I have just started straightening out my garden, so this seems an appropriate book to feature today.
This is a simple book about the “life-cycle” of a vegetable garden. We follow a family and their garden through the seasons beginning with their eager springtime anticipation of the last frost, and ending with fall canning and the wait for next year’s garden. There is a certain comfort in this book as we follow the rhythm of the seasons, knowing that next year all will be the same.
The illustrations appear to be in colored pencil and are a nice complement to the simple happenings in the garden.
Book Recommendations, children's books, exceptional illustrations, nature, picture books, young children
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Book Recommendations, Book Recommendations, children's books, cycle of life, Cynthia Rylant, nature books, seasons, This Year's Garden, Waldorf, Waldorf books
Maybe I just don’t know my Maurice Sendak quite as well as I should, but I had never heard of this one when I found it in the “Friends Of The Library” used book bin for ten cents!
The subtitle of this 1962 book is “A Book of Months” because you will find a poem about chicken soup with rice for each of the twelve months of the year. The poems are funny and catchy. The illustrations are amusing, albeit not very colorful (mainly black and white with a few touches of blue and yellow) as is typical for many children’s books of the same era.
Of course repetitive readings of this book will help teach children the months of the year, but the real charm is in the amusing poems all about chicken and rice soup! My kids love it. What a great ten cent find!
Book Recommendations, children's books, funny, poems, young children
| A Book of Months, Book Recommendations, Book Recommendations, Chicken Soup With Rice, children's books, kids poetry, Maurice Sendak, poetry, poetry books
At a garage sale, we stumbled upon the original hardcover version of this story and one of the other stories in this series, Moongame. My 6 year-old girl, but particularly my 4 year-old boy love these!
Mooncake is the story of a bear who wants to taste the moon. He builds a rocket ship out of junk, falls asleep during “launch” and wakes up during the winter thinking he is on the moon (since bears normally hibernate, he has never before seen snow).
This simple tale subtly introduces the concepts of hibernation, bird migration, and the seasons. Plus, the relationship between bear and his little bird friend is sweet.
The illustrations are very basic and use only a few colors, but the story seems to captivate!
I believe that this is originally a Dutch story. The Apple Cake tells the tale of an old woman who, wishing to make an apple cake, sets off to the market with a basket of plums in the hopes of trading them for some apples.
The narrative follows the woman and her encounters on the way to the market. The kind lady trades her plums, and eventually other items, in order to help people she meets along the way. Of course, just when you think she will never get her apples, she makes a final trade for some apples!
Would she have gotten the apples if she had not been so kind to strangers? What would have happened to the strangers and their predicaments if the woman had not gone to the market that day?
Children learn the importance of kindness and generosity, as well as the power of positive karma! The story is a bit convoluted for really little children, but ages three or four and up should enjoy it immensely. I also love the pretty pastel illustrations. There is even a recipe on the back for a delicious-sounding apple cake. A “Kids Cook Night” idea perhaps?
Book Recommendations, children's books, exceptional illustrations, older children, picture books, young children
| Book Recommendations, Book Recommendations, children's books, Nienke van Hichtum, The Apple Cake, Waldorf, Waldorf books
This is my 15 month-old’s current favorite so I have to write about it. I have had this for all three of my children and they all find at absolutely FASCINATING at about this age (and beyond). The book consists of simple (and honestly, kind of ordinary) photographs of mothers and children playing, cooking, reading, and doing other different things together.
The photos look homemade (maybe this is part of the attraction?) but they are very racially and culturally diverse.
My kids have all loved it. My four year-old really didn’t want to let his baby sister have this one, so he is “lending” it to her. There is definitely something fascinating here!
Another plus is that My Mom is a board book, so it has lasted through three children loving it. I don’t have to worry about my 15 month-old destroying it.
There are other similar books in the series about Dads, Grandmas, Grandpas, Brothers, Sisters, and Families. I think we may get a few more since my baby loves these so!
Book Recommendations, baby, board book, children's books, multicultural/kids around the world, photos
| baby books, board books, Book Recommendations, Book Recommendations, children's books, Debbie Bailey, multicultural children's books, My Mom, Sue Huszar, toddler books
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