Over Dewey’s 24-hour read-a-thon, my daughter and read three books she picked out of the library since I really didn’t have that much time to participate, but I did want to share our impressions of these books.
Freight Train by Donald Crews is a Caldecott Honor Book with few words and vibrant pictures written in 1978, it’s amazing that the book is still so relevant today. The freight trains still run, and the parts of the train are still the same. But this book strives not only to teach young children about the parts of a train and how it gets from one place to another, moving on through the day and night, but it also teaches colors with each part of the train a different color. My daughter was engaged while I read and repeated each color with me, but she loved watching the train go as I flipped the pages.
Where’s Walrus? by Stephen Savage is similar to the Where’s Waldo? books I remember, but with a goofy looking Walrus. The trick of this book is that many of the other images are gray, similar to the walrus, making it harder for kids to discern the walrus from his surroundings. It’s a book about observation and recognition. My daughter and I had fun with this book, as did her daddy. We made it two games in one — the first pass we found walrus and on the second pass we found the zoo keeper who was trying to get him back into the zoo. She liked this one so much she wanted to keep playing it several more times in a row…and she’s almost got the word walrus enunciated correctly.
Halloween Forest by Marion Dane Bauer, illustrated by John Shelley is a book of poetry, or at least that’s how it reads…like the children’s books of my childhood (i.e. Little Miss Muffet). The illustrations are engaging and unique, and in many ways would seem scary to young kids, since it is a forest made of bones. However, my daughter is fascinated by the pictures and not scared at all by the bone forest, which could be related to the empowering statements of the poem-like lines in which the child is not scared but demands her trick-or-treat dues. The little one and I enjoy this one a lot, and it is perfect for the current season. Our library actually has shelf sections based on holidays and seasons, which is where I found this one for her and I to read. Really engaging visually and textually.
That’s it, what good children’s books have you shared with your kids that you both enjoyed?
These are my 65th, 66th, and 67th books for the 2013 New Authors Challenge.
I envy getting to read all these kids books. I think they are so cute. I’m glad the little one likes books so much but then how could she not. Lol.
There are some books that she loves more than others, no matter what the message…
My daughter and I checked out the kid section the last time we went to the bookstore and she remembered how we used to sit and read all the picture books on display. Now, sadly…she is in the YA section. Already! She is only ten, but B&N moved the tween books to the YA section so now they are all intermingled.
I haven’t been to a bookstore in a long while because we’re on a tight budget. I can imagine what it will be like when my daughter moves from fun kids books to more YA material.
Glad you enjoyed these. I thought the illustrations in the Halloween one were fantastic when you showed them to me.
She still has these and a bunch of others out of the library!
They all look like winners! Books that engage kids are so much fun!
She had such a fun time during read-a-thon