a little bit of this and that

Some fun commentary on the maps of my favorite childhood places.

In personal news, my son finished a book yesterday and then told his dad he should read it, because it was really good! Our work here is done. Except for the part where he reads the book. That's almost done, since it was pretty short.

The book was one of the "Zack Files" series by Dan Greenburg, which I find amusingly meta, because while I was pregnant, I read Greenburg's Confessions of a Pregnant Father, which was about the birth of his son, Zack.

a kid's opinion

My husband was buying some books for a birthday present today (the Wayside stories, you know you want to know) and a certain picture book was prominently featured on the counter. After the purchases were concluded, he discovered our son had picked it up and was reading it. He asked what he thought, to which our son said, "I don't understand what kind of person would tell someone to go to sleep that way."

My husband explained that sometimes when kids won't go to sleep, parents get very frustrated and feel at the edge of their ropes, and told a few choice stories from the past.

To which our son replied, "Well now I feel guilty!"

So to everyone who worried about actual kids reading this book... it's a good thing!

Little Plum continued

Belinda has just left the first nastygram for Gem and my son asked, "Shouldn't she have left a nicer note?"

I was so pleased to have him recognize that, and how fascinating to see him trying to navigate the world of interactions... I didn't think of that at all when I chose this book, but it's really quite emotionally complex. What better place to learn about people than children's books? It's where I learned.

plum season

I've been thinking that I haven't been making the best choices for read-alouds; the books I loved to read to myself don't always translate. So tonight I put my mind to finding a book that would sound wonderful and came up with Little Plum by Rumer Godden. I remember how fond I was of the unique way Godden wrote sentences, blending narrative and dialog.

It's going great; my son is responding so well to the cadence and the language. At one point he said he could just tell he was going to like this book. Since he had me read for a solid hour, I'd say so.

my son, on the introduction of Eilonwy

"She sure does talk a lot, doesn't she."

Rosemary Wells Johnson was right!

Last week my son read The Runaway Robot, an old favorite of his father's. I've never read it, so now he's reading it to me.

happy sigh

Tonight I started reading Magic in the Alley to my son. Right after Cleery wished to find something enchanted in every alley, he burst out, "this is going to be a GOOD book!"

my son reviews the Big Nate books, in verse

Big Nate is cool
and so are you-l.

what it is to be me

I started reading The Witch Family to my son today. I thought he would enjoy the part in which the little witches do everything backwards, including math: 1+1=0, 2+1=1, and so on. He did. So much, that he started calculating how it would work with negative numbers and fractions.

children's books live forever

I was adding my comments on Brendan Buckley's Universe and Everything In It to my bibliography of books featuring multiracial families and came across my review of In My Heart by Molly Bang. I donated my review copy of it to my son's preschool and I don't know if he actually remembers the book, but he still often tells us, "I carry you in my heart."

"Every wish brings trouble!"

Our family Read-Aloud adventures have successfully transitioned from Edward Eager to E. Nesbit! I don't really know why I'm so surprised; when you think about it, the childhoods of Eager's world probably doesn't seem that much further away from the current one than Nesbit's does. It's all strange and of the past. The language is more complex, but my son enjoys complex language. Also, his father does the best English accents, what more could you ask for?

I love listening to the questions he asks as he hears the story. So many things are new to him. Turns of phrase, concepts. He talked about the magic stories generally having four children - my boy identified his first literary trope! I'm so proud.

In other news, I'm reading Marcelo on the Real World, which is very interesting. But I'm not quite getting why Marcelo is hesitant to call his condition Asperger's Syndrome. He certainly seems autistic to me.

a short quiz on classic children's books

We've been having a school-at-home day. Evan asked our son to read a chapter of a children's book and then draw a picture about it. Son hates this assignment because he is very self-conscious about his drawing skills. Evan told him that since he's very comfortable drawing pac-man characters, he should just draw all the characters as pac-men.

Can you name these characters?

~\o is this the little boy, etc. etc. ~\o

My rapidly growing little boy despises picture books these days. I brought home Where is Christmas, Jesse Bear? from the library, because it has been a perennial favorite, and he gave it the most WTF?! look I've ever seen. As if I'd handed him a baby bottle and told him it was dinner.

Now he's off reading The Hobbit. Isn't there any middle ground? Is he going to just completely skip the Melendys and the Moffats and Chester and Tucker, or even the more modern equivalents thereof? I suppose it's in his genes to love high fantasy, he was born to be a geek, but gosh, he is missing out on a lot.

Now back to the Herculean task of cleaning out his picture books. Which takes forever, because of all the awwing and sighing. On my part, that is.

Reading with Ben - Poetry Saturday

My son tends to find his own books, and very selectively too, so it was a little thrill to see him reading something I'd put on his shelves, Making Friends with Frankenstein. Tonight his dad was out of town, so rather than the usual installment of Harry Potter with voices, I picked up MFwF and read him some of it. What a fascinating experience it is to read comic poetry with a highly intelligent autistic child. He wanted me to explain many of the jokes, especially the puns, but then he found them just hilarious.

He's reading to himself now and I can hear almost constant laughter.

It doesn't seem to be in print at the moment, but used copies abound. My original review:



Making Friends With Frankenstein written and illustrated by Colin McNaughton. Candlewick, 1994 (1-56402-308-7) $19.95; 2001 (0-7636-1552-8) $4.99 pb

The gross, grisly, subversive and wickedly amusing atmosphere of children's playground verses is perfectly captured in this original collection of "monstrous poems and pictures." By turns gruesome, malevolent and cynical--but always gleeful--Making Friends With Frankenstein is delightfully shocking and hysterically funny. The cartoony pictures are an excellent match for the verses: neither are for the weak of stomach. American readers may be baffled by occasional references to English expressions and culture, but that's no big deal--they'll still devour this book and scream for more.

© 2009 Wendy E. Betts

hmmm

My son is sprawled on my office floor, reading a book of tips on raising an autistic child.

No wonder he's always a few steps ahead of us.

I'm a little unnerved if finding books on my shelves turns out to be a trend. I hate the thought of taking a book away from him, but seven does seem a tad young for bodice-rippers.

I love you, MotherReader

My little guy was jealous of my being in a book challenge, so we encouraged him to join in and pick a book from the chapter books I've been saving for him. So Mr. Nonfiction is currently reading The Best Halloween Ever.

careful what you wish for

I remember it was during the very first 48 Hour Book Challenge that I realized my son was really reading. Now, two years later, he and I practically came to blows over who got first crack at the new "Scrambled States of America" book.

(I let him win.)

I will be starting my 48 hours bright and early tomorrow morning. Well... tomorrow, anyway.

color commentary

"The color kittens couldn't read -- but I can! I don't have to figure things out from context."

sniff

My son definitely inherited the Librarian gene. He's been weeding his beginning readers, leaving me the heartbreaking task of saying goodbye to his old Dr. Seuss and the good Berenstain Bears books. So many memories... especially of Evan adding about 50 extra B words to The B Book (his extra ending: "Bummer.") And his lugubrious, Droopy-the-Dog-inspired Knox while reading Fox in Socks.

More evidence of the Librarian gene. Note that he is not constrained by the limits of National Poetry Month!

poetry Friday: late edition

An impromptu poem by my son. Can you guess which children's book inspired it?


I want to do EVERYTHING!
I want to...
fix clocks
climb poles
fix guitars
make folks well
be a teacher
help the world
be a musician
and kiss you