC's, Mr Brown Can Moo Can You?
  7. There's an Alligator under My Bed by Mercer Mayer
  8. Jumanji by Chris Van Allsburg
  9. The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams
  10. If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by
  11. Miss Rumphius
  12. We're Going on a Bear Hunt
  13. Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
  14. Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst and Ray Cruz
  15. Courderoy and A Pocket for Courderoy by Don Freeman
  16. Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina
  17. The Giving Tree and Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstien
  18. Bread and Jam for Frances and Bedtime for Frances by Russell Hoban
  19. Richard Scary
  20. The Ugly Duckling by Hans Christian Anderson
  21. Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown
  22. The Story About Ping by Marjorie Flack
  23. Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey
  24. Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey
  25. Tiki Tiki Timbo by Arlene Mosel
  26. A Child is Born by Margaret Wise Brown
  27. A Child’s Treasury of Mythology by Margaret Evans Price
  28. Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See? By Eric Karle
  29. Counting Cockatoos by Stella Blackstone and Stephanie Bauer
  30. Curious George by H. A. Rey
  31. Charlotte’s Web, Stuart Little, and The Trumpet of the Swan by E. B. White
  32. Everyone Poops by Taro Gomi
  33. Frog and Toad are Friends by Arnold Lobel
  34. Babies and Baby Animals by Fujikawa
  35. Gossie by Olivier Dunrea
  36. Guess How Much I Love You? By Sam McBratney
  37. Harry the Dirty Dog by Gene Zion and Margaret Bloy Graham
  38. Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones
  39. Mama, Do You Love Me? By Barbara Joosse
  40. Moo Moo Brown Cow, What Do You See? By Jakki Wood and Rog Bonner
  41. Prayers for Children by Eloise Wilkin
  42. Raggedy Andy by Johnny Gruelle and Kim Gruelle
  43. Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister
  44. Barnyard Dance, Blue Hat Green Hat, Doggies, Opposites, Pajama Time, and What’s Wrong Little Pookie? by Sandra Boynton
  45. Snowy Day by Keats
  46. The Mitten by Jan Brett
  47. The Real Mother Goose by Grace Maccarone
  48. Time for Bed by Mem Fox
  49. Where is Baby’s Bellybutton? by Karen Katz
  50. Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll
  51. The Complete Works of Beatrix Potter
  52. The Complete Works of A. A. Milne (original illustrations and page lay-out are very important)
  53. Pete and Pickles by Berkeley Breathed



Pictures from this Summer

I've uploaded a bunch of pictures from this summer onto Photobucket. Not sure how much I'll like this photo site but thought I'd give it a try.

Monday, July 27, 2009

Busy Busy Bee, No Time to Sleep

Some of My Tricks

Bye-bye!

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Monday, June 1, 2009

Come Lately




Saturday, May 16, 2009

My Hair is a MESS! And I'm really tired.


Who needs hair gel when you have strawberry jam?

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Double Fisting It Veggie Style

Daily life doesn't get much better than Ezekiel pushing away his favorite ga-gur (yogurt) and pitching a fit for stalks of steaming hot broccoli! Everytime he finishes one, he asks for another so as to always have two stalks going at a time. As I type he's just thanked me for handing him the sixth stalk! It makes my veggie lovin' heart so happy.


Monday, March 9, 2009

Ezekiel Dances to his Favorite Song





Kevin Morgan is playing Rubarb Tweety for all of us at our Geroge Herbert Day Poetry Reading Party. Ezekiel always dances whenever Kevin plays this song. Thats why I think its his favorite!
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