bibliomom

So while perusing the Hoagies’ Gifted Education site, I came across this fabulous link to Scholastic’s Teacher Book Wizard which is so amazingly cool. Their “BookAlike” search allows you to plug in the name of a book your kid likes, adjust the the reading level up or down, and then searches for similar books.

I’m not going to claim it’s perfect, but what a fabulous resource!

And it’s especially useful when trying to find books that work for kids reading below or above the “standard” level.

(If you do have a early/advanced/gifted reader – 0r a kid that’s just significantly ahead in any given subject – by all means check out the Hoagies’ site: they have some fabulous links and great book ideas.)

So on a rare foray to a brick-and-mortar book store, I happened upon this little book. It had an eye-catching cover that grew creepier the longer I looked at it: people with bizarrely wide gaping mouths in a darkened theater. No wait … were those eyes inside the mouths? Eyes and teeth? Wah! Those are monsters in there! Wearing full head people masks! Ewww!

And that’s largely how the best of the book is: creepiness, supplanted by uneasiness, followed by a large, “Wah!” as you figure out what was actually going on.

In other words, some wonderful examples of the kind of “gotcha!” moment that really good super-short stories have.

Now, I’m not going to claim all the stories are great – they aren’t. And they aren’t all traditional stories, either. There’s graphic stories, poetry, parody, even “Horrorku”, as one author phrased it. One of my very favorites stories consists of one page. One page. One picture. One set of numbered captions, and a truly amazing, “Wah!” as I finally figured out what was going on.

I don’t even like horror stories!

But this is a good book with some really tight writing. If you have a kid who likes scary stuff, it’s a no-brainer. I bought it for my soon-to-be-twelve year old niece as a birthday gift, but the writing is good enough for any medium t0 advanced reader to enjoy. Selections can also be used to study effective writing – how to establish mood, character and setting in just a few sentences – as well as being able to read the subtext of the story – many of the stories require the ability to accurately predict what comes next or logically deduce what’s really going on in order for the story to work. Great work for kids with social delays if they can handle the scariness.

And about that scariness … it’s too much for my son. He’s nine and doesn’t like scary things, and even the not-so-scary stories disturbed him. This is a book where the kids really can die or be eaten and they won’t come back again. So as much as I’d like to work with him on appreciating the writing and logical outcome, it’s not going to happen. Not all the stories are scary – some go for more of a humorous twist – but you need to be sure your kid can deal the ones that are really disturbing. And mine isn’t able to deal with a world where the monster under the bed eats the dad.

Back to the good stuff, some really well known authors contributed to this book – Lemony Snicket, Neil Gaiman, R.L. Stein, Margaret Atwood, Jon Scieszka – so the variety really is amazing.

Now the Amazon page for Half-Minute Horrors does give examples of some of the writing – some of my favorite pieces, actually – but if you think this if for you, I’d suggest saving the pleasure by waiting till you read the book.

Preferably someplace warm and well lit.

My Monkey likes art. He likes it sooo much that when he was a preschooler, he refused to draw for almost a whole year because his circles weren’t round enough.

(Really, you’d think that would have tipped me off that we were swimming in the deep end of the gene pool, but nooo, you can’t teach me anything.)

Eventually, he started drawing again and we’ve never looked back. But now that he’s all big, we actually have to start officially linking art into his curriculum, or at least log what we already do. And since I’m am now a) part of an impromptu co-op with adoptingmama and another friend and b) the one with the art history minor, I am also c) the one teaching an art class to a group of eight or nine kids on a semi-regular basis. All of which has made me start thinking more seriously about curriculum type stuff.

Before I get started, I would like to state the obvious and say there are as many ways of teaching art as there are people, and what’s important to one person might be deemed unnecessary by another. Teaching your child about the life cycle of a frog or building a baking soda-and-vinegar volcano is not what my husband would call real science. Real science (to keep up my husband’s inflection and attitude) is far more than spitting out random facts or blowing things up. It’s fun and useful, but has about as much to do with real science (there go those darn italics again) as, well, Michelangelo’s Pieta does with the tissue paper handprints my child brings home from Bible class.

So first, think about what your actual goals are. Do you just want to do some fun, creative and messy projects? Fabulous. Because that’s what this section’s about. I love books like Mudworks which is full of easy, fun recipes for all kinds of different modeling doughs and ideas on how to use it. Basic playdough for daily sensory activities, baked dough for beads and jewelry, gingerbread dough for the creative baker, and novelty doughs using everything from peanut butter to dryer lint. Completely fun and great for preschoolers up through middle school.

It’s not art.

But it is a really fun and completely age appropriate craft. And you can find ideas for school appropriate crafts everywhere. Parenting magazines? Full of them. Holiday themed, Season themed – Usborne books like Pirate Things to Make and Do are also full of themed activities – and themes can be good if you have a reluctant artist. And yes, I just said “artist” in the same paragraph where I explained that this isn’t art. Art vs. Craft is not a fight I’m going to get into. Yes, I call these craft projects when I’m feeling all snippy and self-righteous, but I think they can also be completely appropriate for art class, especially for younger kids, special needs kids, kids with visual or fine motor skill delays or just plain old reluctant artists. (Which I think are usually kids who quit art because of some kind of delay, anyway.) Art should be fun in the same way that school should be fun, and process focused art – art where the doing is more important than the final result – has a very important role in making art accessible and enjoyable. Hopefully at some point, you’ll be able to start tying those projects into larger lessons about media, technique, and a variety of artists and works. At the very least, these projects can be great for fun, fine motor skill development and adding a kinesthetic component to other school lessons. (Can I tell you how many alphabet letters with beans glued on them my daughter brought home last year?.)

So, this section isn’t much of a book review, is it? But that’s okay – I mostly just wanted to get “school crafts” out of the way. These types of projects are as old as the hills and have about as many variations. Go online and search for “Art Projects for Kids” and you’ll get about a million results.

No, wait – I lie. Google says 17 million plus. My first ten search results include:

Enchanted Learning

Amazing Moms

Crayola’s Website

How Stuff Works

Bright Ring

and the blog that was actually titled Art Projects for Kids

Now, most of these are the old school, cut out handprint, paper towel tube, aluminum foil sculpture variety. Personally, I can’t stand 99% of these projects, but everyone knows what a pretentious snot I am. I know – “Egg carton flower bouquet not good enough for ya, heh?” Well, no actually, it isn’t. Transforming household junk into painted, themed junk doesn’t really turn my crank. But there are some genuinely fun and creative projects mixed in among the beaded toilet-paper-ring-napkin-holders, so sift my darlings, sift.

The Bright Ring link is a little different as it seems to be run by the publishers of the aforementioned (and much loved) Mudworks book. This site is nice because it gives sample art projects from a variety of their books – a try-before-you-buy kind of scenario. It stinks because they left out the illustrations, so you have to rely on the text alone.

The Art Projects blog is also a little different, since it seems to include information about specific artists and DIY projects for sale, as well as focusing a bit more on technique and materials. Please remember this list is not made up of my personal favorites – it’s merely a sampling of what’s out there.

So there you have it - Part 1. Next time I’ll try to include something that’s actually useful.

I am a total slacker. Granted, when I started this blog, I didn’t expect to end up with a special needs kid. I already had a high need kid and thought that my quiet baby girl was God’s way of telling me, “It’s okay – you’ve done enough. Why don’t you take all that free time and go start a blog or something?”

So, four years and one autism diagnoses later, I’m just as busy as always. The difference is that my sweet little Bug just got on the bus and headed off for first grade. She went to therapeutic preschool at Sorenson for two years (a truly amazing school) and to a special Transitional Kindergarten class last year, but those were both half-day, four day a week programs. That’s four days a week where Monkey and I desperately tried to cram as much school work into those hours as possible and I spent the rest of the day trying to keep Bug from … well, from destroying anything crucial.

This year, Bug’s going to be off at school all day. Which is both tremendously difficult and a huge sigh of relief. Academically, she gains nothing by going. She taught herself reading and basic math in preschool, so as a dedicated homeschool parent, it’s really hard for me to write off yet another year of academics in favor of social therapy. But it also means that Monkey and I won’t have to rush through school work so frantically. We might actually have time to go out on field trips without Bug. And I might actually get to be off duty for a few hours a day. Feeling like you’re on red-alert guard duty whenever your child is in the house gets really old after the first few years. It also makes it incredibly difficult to give another child, say, a high need kid with his own significant speech and social delays, the time and attention he needs for school.

Anyway, to continue making a short story long, I’m going to try and actually review books. I know – shocking on a blog called Bibliomom. But I’m hoping I can finally do more than just write therapeutic attempts at humor and actually do something useful.

Because I really do love books. My husband also loves books. And being that the last time we went out for breakfast, all four of us were sitting there quietly reading when the waiter brought our food, I think it’s safe to say our kids are as passionate about books as we are. (Seriously – it was one of those moment that made me think, “OMG – the two of us were barely functional enough to survive childhood – what were we thinking when we decided to have kids?!”)

So, I’ll have to try and change up my reader categories and start adding in some of the cool stuff we find for homeschool every time Monkey and I start a new unit. And if I can better reading materials for a hyperlexic first grader, so much the better.

Well, spring’s a comin’ and tulips are popping up at grocery stores all over Seattle. Amazingly, we found a great book a the library that fits the spring theme and is perfect for early readers.

The Great Tulip Trade is a darling book about a little girl named Anna who receives tulips for her birthday. Of course since it’s set in 17th century Holland during the great tulip craze, amazing things begin to happen when passers by spy her beautiful flowers.

For a book about girls and flowers, it’s actually not that girly. The drawings are charming, not sappy, and little Anna shows remarkable common sense when it comes to trading her beloved tulips. The story’s well written and enjoyable, balancing the historical frenzy (and underlying greed) with Anna’s practicality and ultimate choice to save her last tulip for herself, no matter what she’s offered for it. There’s even a nice little author’s note at the end providing further information about this fascinating time.

I was really surprised at how much my son enjoyed this sweet little story. Tulips are his new favorite flower and we actually have a reason to brave the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival traffic this year. A fun little story that introduces a new moment in history with nary a pouty little princess in sight.

If only I could hope for as much from the Tulip Festival.

Once again, Costco was full of fun stuff I just couldn’t resist. One such item was their big box o’ “Coloring Classics” - which is to say, 12 coloring books pulled from the Treasury of Illustrated Classics series - Pinocchio, Robin Hood, Alice in Wonderland, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Little Women, Beauty and the Beast, Black Beauty, Jungle Book (with Rikki Tikki Tavi), Peter Pan, Treasure Island, Wind in the Willows and the Wizard of Oz. Now, I don’t think my seven year old is going to give a flying flip about Little Women, but I know plenty of kids I could pass that one on to. And in the mean time, my boy is loving just sitting and reading these easy, illustrated editions of people running around with swords - I mean “classic adventure stories”.

In some ways, I think the market for these stories is a little weird – there’s only a couple of sentences per page, but the text requires a fairly proficient early reader or adult help. The stories have been super-simplified (like a Disney color book edition of a story) but it’s still enough to get the gist of the story. (And even as an adult, I can use the five-minute reminder of what each story is about.) The pictures are fairly simplistic as well, and usually far more cartoonish than the cover. Not bad, just basic, and probably really great for early elementary kids who are really visual and/or have short attention spans, as well as for slightly younger kids whose auditory comprehension skills are up to something more complex than “Maisy Drives the Bus”.

Best of all, it’s twelve coloring books for $11.49 with no t.v. characters, movie tie-ins, or bratty princesses in sight. Perfect for kids who love to color and parents who’d like to nudge their kids towards classic literature instead of the t.v.

Right up my alley.

I just love Christina Katerina and her magical box. Lucky for me, so do my kids.

This was one of those great books that I remembered from some unspecified point in my childhood. You know, the kind of book that just leaps of the shelf at you when you happen to pass it in a store. “Oh, oh!” you say, bouncing up and down excitedly, “I remember this! Oh, kids – you’re going to love this book!”

The story is about a spirited little girl (replete with 70s bell bottoms) with a brilliant imagination and a love of play. Her mother is thrilled with the delivery of a new refrigerator, but Christina has eyes only for the box it came in.

“Oh, how grand and new,” Christina’s mother said, looking at the refrigerator.

“It is! Oh, it really is!” said Christina, looking at the box.

With a hefty injection of imagination (and a little paint), Christina’s box is transformed into everything from a castle to a race car as she, and her “some-times friend Fats Watson” let their imaginations run wild under the apple tree.

The story is clever and subtle and highly pleasurable to read aloud. The illustrations are energetic and insightful. And best of all (at least for me) is the complete lack of sugar-coating, smarminess, or heavy handed social lessons. Christina and Fats argue, bicker, and occasionally destroy their creation. They also make up, get along, and spur each other on to new heights of creativity.

Then they met in the clubhouse (which was very dark when the door was closed and very secret), and they spit on a nickel and swore to be friends forever.

And they were.

Ah, kids that act like kids and not politically correct morality plays. My plate is full.

At a little over 30 pages, Christina Katerina & the Box is lovely little picture book and a delightful read aloud with a new surprise on every page. A real joy for parents and their wiggly boys and girls. Amazon suggests a reading level of 4 - 8, but the subtly of the humor may well keep it on the bedtime reading list for sometime to come.

While my son has worked his way past the excellent beginner BOB books, he’s by no means a flawless and accomplished reader – and that’s okay. He’s only six, after all. But it does mean that we’re always on the lookout for beginner readers that he 1) is capable of reading with minimal guidance and 2) is interested enough in to sit and just look through on his own. The Step into Reading edition of David and the Giant is both.

One of their Level 2 readers, it has a little more text and a lot more plot that he’s been reading, but they do a good job of keeping the narrative clean and the wording simple. In short, it’s a charming, easy to read edition of a familiar story. It lists for $3.99, but since WalMart (which I normally think is t3h 3vil) has a good selection of early readers for $2.50, it might be worth a special trip.

(Oh, and for those who are wondering, it manages to stay fairly true to the original story without being overly gory, preachy, or smarmy – an accomplishment in and of itself.)

Picture, if you will, the idyllic scene of an adorable pig-tailed preschooler, perched on Mama’s knee, book in hand and rapt with attention. Now picture the same child (but much dirtier) crawling around my lap and up and over my head before yanking the book out of my hand in order to rapidly flip through the pages herself.

Now guess which scene is the norm at my house.

It’s not that she doesn’t love books – she loves to look through brightly illustrated picture books, preferably featuring her favorite tv characters. But as much as she loves looking at Dora, she just doesn’t have the patience to sit through the direct-from-tv-scripted text.

Hola! It’s Valentine’s day! Boots and I just finished making a valentine’s card for my grandma! Mi abuela! We’ve also got a special Valentine’s Day surprise for her.
WIll you help us bring the surprise to Grandma’s house? Great!

This is all on the opening page. Needless to say, by the time we get to the special surprise, Bug’s grabbed the book and flipped the page herself.

Which is why we love the Maisy books. Instead of me having to make up my own story in order to keep pace with her manic page flipping (“Look! There’s Dora and Boots! Hi, Dora! Hi, Boots” insert page turn noise here), most of the Maisy books are just flat out geared for small kids with no attention span.

Take Maisy’s Train. For starters, it’s a board book – perfect for violent page turners. Second, it’s illustrated in bright, primary colors, with simple illustrations. Third, it’s only about 16 pages long. Last, and more importantly, the text consists of simple descriptions of what’s going on in the pictures and only takes 5 or 6 seconds to read – about the length of time it takes to look the picture over and turn the page.

Maisy is driving her train today. All aboard. Toot-toot.

insert page turn noise here

We’re off to the country. Hello, Geese!

It’s that basic. And yet at their best, the Maisy books are also utterly charming and entertaining. Reading Maisy’s Fire Engine makes that same wiggly girl fall off my lap giggling with delight instead of impatience.

Now, there’s a whole herd of Maisy books and videos (the videos are largely the book and text set to calm, entetaining music – we’re rather fond of those, too). There’s board books, paper books, flap books, slide/pull tab books, and a book that turns into a paper doll house. My daughter has matured a little and is now willing to sit through just about anything Maisy, but some of the stories are a little snappier than others, and different sets tend to follow different themes. For instance, Where Are Maisy’s Friends? and Where is Maisy’s Panda are two of our favorite Lift-the-Flap books where Maisy’s searching for something (“Who’s that hiding under the bed?”) – really basic and especially fun for hands-on kids. Maisy Drives the Bus and Maisy’s Pool are inexpensive paper picture books that have a bit more of a story and which my daugter adores. Maisy’s Big Flap Book is more of an activity book than a story (“Maisy and Tallulah work in the garden. Look how many flowers they have grown! Can you count the flower and bugs in each row?” proceed to flip up 15 flower flaps) but what’s not to love about an oversized board book with flaps? Some of the pull-tab books I’ve seen are also lots of fun, but much more fragile.

Gotta kid who won’t sit still for storytime? Try Maisy – the illustrations are always charming, the text is always simple, and with flaps, pulls and dozens of titles to choose from, there’s bound to be something your little wiggler will enjoy.

My Costco deal of the week is bulk packs of DK Readers, $14.99 for a themed set of 10 books. As these books are normally $3.99 a pieces, it’s not a bad deal.

The Level 1 Animals Pack includes books like Tale of a Tadpole and Diving Dolphin. While DK claims that the Level 1 books are for kids “Beginning to Read”, don’t expect too much simplicity – my son’s still very challenged by phrases like “The golden-skinned frog chases a dragonfly” and “He can breathe through his nostrils”. It’s a far cry from the BOB Books he started with, but he’ll work his way into them eventually.

The Level 2 “Nature Pack” books we bought (for kids who are “beginning to read alone” – ha!)include books on Humpback Whales, Dinosaurs, and Volcanoes – all very Gabe things. It’ll be a long time till he’s ready to read “Mount Vesuvius is a volcano in Italy”, but he really enjoys looking at the pictures and having them read to him.

As of a couple days ago, Costco still had packs of Level 1 - 4 (proficient reader) books, though I didn’t think to jot down what the different themes are. (Super heroes might have been one of the upper levels.)

If you need not-so-early readers or science and nature books, $1.50 a piece is hard to beat, but if you actually need to teach your child to read, try the BOB Books, Brand New Readers, or the Step Into Reading Level 1 books, like I Like Bugs or The Snowball (which manages to combine actual early reader text with a basic plot and humor).