Achieving Agency (with Help from Our Inner Crocodile)
March 8, 2018 Comments Off on Achieving Agency (with Help from Our Inner Crocodile)
When was the last time we steered, bribed, or (come on, we’ve all been there) threatened our children in a direction we thought was in their best interest? When was the last time we worried our child was missing out, or not trying new things, or not duly considering the consequences of his actions? When was the last time we intervened to save our children from themselves?
When was the last time we had all this “help” thrown back in our faces with a crocodile-sized chomp? « Read the rest of this entry »
Weathering the Oopses
February 1, 2018 § 9 Comments
Compared to last week, this week’s book may a lighter pick, but it will do no less to make better parents out of us. In fact, it’s possible I needed this reality check more than my kids.
There are days when it feels like my children leave a trail of oopses in their wake. Days when my daughter—at seven, I tell you!—can’t seem to get a single forkful to her mouth without losing some of it down her shirt and onto the floor. When my son leaves his aircraft carrier outside his sister’s door and she steps on it with bare, now-bloodied feet. When just-poured glasses are knocked over by careless elbows; when Christmas ornaments become dislodged and shatter to pieces on the floor as running feet whiz by; when HOW ABOUT NO ONE MOVE BECAUSE THE HOUSE WAS JUST CLEANED AND I CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE! « Read the rest of this entry »
Rock, Paper, Scissors, Shoot!
May 25, 2017 § 3 Comments
It never fails to astonish me how long my kids can withstand a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. Earlier this spring, we waited in line for three hours to get tickets to an art exhibit, and they entertained themselves for at least an hour playing this hand game. Long after myself—and every adult around us—was ready to banish the words “rock,” ‘paper,” and “scissors” from the English language, my kids kept going. Alas, this is not a quiet game.
Perhaps when I could have been pondering nobler pursuits, I have instead been asking myself: What is it about this highly repetitive game (“Rock, paper, scissors, shoot! Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!”) that lends itself to such welcome repetition? The answer, I’ve decided, is larger than simply immediate gratification or the apparent thrill of saying “shoot” over and over. RPS is the perfect game of chance. Rock trumps scissors trumps paper trumps rock. (Those are all the Trumps you’ll get out of me.) It’s an equilateral triangle—a closed system, if you will–where each opponent has an equal shot at winning and losing. (Apparently, this is not strictly true, as some professional players—yup, they exist—are able to “recognize and exploit unconscious patterns in their opponents’ play.”) « Read the rest of this entry »
Comic Relief
February 2, 2017 § 1 Comment
Robert Frost wrote, “If we couldn’t laugh we would all go insane.” Given the headlines of the past two weeks, it’s getting increasingly difficult to laugh at ourselves. Thankfully, we can turn to literature and art to restore our sanity.
When it comes to choosing reading (or television) material, my husband is fond of reminding me that he “only wants a laugh.” Such proclivity doesn’t exist in me. True to form, I began January by losing myself in Adam Haslett’s devastating (if devastatingly beautiful) novel, Imagine Me Gone, where at one point a manic-depressive father sits across from his recently teenaged son and laments silently, “If I ever had the care of his soul, I don’t anymore.” I couldn’t look at my own (rapidly-aging) children for the rest of the day without crying—much less handle reading the news—so I traded in that book for Tina Fey’s performance of Bossypants, which I listened to for the next two weeks in the car. Doubling over the steering wheel in convulsive laughter feels like more appropriate self-care for the times.
Interjecting giggles into our family life came more easily with John Patrick Green’s Hippopotamister. « Read the rest of this entry »
Laughing Our Way Back to School
September 8, 2016 § 5 Comments
(Before we get started—HELLLLOOOOO AGAIN!—I thought I’d link to three guest posts that I wrote as part of a Summer Reading Series for the local blog, DIY Del Ray. There’s one on picture books about the garden; one on recent new installments in our favorite early-chapter series; and one on my favorite middle-grade chapter books so far this year.)
And now, let’s get down to today’s business.
As I write this, my kids have been back in school for a few short hours. The house is blissfully, rapturously, guiltily quiet. The good news is that I can finally do laundry in the basement without my children scootering—and I mean, quite literally scootering—around me. The bad news is that I can’t get cuddles or kisses or giggles whenever I want.
As my kids get older, it becomes harder and harder to see summer end. I will miss my buddies. I will miss our lazy mornings (only the mail carrier knows how long we stayed in our pajamas). Most of all, I will miss our adventures—the way every new shade of green, every sun-kissed rock, every goldfinch and swallowtail and cicada becomes something to marvel at and remark on.
And I will, of course, miss the many hours we curled up to read together (as well as the times when we were too busy catching a ferry or celebrating a swim meet or chasing fireflies to read at all). Lest you think my silence this summer meant that we didn’t discover piles of new books, I can promise you redemption this fall. We have a lot to catch up on.
Beginning with what we read at the very end of our summer break. « Read the rest of this entry »
The Easter Chick Has Nothing On These Goslings
March 17, 2016 § 3 Comments
Easter quickly approaches, and the race to fill Easter baskets is on. Chocolate bunnies and Cadbury eggs line the grocery checkout aisles. Toy stores have Easter displays with irresistibly soft plush chicks, some of which even peep when you drop them. Bunnies and chicks, chicks and bunnies: this is what the commercial side of Easter preaches.
If we are talking books—which every Easter basket needs—the perfect bunny-themed choice is, without question, The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes, which I wrote about here (and which—sound the trumpets—happens to be available in a petite basket-fitting edition that comes with its own golden CHARM).
As for covering the chick quota—well, I’m going to go out on a limb and tell you to scrap the chicks this year in favor of the gosling. Specifically, the incredibly cute and insufferably stubborn goslings of Ryan T. Higgins’ Mother Bruce (Ages 3-8), a modern-day spoof on the age-old nursery rhyme. « Read the rest of this entry »
Talking Out the Scary
October 22, 2015 § 2 Comments
My daughter loves to tell us that she isn’t afraid of anything (Me thinks thou doth protest too much!). While JP is cowering under a pile of stuffed animals during a thunderstorm, Emily will announce, “I’m not a bit scared of thunder.” Last Halloween, when JP screamed bloody murder as a suspended bloody hand lunged towards him in a haunted house, Emily was quick to point out, “That’s not even real.”
But ask her to go upstairs to get something in the evening, when the lights haven’t been turned on yet, and she will rattle off every excuse in the book as to why she can’t. “I’m super busy helping my baby use the potty right now.” Not surprisingly, JP can’t resist taunting her: “Are you scared of the dark, Emily?” “I’m not scared, JP. I just don’t like it. Also, sometimes you jump out at me.”
In case you missed my list of favorite Halloweeny-but-not-Halloween-specific books, which was featured last week on local blog DIY Del Ray, you can find it here. But before we wrap up one of the best holidays for reading aloud, I want to tell you about one other new picture book. It features ghosts and witches, but it also introduces a broader conversation about what children find scary—and how talking can sometimes be the best cure for what lurks in the dark.
Yes, I am Recommending a Book About Zombie Tag
October 1, 2015 § 5 Comments
You know when you read something and you realize, WAIT, you mean other people’s children do that, too? You mean other mothers feel that way, too? You mean I’m not spinning alone in some upside-down bubble in this roller coaster we call parenting?
And then you think, I need to read this more often (much cheaper than therapy).
That’s the central driving force behind my willingness to oblige my children and read to them Scott McCormick and R.H. Lazzell’s graphic chapter series about the illustrious troublemaker, Mr. Pants, over and over again. As a general rule, I’ll usually do whatever it takes to avoid reading graphic novels aloud (yes, I know they can be amazing, but I find them incredibly awkward to read aloud; plus, my eight year old is so obsessed with all things comics that he’s perfectly happy to read them quietly to himself).
Don’t get me wrong: the Mr. Pants books (Ages 6-10) are fan-freaking-tastic for developing or reluctant readers to read themselves. I’m just saying that I will gladly pounce on the chance to read them aloud. Because, well, it’s like reading about our life. ONLY FUNNIER. Much, much funnier. As in, tears running down my face as my kids roll around on the floor clutching their sides. It’s possible that I’m just really, really good at this…although I have faith that you’ll rise to the challenge, too.
The Richard Scarry Book You Don’t Own (Yet)
September 17, 2015 § 3 Comments
The Greatest Thing has happened. The Richard Scarry book that I most loved as a child is BACK IN PRINT! That’s right, I no longer have to lie awake at night, debating whether to drop $100 on eBay so that my kids can share in my childhood nostalgia. There I was, casually browsing the aisles of my neighborhood bookstore, when I caught sight of a double decker London bus, packed with a menagerie of dressed-up animals. I let out an audible squeal, snatched up every copy on the shelf, and ran directly to the counter to buy them all. (Yes, I have a problem, but there are worse addictions to have…right?)
You might think you already have enough Richard Scarry in your life. Sure, I get it. You might have read Cars and Trucks and Things That Go so many times (like I did, when my son was two and waking up at 5:15am every single day), that you have had to “misplace” it on occasion. Or, you might feel like you have already lost years of your life talking about a certain worm who lives in a Busy, Busy Town and walks upright wearing a single shoe.
But you might also remember that, sometimes, the only reason you can answer your child’s 700 daily questions stems from your proficient readings of What Do People Do All Day? (After all, when you became a parent, you didn’t know you would need a working knowledge of how streets are paved and houses are built and paper is made and a mailed letter gets from one place to another.) You might also take a moment to reflect how, when your children were younger and people commented on their impressive vocabulary, you might owe more than you think to the hours you spent—at their request, of course—pointing at items on supermarket shelves in the Best Word Book Ever.
In the spirit of outing my children’s addiction within my addiction, I am here to confess to you that we own TWENTY NINE different Richard Scarry books (calm down, I’ve only listed my favorites at the end of this post). For the past eight years, Richard Scarry has topped our “most often read” lists more than any other books. I trip over them more than any Lego or baby doll. Yes, I have sometimes buried my face in my hands and lamented to my children that I just don’t have it in me to read another 72-page book that’s heavy on words and light on plot. But, most of the time, I oblige. Because it makes them so darn happy.
And because I remember how much I adored these books as a child.
Which brings me to the recent republication (in honor of its 50th anniversary) of Busy, Busy World (Ages 4-8), one more Richard Scarry title that you ABSOLUTELY WILL NEED TO ADD TO YOUR COLLECTION. As I’ve said, my love affair with this anthology of 33 internationally-themed two-page stories—think of it as Busy, Busy Town goes global—began as a child myself. « Read the rest of this entry »
Over the (Big) Top
May 14, 2015 § 4 Comments
There’s an undeniable thrill that comes from binge reading a series that has already been published in its entirety. But it can be equally exciting to read through a series in real time, anticipating the next installment for months, then rediscovering characters like old friends. One of our family’s greatest literary pleasures over the past 18 months has been the Three-Ring Rascals series (Ages 7-11, younger if reading aloud), by sister duo Kate Klise (author) and M. Sarah Klise (illustrator). Perhaps you heard our squeals a few weeks ago, when my kids and I walked into our local bookstore and discovered that the fourth installment, Pop Goes the Circus!, was out (with still more on the way!).
What has made this early-chapter book series such a joy in our house is that it has been enjoyed equally and together by my four and seven year old. In fact, it hits every criteria on my Must-Find-Chapter-Book-That-Appeals-to-Both-Hooligans agenda. « Read the rest of this entry »
The Physical Comedy of Pippi Longstocking
April 24, 2015 § 3 Comments
There was a point earlier this year, when I was recovering from the flu and still not up and about, that I found myself lying in bed, reading aloud to my kids—both of whom, instead of tucked in beside me, were at the foot of the bed, running in place on my foam roller. If you’ve ever tried running in place on a foam roller, you’ll know that it is not possible. Hence, as I was lying there reading, little heads kept disappearing from sight and then popping back up again. Normally, as a reader, this would have driven me insane. Except that this particular shenanigan seemed perfectly fitting for the reading material at hand.
It is downright impossible to sit demurely while listening to The Adventures of Pippi Longstocking (Ages 5-8 if reading aloud, older if reading independently). This beautifully bound anthology combines three of Astrid Lindgren’s unabridged 1950s chapter books (Pippi Longstocking, Pippi Goes on Board, and Pippi in the South Seas) with the ebullient, contemporary pen-and-ink illustrations of Michael Chesworth.
You see, there’s just something about Pippi—one of children’s literature’s most infamous, compelling, and downright hilarious young heroines—that invites physical participation from her audience. « Read the rest of this entry »
Pajamas Optional
March 5, 2015 § 2 Comments
Who’s ready for a good snooze right about now? I’m not talking about the fall-into-bed-eyes-already-closing-ready-to-be-awakened-at-any-time kind of snooze, which is par for the course when parenting young children. I’m talking about a luxurious, heavenly, finest-Egyptian-cotton type snooze…a long, uninterrupted, sleep-in-as-late-as-you-want sort of snooze…a snooze in a silent house, where the only sound you have to worry about is the steady pit-pit-patter of melting ice outside.
If that sounds too good to be true, it is. But, for those of us who prefer to live life in the tiny space between reality and fiction, I have a close second. The newly-published Snoozefest (Ages 3-7), written by the always witty and clever Samantha Berger, and charmingly illustrated by British newcomer Kristyna Litten, is a book you can gift with abandon (you know, when you’re not sleeping) to all those kids of parents who shoulda, coulda, woulda be sleeping more. It’s a book that celebrates snoozing. And not just any snoozing. We’re talking snoozing so deep, so restorative, that it warrants its own festival. Welcome to Snoozefest: a Lollapalooza for people who love to sleep (yes, my fellow almost-forty year olds, this is what it has come to). « Read the rest of this entry »
My Favorite Book of the Year (Holiday Gift Guide 2014 Kicks Off)
November 20, 2014 Comments Off on My Favorite Book of the Year (Holiday Gift Guide 2014 Kicks Off)
I’m going out on a limb here and telling you that I cannot imagine a single person on your holiday list who would not love to receive Bob Shea and Lane Smith’s latest picture book, Kid Sheriff and the Terrible Toads (best for ages 4-10). Our family is so utterly and completely obsessed with it—and has been since June, when I brought home an advance copy from a conference—that, not only do we have the entire thing memorized, but we have taken to quoting it around the dinner table to crack ourselves up. Scout’s honor. Find me something more fun than reading this book aloud. You cannot.
Kid Sheriff, a collaboration by two of the funniest men in the biz, combines the over-the-top absurdity of a Western yarn with the deadpan seriousness of a child’s logic. The end result is pages of layered and spectacular off-beat humor. (Oh, to be a fly on the wall when Shea and Smith come up with this stuff!) It’s the ultimate boy-outsmarts-adults story. « Read the rest of this entry »
At Last, Something for the Youngest Sibling
November 6, 2014 § 1 Comment
One book that all the Book People will be talking about this holiday season is Abby Hanlon’s Dory Fantasmagory (Ages 5-9), an illustrated early-chapter book featuring one of the spunkiest, most imaginative, most genuinely real six-year-old girls to grace the pages of children’s literature. (After all, it was written by a former first-grade teacher.) If you really want to impress people with how in the know you are, you should buy the book this month, instead of waiting until next month, and then you should give it to everyone you know—regardless of whether it’s their birthday or not. Just a thought.
It’s possible that I’ve lost perspective on this 153-page gem, because I have, by request, read it upwards of ten times to my four year old in the past month (and don’t think that her seven-year-old brother doesn’t listen in at every chance he gets). I’m beginning to feel like Dory (nicknamed Rascal) and Emily are actually the same person (wait, are they?). Both talk to themselves incessantly, invent wild fantasies in their play, wear strange things around the house, and will stop at nothing to get the attention of their older siblings. I don’t think that Emily has a bearded fairy godmother named Mr. Nugget, or that she believes there are at least seven (mostly) hospitable monsters living in our house…but then again, I can’t be sure. « Read the rest of this entry »
Thank Goodness for Book Pushers
October 9, 2014 § 3 Comments
My husband thought he was very clever when he surreptitiously posted to his Facebook page that The Book Mommy (a.k.a. me) had been overheard muttering to herself, “If I have to pick up another book off the floor, I swear I am getting rid of all of them!” Sigh. We all have our moments. Even the most book-obsessed among us.
Most of the time, I am exceedingly grateful for the sea of books that overtakes our house every day: when books from our overflowing shelves mix with stacks of incoming library books and set my children’s imaginations afloat.
Case in point.
Yes, I’m firmly in the camp that it is impossible to have too many books (really good books, that is). You might say I’m a lot like the book-pushing Mouse in Bonny Becker’s A Library Book for Bear (Ages 3-6), the latest installment in her beloved Bear and Mouse series, which never fails to have my children roaring with laughter (and which allows me to don a British accent, as that’s how I’ve always imagined Mouse). On the off chance that you’ve been missing out on these delightful stories, you can catch up on past titles here. « Read the rest of this entry »
When Bigger Really is Better
September 25, 2014 § 1 Comment
On a Saturday morning towards the end of summer, on our way to go swimming, we swung by our local bookstore, so that I could run in and grab a gift for a birthday party later that day. My kids waited in the car with my husband, and when I returned a few minutes later, they asked with excited curiosity, “What book did you get?” I told them that I had picked a brand new one, by Kim Cooley Reeder, titled The Runaway Tomato (Ages 2-6). “RUNAWAY TOMATO?!” they shrieked, throwing their heads back in laughter. And thus commenced twenty minutes of their regaling us with their own ideas of where a runaway tomato might come from and what it might do.
Perhaps it’s because our attempt at growing tomatoes this year was such an Epic Failure, that my children think the idea of harvesting gigantic tomatoes is pure absurdity. Or perhaps there is just something innately hilarious about stories starring fruits and vegetables gone rogue (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs has always been a favorite of JP). Either way, we had to return to the bookstore a week later to get a copy for ourselves. « Read the rest of this entry »
Where Imagination Reigns
September 18, 2014 § 3 Comments
I’m going to tell you something I’ve never told anyone before. When I was ten, I was obsessed with Jean Craighead George’s My Side of the Mountain, the award-winning novel about a boy who runs away to live in a hollowed-out tree in the Catskill Mountains. This (naturally) meant that I started pretending that my New York City bedroom, a tiny room off the kitchen, on the opposite end of our apartment from my parents and sister, was actually the top of a mountain, covered with rocky terrain and miles from civilization. When I’d wash my face before bed, in the teeny adjoining bathroom, I’d turn on the cold tap, close my eyes, and imagine that I was splashing myself from an icy mountain stream.
Yes, I was a book nerd (still am). But I’m letting you in on this little secret twenty years later to make a point: for children, bedrooms have always been magical gateways to flights of imagination. Take Where the Wild Things Are, my four-year-old daughter’s current obsession. Is it a coincidence that young Max is sent to his bedroom before the walls fall away and he journeys to the land of the Wild Things? Of course not. The boy’s adventures behind closed doors are entirely his own. They are private. They are bizarre. They are scary. They are magnificent.
I told you recently about how my daughter claims a raccoon visits her each night while she sleeps, making a “racket-tacket” loud enough to wake her up. So I instantly knew that John Burningham’s The Way to the Zoo (Ages 3-7)—a new picture book about a girl who discovers a secret door in her bedroom leading to a zoo, thereby unleashing a slew of nightly visits from different animals—would be a slam dunk for us. « Read the rest of this entry »
Mischief Making
September 4, 2014 § 2 Comments
Every spring and fall, there are a few weekends where my husband and I become so absorbed in the Giant Time Suck that is yard work, that we essentially ignore our children. Going into these weekends, I always envision this picture of domestic bliss, where JP and Emily will be working alongside us, shoveling heaps of mulch into the flower beds, or hauling handfuls of leaves into bags (because aren’t kids supposed to relish any chance to be around dirt, not to mention dangerous tools?). Quickly, though, our kids tire of manual labor; their attention wanes, and they’ll announce, “We’re going inside,” where they will drag every toy into the center of the living room and play, largely unsupervised, for hours. I say largely unsupervised, because I don’t want you to think that I’m completely negligent. Sometimes I look in the window to discover that they have prepared themselves lunch (oh, is it that time already?).
But in all seriousness: isn’t it astounding how much we can get done when our children are off entertaining themselves? And yet, no good thing lasts forever, and there is that moment—it might come after three minutes, it might come after three hours—when it all goes to pot. When boredom begins to rear its ugly head, and the temptation to Make Mischief takes over. And when you’re a big brother, and you have at your disposal an unsuspecting little sister, this temptation is often too much to resist.
So it is perhaps no surprise that our entire family—especially the aforementioned little sister—has become fans of Lauren Castillo’s The Troublemaker (Ages 3-6). In this charming story, a boy and his stuffed raccoon surreptitiously kidnap the little sister’s stuffed rabbit and set it blindfolded and sailing across a pond, all while the parents are harvesting tomatoes (see, it’s not just me). « Read the rest of this entry »
Fueling Up With Poetry
April 29, 2014 § 3 Comments
On the Monday morning following Easter, JP crawled into my bed with a new book and proudly announced, “Mommy, I am going to read you some poems. I have lots of favorites. Some of them are very funny. Also some of them are very weird. A few of them I don’t even understand!” And hence followed one of the most enjoyable 45 minutes that I’ve had in awhile. All thanks to J. Patrick Lewis and Douglas Florian’s new Poem-Mobiles: Crazy Car Poems (Ages 5-10).
“Children dive into poetry with the same natural ease as swimmers into water, climbers into trees, and sleepers into dreams…Poetry’s narrative, rhythm and vibrant imagery is the real language of childhood.” So begins a recent online article in The Guardian about a movement among educators and publishers to bring back children’s poetry from “near extinction.” Why, if poetry is so intuitive, so enticing, for children, is it in danger of dying out? The article points a finger at booksellers, many of whom (and I admit to being guilty of this at one time) struggle with how to display and shelve a hard-to-pin-down category. Not considered picture books, not considered chapter books, they end up in their own “poetry” section way off in No Man’s Land. When was the last time you sought out the poetry shelves at your bookstore? « Read the rest of this entry »
What to Read to Your Kids 