Women in Science: a gift for Avery. Thank you to Rachel Ignotofsky for writing and illustrating such an important book for girls, for women, for everyone.
mr. lunch borrows a canoe
Welcome to #littlelitbookseries, the adventure edition. Mr. Lunch, a professional bird chaser, borrows a canoe and paddles his way into an adventure involving escaping from a scary bear and in doing so, inadvertently ending up halfway across the world.
If you’re feeling adventurous, do check out this month’s picks at #littlelitbookseries on Instagram.
how i spent my summer vacation
Our minds are on adventure this month for #littlelitbookseries. In How I Spent My Summer Vacation, Wallace Bluff takes a train out west to visit his Aunt Fern in her house on the plains but ends up being captured by cowboys who recruit him as a cowhand.
Head off on a few more adventures with this month’s #littlelitbookseries picks on Instagram.
mango and bambang tapir all at sea
We're setting off on an adventure in this month's #littlelitbookseries.
Mango Allsorts and her tapir pal are back in Tapir All at Sea with a new collection of stories. There’s the time Bambang decides to take up dancing as a new hobby, when gets erroneously apprehended as a diamond thief, when he is captured and put on display “in the window of Cynthia Prickle-Posset’s museum, trapped between a selection of mummified cats and a tank of electric eels,” and the time an offer arrives for him to join an ocean liner’s dance troupe as a flamenco dancer traveling the world. This sweet and clever series is a delight and we’re looking forward to the third installment due out on September 1, Tiny Tapir Trouble.
If it’s adventure you seek, you’ve come to the right place. Find your way over to #littlelitbookseries on Instagram for some adventurous picks.
the hundred dresses
“Tell us how many dresses did you say you had hanging up in your closet?”
Oh that we would befriend and take care of the Wanda Petronskis in our classrooms. The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes and Louis Slobdokin teaches kindness, compassion and grace. We get a picture of determination, grit and humility from Wanda and her faded blue dress.
We’re starting a new series with @the.book.report and are hoping that others will join in. Each Thursday we’ll be posting #classicchapterbooks. Why read older books? They are rich sources of rare words, antiquated phrasing and lexicons of older, bygone words that have dropped out of quotidian use. All these types of words contribute to a well-rounded vocabulary for our children, and will help them in more ways than we know as they get older and as they have to wade through more complex texts in high school, college and beyond.
Many vintage books provide historical background and a strong sense of time and place. As stories unfold, we see prevailing views, social rules, cultural norms, the values and sensibilities of particular eras. We learn so much from classic books and they fuel meaningful conversations with our children.
We’d love to see what other vintage chapter books or novels everyone has in their library. Share yours with the hashtag #classicchapterbooks on Instagram.