Today I am hosting “What We are Reading This Week” for the Well Read Child; so please comment or include a link in the comments to your blog post about what you are reading this week.
At the beginning of 2009, I decided to help the Elf to keep a record of all the books she would read this year. This was due largely to the fact that she had received twenty-plus books for Christmas and had read most of them by the end of January!
We started recording the details of what she was reading in an Excel doc.; the title, author, illustrator, whether it was fiction, non-fiction, picture book, and the month in which she read it.
Now, looking over that Excel doc. as we close in on the end of 2009, I see that she has read 121 books. Most of them have been fiction chapter books, from the Rainbow Fairies and Puppy Place to the Chronicles of Narnia and the Harry Potter series. Picture books were down in consumption from last year, numbering only 13. She has read some of her favourite books twice; Kenneth Oppel’s Silverwing series, for instance. Those books were the first three on her list in January 2009 and now, they are being revisited this month, this week.
This week, we did look at a picture book together; Nutcracker Noel by Kate McMullen and illustrated by Jim McMullen. A charming story of a young girl who dreams of dancing in the Nutcracker ballet and how she deals with disappointment by becoming the best tree ever!
At work this week, the theme is Red. To the children in my care, I read, Red Is Best. It has long been one of my best loved books for toddlers and preschoolers. Below is a short review I had previously written for it.
Red Is Best
by Kathy Stinson
Art by Robin Baird Lewis
Annick Press Ltd. Copywrite 1982
ISBN 0-920236-24-3 (bound)
ISBN 0-920236-26-X 9pbk)
Kelly’s mom just “doesn’t understand about red”.
Stinson gets it though. She thoroughly captures a young child’s affinity for all things “favourite”, and in this case, obviously, red! Any one who has ever known a preschooler will definitely relate.
And Kelly, well, she possesses the wisdom that all small children do… she instinctively knows that “juice tastes better in the red cup” and that she can “jump higher in (her) red stockings”. We could all learn from following these types of instincts. Some things just make us feel better and it is good to acknowledge this and surround ourselves in these comforts, whatever they may be.
I’m off now to slip into my deep purple chenille bath robe.
I relax best in my deep purple chenille bathrobe.
Kingston, the solar eclipse, a cool bathroom
6 days ago
