I was so thrilled to land a copy of A Mary Blair Treasury of Golden Books (which I first spotted in the lovely @bonjour_mes_amies’ Instagram feed) because it was a little hard to find. Its contents include I Can Fly, Baby’s House, The Up and Down Book and The Golden Book of Little Verses, as well as selected pages from The New Golden Song Book. Mary Blair is probably best known for her work for Disney, including the conceptual art for the beloved ride “It’s a Small World.”
“Henry Huggins was in the third grade. His hair looked like a scrubbing brush and most of his grown-up front teeth were in. He lived with his mother and father in a square white house on Klickitat Street. Except for having his tonsils out when he was six and breaking his arm falling out of a cherry tree when he was seven, nothing much happened to Henry.”
On January 2, 1949, Beverly Cleary wrote these memorable words—the first paragraph of her first book Henry Huggins—at the old kitchen table stored in the back bedroom in her home in Berkeley, and the rest is history. Her peerless ability to write authentically from the perspective of children, encapsulating all of their momentous joys, fears and foibles in print, is why her books have resonated so profoundly with children, and have launched many an avid reader.
Happy 100th birthday to Beverly Cleary, and a million thank-yous would never be enough for what you’ve done for children’s literature, and more importantly, children’s lives around the world.
Don’t be fooled, for this is not a book. It is a paragon of hilarity, creativity and ingenuity. It'll have you looking at things in a whole new way. Don’t miss out on this one. This Is Not a Book is by French illustrator Julian Jullien and is published by Phaidon.
One to add to your bedtime arsenal. Seriously, why won't you go to bed?! A question we all ask our kids semi-regularly. ;) Time for Bed, Fred! is by one of our current favorites illustrators, Yasmeen Ismail.
Alligator Arrived with Apples: a Potluck Alphabet Feast was penned by Crescent Dragonwagon with pictures by Jose Aruego and Ariane Dewey. A huge group of animal friends gather for a Thanksgiving feast and eat their way from A to Z. Alligator arrived with apples and allspice. Bear brought banana bread, biscuits and butter. Zebra zipped over a zaftig zucchini. An epic meal to go down in history! This book is an entertaining read-aloud and is about nothing if not alliteration—a phonological awareness skill that contributes to a good foundation for reading. So many children’s books have alliteration and rhyming elements, so when you’re reading them aloud to your children, you’re naturally supporting their pre-reading skills!
Alliteration is a phonological skill that contributes to emerging reading skills, but when your child becomes of reading age, some of the more significant phonemic awareness skills that contribute to a strong reading foundation are segmenting and blending. Click here for a post about phonemic awareness from a couple of years ago if anyone’s interested in learning more about it.