Sibling Play
April 11, 2014 § 1 Comment
I’ll never forget the first time it happened. JP was four, Emily was a little over one, and I realized that 45 minutes had passed and there were still only happy voices in the other room. I called a friend: “The kids are playing together! ON THEIR OWN! For like a really long time! I’m just sitting here reading a book!” (Well, technically I was talking on the phone, but the point is that I could have been reading a book.) And that’s when it hit me: this is why some people have more than one kid (or more than one dog, cat, or fish).
Watching siblings play together is one of the most endearing and gratifying experiences for a parent. (Well, until it all goes south—which it inevitably does—usually right at the moment when you have finished the dishes, wiped down the lunch table, dust-bustered the floor, and finally sat down on the sofa to page through a magazine.) But when the stars do align, as they increasingly do with age, it is in these moments that I get the clearest glimpses of my children’s budding personalities, of the people they will someday become. I see tenderness and compromise in my now six and a half year old boy, amidst the bossiness and tendency to escalate play into some form of physical combat. And in my now three and a half year old daughter, I feel her excitement, her sheer pride, in the way she confidently prattles on after her brother agrees, “OK, you can be the mommy bird, and I’ll be the baby bird.” Because, really, is it not the best feeling in the world when that older brother whom you revere in every way decides to drop everything for you?
Imagination is the great equalizer in sibling play. In the world of pretend play, it doesn’t matter how old you are. Enter Lola M. Schaefer and Jessica Meserve’s latest picture book, One Busy Day: A Story for Big Brothers and Sisters (Ages 2-6), in some ways a sequel to their first book, One Special Day, about the moment in which a little boy becomes a big brother. « Read the rest of this entry »
Siblings Being Siblings
June 26, 2012 Comments Off on Siblings Being Siblings
It wasn’t until I had more than one child of my own that I began experiencing what I’d so often heard other parents remark upon: that children raised in the same family, under seemingly identical conditions, can have completely different personalities. These differences in personality—and the interesting dynamic they create in the relationship between the siblings themselves—is beautifully captured in The Puddle Pail (Ages 3-6). This book was published in the late 90s by the supremely talented and often-overlooked author-artist Elisa Kleven (who also wrote my favorite picture book of all time: The Lion and the Little Red Bird).
Far too few children’s books showcase the natural, everyday interactions between siblings—or, more poignantly, the surprising discoveries that can emerge even amidst the competitive banter and indignant bossiness. The Puddle Pail stars two young crocodile brothers who set off for the beach, armed with empty pails. Sol, the older brother, might as well be my almost five-year-old son, JP. Both are realists and see the world in precise, everything-in-its-place terms. When it comes to filling his pail, Sol (a.k.a. JP) can’t pass up a shell or a feather or a rock without dropping it into his pail for one of his “collections” (currently in our house the window ledges are piled high with JP’s rocks, which seem less like a discriminating collection of stones and more like a dumping ground for any grey rock he steps over on the street).
You’ve Got a Friend in Me
June 5, 2012 Comments Off on You’ve Got a Friend in Me
Before homework and competitive athletics, long before college essays and declaring majors, there’s preschool. And, in preschool, there’s one thing all parents hope for: that our little ones will learn how to make a friend…or two. So I can’t help but get a little choked up every time I read a story about the blossoming of a young friendship, like the one that saves the day in Otis and the Tornado (Ages 3-7), by the incredibly talented Loren Long.
Otis and the Tornado is actually the second story Long has written about an old tractor named Otis, rundown in age but not in spirit (the equally charming first book is titled simply Otis). No one can match Loren Long’s ability to engender sympathy in his readers for inanimate objects; and he does this by endowing them with a range of soft, subtle, but highly emotive facial expressions (see also his spectacular adaptation of The Little Engine That Could). Whether he looks joyful, bashful, worried, or brave, we can’t help but love this tractor and his “putt puff puttedy chuff”s (say that three times fast). Otis is also a hit on the farm, beloved by geese and sheep alike; together they enjoy hours of rounds of Follow the Leader, with everyone taking a turn to lead (it’s a regular preschool class!).
What to Read to Your Kids 