Dig into Creepy Carrots

“The day is coming when a single carrot, freshly observed, will set off a revolution.”
― Paul Cézanne

Today marked week two of the summer reading program.  Last week we read about yucky worms and made worm art, this week we read about creepy carrots and made creepy carrots.  So far, so fun.

Does it seem like we've approached Dig Into Reading from the dark side?  I hadn't realized it until I wrote that first paragraph.  Oh well, yucky and creepy are fun.  Next week we'll tackle bored potatoes.  WHAT??  Oh great; I guess we are not all happy sunshine over here with the reading program.  

Let's see: Yucky, Creepy, Bored are the sub-themes for the first three weeks of the summer reading program.  The first two weeks were super fun.  I have high hopes for next week.  Who doesn't love to be bored?  I don't know exactly what the final three weeks of the program may entail, but I'm sure it will be better than it sounds.

You can stop at the library and pick up a reading log.  I like to keep track of the time spent reading versus the number of books.  That way a kid who reads Harry Potter over the summer can have equal footing with kids who read one Mo Willems book after another.  Each oval is worth 20 minutes of reading, so if you only read for 10 minutes, just fill in half of the oval.  We'll have prizes to give away on August 13th; but if you fill out one whole book log before then, you can bring it in for an extra prize and get another book log to start the process over again.  Of course, to make it more challenging, your second book logs ovals are worth 30 minutes of reading.  (I'd hate for those avid readers to claim all the great prizes right away.)

I'm at the Coleraine Public Library on Tuesday mornings from 10:00-11:00, and at the Marble Public Library on Tuesday afternoons from 1:00-2:00.  This is a fun, free program.  

Stop by next week, we'll explored being bored together!

“What I say is that, if a man really likes potatoes, he must be a pretty decent sort of fellow.”
― A.A. Milne

Step right up

A book is a gift you can open again and again. ~~Garrison Keillor


I went to one child's holiday program yesterday.  I was happy to hear the principal  tell the audience that the gift of books is a great thing.  I couldn't agree more.  She said that if you need suggestions you can ask your child's teacher.  But, you can find more resources than just your child's teacher!  Librarians are a great source of help.  At least we try to be!  Ask someone who works in a bookstore.  Chances are if these people can't think of any books off the top of their heads, they'll know where to look to find what you're looking for.

If you have a child who hasn't discovered the joy of reading, they may not have found the right book yet.  Maybe they aren't great readers.  Either way, it's a fun thing to start reading together.  It's amazing how much people enjoy listening to a story.   Don't worry about if the book is going to challenge your child, if the book is an AR book, if your child is going to learn anything from it, or if it's considered a "good" book by some higher power.  What you're looking for in a gift book is one the gift recipient will not hate. Granted, if you are shopping for a book hater, that might be a pretty tall order.  But, there is more than just one kind of book out there.  Take a look at Manga or Graphic Novels, audio books, activity books, how-to books, an almanac, a book of world records, a comic book.  If there are words in there somewhere, it's a book that they'll have to read.  If there aren't any words in the book, they'll have to make up their own story.  If it's an audio book, there is only the joy of the story.

I had to go to the bookstore yesterday to find a few books.  (I know I talked about this a week or two ago,) I had no idea what to get for a couple of my children.  They read a lot.  I don't always know what they read.  I have some idea of the types of books they like.  I also have some idea of the books I like.  So, when I'd come to a likely candidate, I'd take a little time and read the first few paragraphs.  It took a little while to find a couple that I thought they might like, but here's hoping that I got it.  If not, the bookstore is local and they're pretty good about making exchanges.
  
If your wallet is not in favor of you spending even more money on something that you aren't sure your child will enjoy, I can recommend the for sale pile at your local library.  Many libraries have them.  I know the Coleraine Public Library has books for sale in their basement.  I was there this morning, and picked out a few.  I know the rest of my family is each getting at least one book, so I made sure that I'll have a new book to crack open as well.  Maybe it isn't exactly new, but it is new to me!     


Books are a great thing to get children for Christmas.  They have many days of Christmas break to get through and it wouldn't be too good for their brains to do nothing besides look at a screen.  (Or a bunch of screens as the case may be.)  At some point in time they will get on a parent's nerves and then the parent can say, "Go outside or go read your book."  Maybe they'll choose to do both.  Maybe you'll get to sit with them while they drink their hot cocoa and read a chapter or two of whatever book they got for the holidays.  See?  They're a bit worn out from being outside, and now they might quiet down a little while you're reading.  Win, win.  Mom got some quiet time, and now she's unwittingly fueling their little brains.  Even more of a win, you all get to enjoy some quality time together enjoying a story.  And that is a memory few kids forget.

So, step right up and get a book for your loved one.  It will be money well spent, even if you didn't spend very much.   

“Books make great gifts because they have whole worlds inside of them. And it's much cheaper to buy somebody a book than it is to buy them the whole world!”
― Neil Gaiman

Ode to Toys

The excellence of a gift lies in its appropriateness rather than in its value.
~Charles Dudley Warner

 Ho, Ho, Ho only 20 more days to go.  That's two and a half weeks.  Yikes.  Guess I better start being good and hope that Santa will forget about the rest of the year.  My children also need to start being extra good and hope that he'll forget about the transgressions of the past year.  Not that there were that many.  Or that they were terribly severe.  It never hurts to put in a little extra effort just to be safe.  

I have been working at cleaning out my house.  Kind of.  I went through the bins of stored clothing in the basement, and 2/3 of the childrens' dressers have been gone through.  Summer stuff and too small stuff moved out, winter stuff and stuff that fits moved in.  I started going through the toys, but I shortly found myself on the verge of a mental breakdown, so I quit for the time being.  I'll have to get that done soon.  There are things in the basement that none of them have touched in the past couple years; and really, I probably played with the Little People stuff more than they did.  (It was one of my favorite things to do as a child, but somehow they never found them as appealing as I did.)  We have books coming out of our ears.  I need to go through those as well.  The good ones I pass on to other kids, and the really horrible ones get dumped.

So I was a smidge crabby this morning as I sorted through an accumulation of stuff that we don't use.  Or want.  Or take very good care of.  Why in the world would I add to this mess with some Christmas presents that probably won't be remembered a year from now?  I got a little Grinch-y.  And then I remembered being a kid at Christmas.  We didn't get toys and clothes except for birthdays and Christmas.  Unless they were hand-me-downs; and those were generally an unexpected thrill.  My kids don't get much either, unless it's hand-me-downs or they buy it themselves.  They don't get a lot from us or Santa for Christmas, so I should just quit my grumbling.  In a month, I may get to pick some new socks off of the floor instead of just the grungy old ones.  

I'm going with the one thing way this year.  One thing you want, one thing you need, one thing to wear, one thing to read, and one thing they really truly want.  Ahhh, at least one of those things doesn't make me feel like a Scrooge.  Books.  But which ones?  The girls are 11,9 (almost), and five.  Which books to choose?  Oh, I can spend a lot of time looking online, but it isn't nearly as fun as shopping in person for books.  Then I can read the 5-year-old's book to make sure it isn't one I'll hate reading.  In years past I always have a great idea for reads, but this year I don't.  They've checked out so many library books, and read so many books in school that I can't keep track of what they haven't read yet.  This means a trip to the bookstore.  I will gladly spend time in a bookstore.  

And with that, the Christmas spirit hits me.  The Grinch is gone, replaced by a book lovin' momma who wants to share some literary joy with her children. 

If you have any good suggestions for books, please share them!!  I don't believe I'm the only one who could use them! 


  
Christmas is for children.  But it is for grown-ups too.  Even if it is a headache, a chore, and nightmare, it is a period of necessary defrosting of chill and hide-bound hearts.  
~Lenora Mattingly Weber

Story hour begins again.

Life is about using the whole box of crayons.  ~RuPaul

Story hour started again yesterday.  The kids came into the library while I was assisting a patron in finding some books.   Since that is one of my most favorite things to do, we got started a little late.  Since I also hadn't done much planning ahead, we got started a little later than late.  I guess I'm a fly by the seat of my pants worker.  And yet, things turned out fabulous.

I don't know where the idea came from exactly, but I decided we should read The Red Book by Barbara Lehman and Muffel and Plums by Lilo Fromm.

  


Find the similarity between these two very different books.  Ah ha, the similarity is that there aren't any words.  Stories told using just pictures are an interesting thing, especially with kids who've been in school for a couple of weeks where much of their work involves words.  

We're a very small community.  At the beginning of story hour I only had two kids in the room with me.  After the two books one of them left because his mom came to get him.  The child remaining poked her head out the door to yell "Hi" to her cousin playing in the park.  After a few minutes he wandered in and not long after that a friend of his walked past the door and was enticed to join us.

After making the late-comers read the books, they joined us in making our own books of stories without words.  They seemed to have a lot of fun.  The three kids and I made a total of about six and a half books (the half was mine).  They were kind enough to draw bar code labels on them so that they could be checked out by some of our other patrons.

Now, a person does not create a book without words without talking.  At least they don't when they're in a group.   It was fun to join in their conversations about books, library cards, and the colors best used in making a girl's hair; among other things.  It was interesting to note how difficult we all found it to tell a story without using words.   Mostly, we told our stories using a bare minimum of words.  

 A picture is worth a thousand words.  I looked to find where that saying came from, but it's not completely clear who said it first.  I was surprise to find the quote attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte on one quote site.  I think a picture is sometimes worth more, sometimes less than the thousand words.   

After story hour was over, the kids set up their books along the shelf where our new books can be found.  A few hours later, one of the kids brought in a friend to show him the books he made.  

How great is that? 

Toast with a great deal of butter

“your body is not a temple, it's an amusement park. Enjoy the ride.”
― Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly

 

Harvesting season is upon us again.  I finally got down to making zucchini relish late last week.  I finished cutting up all the vegetables and they looked so pretty that I had to take a picture.  Weird?  Maybe, but it sure is a colorful photo.  I love colors.  I love food.  I love reading.

My daughter came home from school last Thursday wanting a fried egg for her after-school snack.  What??  Where did that come from?  It certainly was a different snack request than I'm used to hearing.  Apparently, she'd been reading a Nancy Drew book on the way home from school and Hannah had made a fried egg for Nancy and it made her hungry for one.  I do have an interesting child.  She's also the kid who holds a great fondness for "toast with a great deal of butter".  This taste for toast done this way was acquired shortly after reading one of the Mercy Watson books.  Which one, I'm not sure.  Now, if only she'd pick up a book about sweet potatoes.

When you've spent your life immersed in the written word, books seep into everything you do.  I come from a family that reads.  I grew up loving peas porridge and hating split pea soup.  The exact same recipe was used to make each, but a nursery rhyme can't be wrong and everyone likes peas porridge no matter what temperature it is.  What other foods did we come around to because of what we read in books?  I don't know.  But I was intrigued by the idea of sugar snow via Laura Ingalls Wilder and visions of fair food danced in my head after Templeton's feast in Charlotte's Web. 

I may be older, but there is still a line that can be drawn between what I'm reading and what I'm making for dinner.  I'm much more likely to make pasta if I'm reading a book that takes place in Italy.  Reading Pearl S. Buck's books means we'll be having rice of one sort or another.  Because I'm older, I also spend more time reading actual cook books.  Perusing recipes leads to all kinds of adventures with food. 

Why not?  It's funny the way we can be altered by what we read.  One afternoon you're content getting an apple for our afternoon snack, and the next day; after a line or two from a Nancy Drew book, you may be requesting fried eggs. 
 

Our minds are like our stomachs; they are whetted by the change of their food, and variety supplies both with fresh appetites.
-John Quinton

The Circle of Little Golden Books

I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves. ~Anna Quindlen

It was an odd feeling to see one of my first storyhour kids come in last night with his daughter.  I can't possibly have been working here that long, can I?  Well, I suppose so.  This wasn't the first child of a former storyhour attendee that I've met.  This is the first time I've had a conversation about books for babies/toddlers/children with a former kid.  Crazy. 

I vaguely remember being a new parent.  Books were always part of my life, but it amazed me to see the different books that were available for kids.  Who knew they had books specifically for babies?  It was only after my oldest child was about six months old that we really got into reading.  It was later that I went to a conference about early literacy and found out that I should have started reading to her at day one.  Oh well.  We made up for that in the years to come.  What I remembered from when I was a kid reading, had been updated for my own child.  Babies like black and white pictures, pictures of faces.  They don't completely understand the words, so the words you use don't have to match the words on the page.  You can read them anything!  If you read while feeding the baby, read aloud.  Books, magazines, newspapers, it really doesn't matter what.  Tell stories without printed words.  When they're babies they're just soaking it all up to be used later.  Those words and stories come back later as a neurological pathway that's more like a highway.

The books for children have changed from when I was a kid.  I don't really remember board books in my childhood.  It's possible my youngest siblings were given them, but I was too cool for that.  Books that are a bit more sturdy; books that will hold up to a child who is still exploring how things work and therefore throwing, eating, and standing on (among other things), books.  As babies you have control over what you read to them.  They get mobile, and chances are that you will be reading Goodnight, Gorilla over and over and over and over again.

There are books for kids that are not boring, that are funny, that don't rhyme, that are conversation starters, and the list goes on.  If you grew up reading the Berenstain Bears and Dr. Seuss and haven't checked out the children's section since, you're in for a happy treat.  There are so many fun books.  Books that are as much fun for you to read as they are for your child to listen to, look at, and memorize. 

Kids will pick books you hate, books you don't enjoy, and books you'd rather they didn't.  But that will come later.  During the toddler years, you still have some control over the books in your house.  Some.  Bring a toddler to the library and chances are that you will come home with a book you aren't crazy about.  Oh well, you can return it earlier than the due date.  Books you hate might come into your house.  It's okay if you tell your child that you don't really care for the book.  At least, that's my opinion.  You can have a little discussion about why you don't like it and let them respond with what they do like about it and emphasize that it's okay to have differing ideas.  It's a good thing to let them pick out their own stories.  The book may be pure torture to you; but if your kid likes it, read it at least once.  Surround yourself with books you like, and chances are that your kids will bring you books you like.

Eventually they will be picking their own books without any help from you.  If you read a lot of fun books, it won't be hard for them to do.  It's a fun experience to watch your child's literary development.  It's fun to see them select their own books.  You just never know what they'll pick.  For all the books they pick out for themselves, it's good to pick one out for you to read to them.  Then you'll know that there is at least one choice in the house that doesn't make you cringe.  While you're at it, pick one out for yourself.  Then you can reward yourself for having had to read Clifford's Big Adventure again.

If you want some suggestions, stop in.  We're full of them.  I'd love to share some of my favorites with anyone who is willing to take them.  I have a lot of favorites. 

The story - from Rumplestiltskin to War and Peace - is one of the basic tools invented by the human mind, for the purpose of gaining understanding. There have been great societies that did not use the wheel, but there have been no societies that did not tell stories. ~~Ursula K. LeGuin

For the love of mud.

March is a tomboy with tousled hair, a mischievous smile, mud on her shoes and a laugh in her voice.
-Hal Borland

Yay!  March is here.  I'm not a huge fan of February.  It seems to be the longest month for me.  By February I'm sick of winter, and ready for the mud puddles of spring.  This winter has been a bit odd.  I didn't have a problem with February because it hasn't been very wintery.  Although, with the lack of snow, I knew we wouldn't have the kind of spring I like.  The kind where you have to wear your mud boots and stomp through some puddles in the driveway.  I love mud puddles.



We finally got some snow last weekend.  We didn't get as much as they were predicting earlier this week.  The 12 inches fizzled down to about 3.  Bummer.  I would have liked a few more inches of snow.  Fresh snow at this time of year is beautiful.  You know it won't be around all that long; and if you're a puddle jumper, you you know it's going to melt.


I know that most people hate the mud.  There are a few of us who enjoy it.  We wait anxiously for those first warming winds that will turn the snow into spring.  Yes, it can be a bother.  Those kids covered in mud coming through the front door and bringing the muck with them.  The endless loads of heavily soiled laundry.  The difficulty getting to the house when driving through the sloppy mess of a driveway.  The vehicles coated in a thick layer of dried filth.  I can hardly wait!


We're supposed to get warm temperatures next week, and that will get things going.  How long will we get to enjoy the puddles once they come?  One never really knows, so you have to take the enjoyment or put up with it one day at a time. 

Try to see the fun in mud.  If you were forbidden to play in the mud as a child, get yourself some mudboots and go outside.  As a kid, spring was a time for building boats out of whatever scraps of wood were available, among other things.  We'd take the boats out and float them in the puddle at the end of the driveway, or down the ditch.  I remember running through the puddle in the middle of the field and getting soaked.  We would walk across the biggest puddles to see how deep the water was, trying to go as deep as we could without the water getting into our boots.  Springs were great.  Finally to be outside without having to wear endless layers of clothing. 

Find your inner kid.  Float things on the puddles, make rivers to drain the puddles off of the driveway.  Granted, you can only do that if you don't have a paved drive.  Find out how deep the puddles are.  If you got snow, there will be puddles somewhere even if they aren't in your yard.  Go to the park.  Find the mud.  It's fun.  Let yourself relax and enjoy the beginning of spring! 

The mind of the people is like mud, from which arise strange and beautiful things. -W. J. Turner