Books for Your little Sweethearts!

VALENTINES DAY IS ALMOST HERE!

Of course a hug is the best gift one can receive on Valentines Day. Home made cards are also nice, especially if they are received Valentines Day, and not two days later (pay attention dear husband). But I have to say that chocolate is not a nice gift, it is fattening, it melts in the sun, and it can be hard to share. Books however, are not fattening, can take quite a bit of heat and light, and are best shared. So if you must give a gift for Valentines Day, I highly recommend giving a book. Below are some of my favorites.

Loving Board Books

Too Many Kisses by Ethan Long

Oscar can only say three words, and they aren't "I love you". He can say "hi", "bye", and "hot" - though Delia who watches him Tuesdays and Thursdays swears he can say "vaca" (Spanish for cow). So maybe he can say four words. I'm not really sure how many words he can understand, but I'm pretty sure he doesn't know the word "kisses" or "gurgle" or "shlurp"; this lack of word knowledge doesn't stop him from breaking into a fit of giggles when we push the "PRESS ME! KISS ME!" button on this board book and hear an awesome slurpy moochy kiss. Too Many Kisses is the only book that will make my 13-month-old laugh out loud.

Hugs and Kisses by Priddy Books
Love bugs, dancing bees, and bear hugs - what more could you ask for in a touch and feel valentines book that retails for $4.95. It is a smacking good deal.

Love with a Bit of Plot.

Henry in Love by Peter McCarty

Whimsy and some shading make the illustrations in Peter McCarty's Book about Henry, a cat in love with his rabbit classmate Chloe, sentimentally striking. The moral of the story is that you can't give up much more than a blueberry muffin, and it is painfully true.

Slugs in Love by Susan Pearson

Slugs in Love may not have the beauty of Henry in Love, and in truth it's plot is not quite as achingly honest. But it does have humor, and rhymes, and I like it. Actually I like Slugs more than Henry, but the majority of my co-workers prefer Henry, so he got top billing. I suppose they think a classroom full of animals that would normally eat each other is more realistic than two slugs writing romantic poems to one another, in slime, throughout a garden patch. You be the judge.

The Valentine Classic
I Like You by Sandol Stoddard Warburg

The perfect gift for a friend of any age!

"If I pretend I am drowning
You pretend you are saving me"

Black ink illustrations accompany all the wonderful, playful reasons I Like You.

Did I call it or WHAT!

The Caldecott has been awarded, and I have to say - I'm happy.

Link to Caldecott award winner.

Link to my previous post where (I'm bragging) I called it.

Congratulations Mr. Pinkney!

Easy Readers Can Be Fun!

A lot of teachers come into the store lamenting about the difficulties of teaching to students who can be grades below their age in reading abilities. These teachers often pick up what I now think of as "reluctant reader classics", Jeff Kinney's Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and Dav Pilkey's Captain Underpants and Ricky Ricotta's Mighty Robot series. These books are illustrated like comic books, but with some paragraphs thrown in; though they are written for kids aged 7-10 (Wimpy Kid goes a bit older) 12-year-olds can be seen reading them in class without being embarrassed.

Teachers purchase these books so often that I sometimes think of Captain Underpants as a book for reluctant fifth-grade readers. But the truth is, Captain Underpants is a book for 7-year-olds starting to read, as well as 11-year-olds who feel intimidated by a page chock-full of text. Pictures illustrate the text, making the words easier to understand. But of course pictures can do more than illustrate text.

At the latest Northern California Independent Booksellers Association Trade Show I spent a long time talking to a very passionate Diamond Publishing Rep about comic books and their power to inspire reading. As the Diamond Rep correctly pointed out, because comic books tell stories with pictures, even children who don't know how to read can enjoy them; because they already enjoy the comic book children are not reluctant to pick them up; because the comic's speech bubbles clearly show where words are coming from children are not confused about who is saying what; and because the words are few, but part of the story, children are motivated to read them. Schools and libraries that formerly shunned comics are now starting to embrace them.

Mr. Diamond Rep then showed me some books from a new publisher called TOON BOOKS. They were comics, but with the sense of humor of a six or seven-year-old, and they were the size of a level reader, but they were much more entertaining. Level readers, typically start with level 1 with three or four words in a row and go up to level 4 with full paragraphs and sometimes full pages of text. Level readers are good learning tools, but they are SOOOOO BORING! This is an example of a Spiderman level 2 reader :

I have to stop him.

It's time for me to go to work.

I cannot enjoy my Party if a bad guy is planning a crime.

Sandman is stealing other people's money.

This is an example from Otto's Orange Day from TOON BOOKS :

Orange is pretty. It's bold and it's strong!

Now check out this ditty; it's my orange song.

I like orange flowers...

...and I wear orange socks...

...and I build a tall tower...

...out of bright orange blocks!

So just give me orange. It's bright and it's pretty.

Just give orange - And I'm one happy kitty!

I certainly enjoy reading Otto's Orange Day more than Spiderman. In fact, I am a fan of Otto's Orange Day. It has chapters (three of them), and it has a plot. Level readers are notoriously short on plot, but with pictures illustrating new developments in addition to words, you can actually say quite a bit. I will happily teach Oscar to read with comics, especially with TOON BOOKS, and then we can work up towards Captain Underpants, but we will probably try potty-training first.

To see if other people (well kids) like these books as much as me I had them quality tested. I can safely say that they are 4-year-old and 8-year-old approved. In fact the kids LOVED the books.

Spellbinder now has a number of TOON BOOKS in the store. Some are very affordable at $4.99 in paperback, but some of the best stories ( like the Benny and Penny books) are only available in hardcover and run $12.95. They all have excellent quality binding and the artwork is spectacular. And for a while, they are 20% OFF.

I LOVE POOH-BEAR!

Of course I knew of Winnie-the-Pooh growing up. He was a bear, he liked honey, he had friends. Eeyore was a downer. Piglet was little and squeaky. Rabbit was Rabbit. And Christopher Robin was a little boy and I was never sure how a little boy was friends with forest animals or how the forest animals seemed to be stuffed animals but live in the forest...but I never really thought of it much. I saw Pooh on cartoons, and I maybe had some board books or something like that, but I don't believe I ever actually read (or was read) any of A.A. Milne's unabridged classic tales until last month. And after reading the actual tales, I now understand why they are famous. A.A. Milne is good, and Winnie-the-Pooh is FABULOUS!

If you like children's literature and you don't have A.A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh go out and buy it NOW. You can get a cheap paperback for as little as $5.99 new, or you can get a fancy hardcover with color illustrations for about $20. There is something to be said for the hardcover, because once you read the stories you won't want to give them up.

A.A. Milne's writing is not just for children, but for adults, particularly adults who are around children. From Chapter 1:

"When I first heard his name, I said, just as you are going to say, "But I thought he was a boy?"
"So did I," said Christopher Robin.
"Then you can't call him Winnie?"
"I don't."
"But you said-"
"He's Winne-ther-Pooh. Don't you know what 'ther' means?"
"Ah, yes, now I do," I said quickly; and I hope you do too, because it is all the explanation you are going to get.

It is Milne's style of writing, more than the facts of the stories themselves, that make Winnie-the-Pooh so pleasurable, and memorable. True the idea of a bear visiting his friend (Rabbit) and then eating so much he is not able to fit through the door is funny, but it is not as funny as Rabbit's response:

"It all comes," said Rabbit sternly, "of eating too much. I thought so at the time," said Rabbit, "only I didn't like to say anything," said Rabbit, "that one of us was eating too much," said Rabbit, "and I knew it wasn't me," he said.

The truth is we don't sell much of Winnie-the-Pooh in the store. We'll sell level readers and board books that feature his likeness, and pared-down versions of his stories. But it is not the same. The level readers we sell aren't bad, but sentences are missing, and well, I miss them. When you abridge Milne's writing, you abridge his humor; the story is still there, but the twinkle is gone.

Milne has written more than just Winnie-the-Pooh, he wrote The House at Pooh Corner. But I haven't read it yet. I never read any A.A. Milne until the publisher Penguin decided to publish a THIRD book in the Winnie-the-Pooh series written not by A.A. Milne (who died in 1956) but by David Benedictus. This book by Mr. Benedictus is called Return to the Hundred Acre Wood. I confess I haven't read it, but I will. I will also read Milne's When We Were Very Young and Now We are Six. But because I haven't read Mr. Benedictus' edition to the Pooh family I can't comment on it's worthiness, but I am curious.

Darn that Vacuum!

We've had some vacuuming fun tonight at spellbinder, which involved me pulling dirty ribbons & twigs out of a vacuum bag and into the trash because well, we couldn't find another vacuum bag and the one we had was full. I am now coated in a nice soft layer of black dust, but it makes me thankful that we have the vacuum for after all, all that dust was originally on the floor, and Oscar (my 11-month-old son) crawls around on the floor (yes even the bookstore floor). True the floor is still dirty and Oscar's hands after crawling about are not a sight a mother loves to see, but how much worse they would be if not for the vacuum!

Oscar is, of course, scared of the vacuum, as are many youngsters, so in response Linda Bryan Sabin has written a charming rhymer call The Sound Snatcher. The title character (a vacuum) sucks up all the sounds around him:

"He was made to eat dirt but some sound bites can't hurt so along with the dust and the fluffle he sucks in the sound he finds lying around. Each sweet taste for him like a truffle."

On each page he goes through the rooms, sucking in more noises:

"Is the telephone ringing? The parakeet singing? Has he swallowed the door buzzer's buzz? He ate without caring the radio's blaring and the only sound left is what was."

I love that last line - the only sound left is what was.

The book is published by peeking kitty press, and on every page there is a... well I'll let you guess. It is pretty cute. One of my favorite pages has few words, at the top is written,

"No sounds can out loud him..."

There are pictures of the kitty driving a fire engine with the sirens blaring, a lawn mower, an airplane, an ice cream truck, and a little boy in ear muffs. At the bottom of the page it reads,

"no ear muff can shroud him, as The Snatcher continues his prowling..."

I can see Oscar, learning his sounds and words pointing to fire engine and making the siren, and trying to make the sound of an airplane. We're not there yet, at 11 months all I get is a smile when I make the siren sound as he picks up his toy police car. But in the future this book holds great possibility for us. There is even a "LET'S TALK ABOUT THE BOOK" section in the back, with questions for readers to pepper the listeners with, such as remembering the sounds eaten in the book. There is also a "The Words I Heard" vocabulary section. I like the vocabulary section:

devour - verb (dEh-vaur) to eat or swallow, to eat greedily (as if you won't get anymore and you want all the food for yourself).

They are pretty cool definitions.

The book retails for $14.95, has library quality binding (meaning it will take a beating), and is printed in the U.S.A. This is nice. Two months ago I made myself a deal where I wouldn't buy anything new if it came from China, but when it comes to books this deal is impossible to keep. So being printed in the U.S.A. is pretty nifty. The Sound Snatcher is also printed on recycled paper with soy ink - very green; actually the cover is green (a yellowy green), it works.