books, books, books

If you know my family at all, you know how much my kids love books. Here's a typical scene when we have spare time around here -- we've gotten lucky that J was an early reader, as it takes a lot of the pressure off of us to read to Zoo Boy. He'd rather have his brother read to him most of the time anyway.

When we're done with the selected Family Story Time books for the week, they get deposited in a special bookcase for one month. The kids then have access to these books to read on their own, until they are returned either to the library or to our homeschooling bookshelf (which they do not have access to). They also have a small bookshelf of their own with a few dozen books on general themes that they can access at any time they want.

Yet despite all this, they've spent the better part of this week swiping our Family Story Time books for THIS week and reading them and acting out the parts/voices of all the characters. I guess the books I chose for this week were just outrageously popular with them.

The theme this week was a little loose -- baby animals. I've been busy with my own projects this week, so didn't have much in the way of theme activities planned (kids have had a lot of opportunities to play on their own, and have taken full advantage of it), and the weather was so nice that we just wanted to be out in it, so I figured it was an easy theme to not do much about -- between our chicks, our puppy, and our lambs, there's plenty of real live baby animal action going on around this place anyway.

The books for this week were these:

Little Baa, by Kim Lewis. This is a board book with gorgeous illustrations, about a lamb that wanders away from it's mother, and how they find each other again. It's a favorite of mine, and the kids really like it too, especially since it reflects our own farm a bit (with the sheep and the border collie and all), but it wound up being the least popular book this week. Still a good'un, though.

Make Way For Ducklings, byRobert McCloskey. I guess I don't really have to say much about this book, being one of the best known children's classics. It holds as much appeal for my kids as it did for me when I was their age. There were a lot of pretend ducks waddling around our house this week, not to mention the real ones in the farmyard.

Raccoon On His Own, by Jim Arnosky. This is one of my favorite kids' authors, and this book holds every element that I love about his books: wonderful illustrations of animals depicted in non-anthropomorphic stories. A variety of wildlife abounds as a young raccoon is accidentally seperated from his family, then rejoins them again at the end of his adventure. Best part is that the family can be seen in the background, tracking his journey, so there is never that fear of losing them.

The kids insisted on a couple extra books this week, so we substituted out Make Way For Ducklings (which the kids were well aquainted with even prior to this week), with Honey...Honey...Lion! by Jan Brett (my all-time favorite children's author), which the kids swiped from my stash of library books to use in the future. I can't say enough good things about this book, even though it didn't jive with my theme. Her portrayal of exotic lands is just so on the money and her fun stories always have delightful messages. In this story, we look at the symbiotic relationship of Honeyguides and Honey Badgers in Africa, and the story is peppered with other native animals.

That book got us onto an African animal jaunt, so we wound up pulling out "How the Ostrich Got it's Long Neck" by Verna Aardema, illustrated by Marcia Brown, from my stack too (again, at the kids' insistance). This one I just left available for the kids to read on their own, and read they did, acting out the parts of all the animals when they were done. The illustrations are simplistic, but the tale is a traditional Akamba pourquoi story, passed down through the ages by tribe storytellers, and picked up by the author during a visit to Kenya (which, as it turns out, means "the place where there are ostriches". Learn something new every day!).