Classy Crayons & (Giles Andreae Review)

I recently spoke with the gifted teacher at E's school. Our city's gifted program doesn't begin until second grade, but I was curious if there were anything I could be doing with E now. To my great surprise, she recommended exposing her to a variety of art media.

So I dutifully headed to the art supplies store and decided to start simple: oil pastels. Oil pastels are at their most basic, classy crayons. They blend better - and stain clothes and fingers better - than regular crayons, and are also softer and thus more vibrant.

I am in the middle of packing up my entire house for our impending move across town, so I threw a couple sheets of packing paper on the floor and set the girls to color while I got back to work. To give them a bit more inspiration, I propped up two Giles Andreae books.

Rumble in the Jungle

and

Commotion in the Ocean 

Both of these books are collections of short poems, each based on a different animal. Matched with the poems are the riotous illustrations of David Wojtowycz. Alive with color, his drawings match the playful tone set by the poems and engage the eye of even the squirmiest little listener. His characters are happy, vibrant, and full of personality - the perfect pairing for a book of silly poems

To give E a little added incentive, I told her to draw a picture of an animal - just like in the book - and I would write a poem to go along with it. So, ahem, without further ado.... The Jelly Fish.

A jellyfish, happy and fat,

floated by this and by that,

with a terrified look

she spotted a hook

but smiled as it caught an old hat.

Disclaimer: Rumble in the Jungle and Commotion in the Ocean was provided to me courtesy of Tiger Tails Books free of charge in exchange for a review. This does not in any way influence my review.

Cows and Calvin

There must be something about July 10th... Nikola Tesla, Charles Darwin, and Abraham Lincoln were all born on this day and today is also the 500th anniversary of John Calvin's birth. Wouldn't you be impressed if I had a wonderful children's book about Calvin to celebrate this anniversary? So would I! In truth, I just learned about it on the way home from work today, so I'm not prepared with fabulous recommendations.

What am I prepared to celebrate? National Cow Appreciation Day! That's right, Chick-fil-A has declared today a day of bovine appreciation. Everyone who shows up in a cow costume gets a free entree. Although I always enjoy a good chicken sandwich, I'm opting out of participating this year and will instead take the time to tell you about my favorite cow-themed book.


The Cow in Apple Time is not only an adorable children's book, it's also a poem by Robert Frost. Famed illustrator and cartoonist Dean Yeagle has brought this country poem to life with his darling illustrations of a cow drunk on apples. We found this book at the library and Little Page loved it so much we had to renew it at least once. By the time I pushed it into the return book slot, Little Page had the poem completely memorized. There is something amazing about hearing a 3 year old recite phrases like "the windfalls spiked with stubble and worm-eaten" and know that she understands what the poet means.

When I went to purchase the book - yes, I think it's worth adding to our personal library - I was sad to see that it is out of print. There are still copies available online, however. So if you wish to introduce your little ones to a literary poet, you can't do better than The Cow in Apple Time.

Prayer for a Child (or baby!)

Here is another of my favorite board books: Prayer for a Child by Rachel Field. This classic Caldecott Award winner is a beautifully illustrated nighttime prayer. I teared up the first time I read it to Little Page. Holding her in my lap, her freshly-washed little head resting against my chest, I read this prayer out loud and felt incredibly blessed by the experience. The poem is quaint but beautiful, asking blessing on those quiet aspects of a child's life: her milk, toys, friends, family. The illustrations of a little blond child in her victorianesque life are sweet and compliment the lines of the poem perfectly.

I think this book works as a board book because each page contains only a line or two of text. I don't know about your baby, but Littlest Page has the attention span of, well, a 10-month-old. She also loves turning pages, so the less text on a page, the better. This book is just the right length. The pictures are colorful and simple enough to hold a baby's attention. Littlest P likes to give one picture in particular big, sloppy kisses. I couldn't ask for a better endorsement!

Crawling Babies and a Great Book

This picture didn't turn out nearly as cool as I had envisioned. The baby kept crawling away - how's that for irony? Littlest Page has been crawling for several weeks now, but today she found her mojo. She's been into everything: laundry, dog food, the spice cabinet. (Her big sister found the spice cabinet incident particularly hilarious. I won't bore you with the details, but let me just say I keep the sprinkles in that cupboard.)

It's no surprise that at naptime today I chose to read The Day the Babies Crawled Away by Peggy Rathman. I bought this book at a book fair when Little P was a baby, but it became a favorite when I was pregnant with Littlest Page. The story is written in second-person and tells how "you" went after runaway babies and brought them safely back to their moms and dads. It's a sweet story with clever rhymes, but it's the illustrations that I really love. Every illustration is in sillhouete; only the negative space is in color. I love how this stretches Little P's perception of the world. We also enjoy discovering the hidden surprises in each picture. As the main character follows the babies on their adventure, little creatures join the fun. In each picture we search for the bumblebee, butterfly, frog, and others.

So the next time the kids are literally climbing the walls (or driving you up one!), pull out The Day the Babies Crawled Away and enjoy the little adventure in its pages!

The Red Lemon

It's pushing 90 degrees outside and all I want is to cool down with a nice glass of lemonade. Miss Dawn at our Barnes and Noble storytime must have felt the same way. Her first pick for the kids this morning was The Red Lemon by Bob Staake. This is one of my favorite books! The graphic designer in me drools over the artwork. Seriously, you have to check it out. The pages are uber-colorful and have a fun, retro-advertisement kind of feel. The story is a darling one, about a farmer who finds a red lemon on one of his lemon trees. The sing-song rhymes are pleasant to read and easy for children to remember.


I was actually surprised Dawn picked it out for the toddlers, as I would recommend it for 3 and older. But Dawn could make a phone book interesting, and even Littlest Page was enthralled as she read. I bought it while we were there and brought it home for Little Page's naptime. Of course, after reading it we needed to make our own red lemonade. Were I supermom, I would have painted some lemons red and then squeezed them to make fresh lemonade. Instead, I poured some store-bought lemonade I had on-hand into a glass pitcher and added red food coloring. :) Little Page loved it!

Gardening

It's a beautiful day here in Virginia! The skies are blue, there's a nice cool breeze, and the air is not humid. A rare day, to be sure. After spending the morning sitting in the sun and reading a book, I figured I had better do something productive in the afternoon. So after I picked up Little Page from school, we headed over to our local nursery to buy some flowers and spent an hour or so in the backyard gardening. Little Page had fun "helping" me pot plants while Littlest Page played (or cried, it depended on the moment) in her pack-n-play.


When we headed inside for naptime, I tried to find an appropriately-themed book. Amazingly, among all of our children's books, there isn't one that has to do with gardening. To be honest, I hate to garden, so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. I let Little Page choose whatever book she liked (which I'll highlight another day) and I put her to bed.

So instead of featuring a gardening book today, I thought I would mention A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson. A dear lady gave me this book when I was pregnant with Little Page. She has since passed, and I cherish the copy along with the note she wrote:

This is not a "first" book. It is, however, a "forever" book. Your child will pick it up or you may share it at precious little unplanned moments. Then, much later - many years later, you can appreciate the final verses "To Any Reader" on p. 116.

With love, Margaret

The last verse of the poem on p. 116 goes: "For, long ago, the truth to say,/He has grown up and gone away,/And it is but a child of air/That lingers in the garden there." Every time I read those lines, I want to cry. I remember once again how precious these few years of childhood are and how honored I am to be the one to give them to my little girls.

Bringing the Rain

It's one of those humid, heavy days with low clouds that promise a cooling rain but never deliver. In a random act of kindness, our neighbor mowed our front yard for us yesterday, cutting it short and revealing all of the dead growth underneath. I'm afraid if these clouds don't break open soon, the grass is going to die. Why am I telling you this? Because I assume you find the mundane details of our lawn care fascinating, of course. Oh, you don't? Well, you may be more interested in Ki-Pat's.

Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain is my pick for the day. It's the tale of Ki-Pat, an African herdsman who ends the drought in his land with the help of a magic eagle feather. The story is told in verse as a cumulative tale, with each new segment added to the repeated poem. (Think The House that Jack Built.) It's a simple poem but wonderfully written and fun to read. (My favorite line is "A shot from the bow,/so long and strong,/and strung with a string,/a leather thong".) The repetition and rhyme is great for early literacy. I have Little Page fill in the last word in each stanza as we move through the story, letting her be a part of the telling.

Bringing the Rain a favorite of Little Page and was a favorite of mine at her age. The author, Verna Aardema, lived in my home town and I had the privelege of hearing her read the story aloud at a local library. The tale itself comes from Kenya and was documented in an anthropologist's book in 1909. And, of course, as with most books I highlight on this blog, the illustrations are beautiful.