What My Child is Reading - April 17, 2010

Our reading this week, really took a hodgepodgey sort of turn. We had a few books relating to kites, gardening, and spring, and a few more that we checked out, because we liked the series, author, or illustrator.

I picked up Tad Hills' Duck & Goose while looking for books about duck eggs. But, as you can see from the cover art (taken, by the way, from the Montana Shared Library System), the book is not really about eggs. Instead, it's about the hard work of friendship in conflict. It's as adorable as the illustrations suggest. We really like the cute little pair. So, I imagine we will be checking out more of the books in the series, in the coming days.



The next three titles I have pictured, are books I can recommend, but only if your child is able to read, or be read to, with a suspended state of reality in mind. Not that my children actually believed a duck or goose would mistake a ball for an egg, but the stories below seem to be about real life, only with slightly odd twists, that were a little too subtle for my younger girls (ages 3 and 5).

Jonathan Emmett's Someone Bigger, has an easy to read, rhyming text, that makes it an enjoyable read-aloud. And, the cartoon like illustrations by Adrian Reynolds, are full of fun little details. But, the ending of the story seems incomplete. All through the book, the kite whisks away a whole herd of adults, and zoo animals, until it is finally held down by the little boy, who was at first considered too small for such a kite. The author fails to give a concrete answer, as to what it is about the boy, that makes him able to hold the kite when others can not. My children found that unsettling.


We enjoyed the mixed media illustrations of Valerie Fisher's When Ruby Tried to Grow Candy, and the story provided some interesting food for thought. Can a lack of doubt, really allow anything to sprout? And, what would you do with a bush of all left shoes? However, the discussion took kind of a morbid turn when the children noticed on the cover, it appeared Ruby had planted the author. That led to all kinds of strange discussion of dead people, being buried, and growing into odd trees, and flowers, and that sort of thing - a little unsettling before bed.

Finally, Will Hillenbrand's Louie! is based on the childhood of Ludwig Bemelmans, the creator of the Madeline series. My youngest two enjoyed the story, but when we got to the end, where Louie is pictured standing next to one of the Madeline books, and I said, "See, look what he wrote, do you recognise it?", the answer I got was, "Moooom, he's a pig. Pig's don't write stories." But, then they immediately asked if they could paint. So, while they didn't find it believable, they did find it inspiring.

For more children's book reviews, and recommendations, check out this week's What My Child Is Reading link up, at Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns.

It's great to be a homeschooler.