Tag Archives: Children’s Book Review
Bedtime Stories: Five Creepy Creatures
Post by Mark T. Locker
Five Creepy Creatures by Judith Bauer Stamper.
Monday afternoons are such fun. I look forward to seeing my son’s picks from the school library almost as much as he looks forward to the big reveal. It’s become a big, built up event now. He loves to sneak it out of his bag and hold it behind his back until I’m ready to see experience the unveiling. I also love how totally unpredictable his choices are.
Last week he brought this silly reader which features five not-so-spooky stories from the LAND OF THE UNDEAD! All of them end in ridiculous puns. (I am very proud of him for choosing a book filled with puns.) For example, in one story a boy and girl are followed out of the creepy graveyard by a coffin. The coffin follows them all the way home. The boy is terrified but the girl calmly pulls out a cough drop and gives it to the coffin. “That will stop this coffin [coughin]!” Yuk yuk.
There are also a bunch of terrible knock-knock jokes. But really, are there any other kind? He read those to us about fifty times. They just get better with every reading! So if you have a kid who is just getting the hang of reading and likes creepy funny stories, this one is something s/he may enjoy. You might want to leave the room, however.
Bedtime Stories: The Biggest House in the World
Post by Mark T. Locker.
So I know that just last week I was griping about how my son doesn’t bring home anything other than Star Wars books now that he gets to choose a book every week all on his own. Well, he must have read my blog post because lo and behold, the moment I make a judgement he makes an about-face and brings a picture book by one of the best-known children’s authors and illustrators of the 20th century. Some of his better-known books include Swimmy about a little fish, A Color of My Own about a chameleon trying to find his own identity, and a lot of books about mice. You’d totally recognize it if you saw it.
The one my boy chose is called The Biggest House in the World. I had never heard of this one; it turns out to be one of his first ever books. It’s a story about a little snail who wants to grow the biggest house ever on his back. His wise father replies with the story of a snail who did just that. It was a huge and beautiful house, it even had colorful spires and all the other creatures admired it. Unfortunately, the drawback was soon realized when it was time for the snails to move on to greener pastures and this poor snail couldn’t move for the sheer weight of his shell. He died. Needless to say, the little snail has some second thoughts about growing such a giant home after all. In fact, he decides to keep his shell small so he can go wherever he wants.
This story is a little bit macabre but with a happy ending. I was afraid his shell being too small would make him vulnerable so I was grateful when this was not a problem. It’s not his greatest book ever and the message is a bit obscure, but it’s got lovely images and is a fun read for little ones.
Bedtime Stories: Star Wars: the clone wars
Post by Mark T. Locker.
Star Wars: the clone wars
Boy, if it isn’t all Star Wars all the time in my house these days. I knew that when my son started having library upon entering public school that all manner of books would be coming through our door. I was intensely curious to know what we would find in his backpack when we picked him up. Well, the answer is Star Wars. Every. Single. Week. It’s fine. It’s great. He’s really enjoying them. As a librarian, my job is to encourage a love of literacy and not to judge what people read just as long as they read.
So these books basically take the cartoon of the Clone Wars (which I reviewed a couple weeks ago) and turns episodes into small chapter books. It’s pretty clever, if you think about it. All the imagery is already there, the plot is there, you just need to write some words to accompany the pictures. Last week was all about Captain Rex. This week was yet another engagement with General Grievous, the robot-y leader of the Droid Army. He always gets away but his ship is always destroyed! Honestly, I don’t see why they keep him employed, given his track record.
But, the stories are fun and keep my son happy and engaged. There has to be an end to them, and then he can move on to Ninjago and we can deal with a barrage of product placement! Happy reading!
Bedtime Stories: The joy of being read to
Post by Mark T. Locker.
The books I want to discuss today are so rudimentary and without plot that I won’t even call them by name. Let’s say book #1 is called Mass-Produced Board Book That is Basically Advertising and book #2 is Simple Short Stories about Dinosaurs. What makes these two books the best books I have encountered is that they are the first ones that were read to me by my son. No nudging, no help with sounding out a single word. I know that kids his age read; that’s just a thing they do. But seeing him use the keys in his own mind to decode these books made me melt with pride. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter a whit what the books were about. (Though I must say, if they made easy reader books about Doctor Who, I’m certain his reading would skyrocket!)
What matters is hearing him stitch the letters into sounds, the sounds into words, the words into sentences. If you have a child, no matter the age, tonight you should go sit in his/her lap and make him/her read to YOU. It’s a wonderful thing. Even (especially) if you have a surly teen who is not into the whole parent/child thing anymore 🙂
Bedtime Stories: Dad, are you the tooth fairy?
Post by Mark T. Locker.
Dad, are You the Tooth Fairy? By Jason Alexander.
My son lost his first tooth the other day. They grow up so quickly! The next day, he brought home this book from the school library. It’s all about a kid losing teeth and the tooth fairy. How appropriate! Right? Wrong! If you want to instill a sense of skepticism early in your child’s life, this is the book for you. It basically spells out for the children that perhaps all of those childhood beliefs are bogus. Hence the child asking the dad if he is the Tooth Fairy. It’s a terrible book. It’s basically one man’s attempt to cover up, in a really lame way, that his son discovered the truth. His answer? Well, yes, technically, I put the note and the coin under your pillow. But it’s the fairy speaking through me! But it will only work if you believe in the face of all the proof to the contrary. It never crossed my little boy’s mind that I had cleverly folded that dollar bill into a butterfly. Until Jason Alexander (yes, that’s “George” from Seinfeld) decided to write this book. Don’t read it to your children unless they are already fully skeptical of the presence of magic and wonder in the world.
