Barbara's comments (member since Oct 31, 2008)

Barbara's comments from the Children's Books group.

I taught myself to read when I was three years old. Mom read to me all the time and I wanted to be able to read without her. I learned just the way your son is learning. One book that might help him along is one I discovered last week: Maybe A Bear Ate It!The words are large and sentences are short and the character is adorable.

Chandra wrote: "And like the world need ANOTHER ABC book! LOL

I have to giggle at this (mostly at myself) because I actually happen to have a minor obsession with alphabet books! I love them and can't get enou..."

I was wondering why you only have one of the Jerry Pallotta alphabet books on your list. I loved most of them. I especially liked the Icky Bug Alphabet Book, The Yucky Reptile Alphabet Book, and The Furry Animal Alphabet Book.

Chandra mentioned some I unintentionally left off my list:

Susan Jeffers
Trina Schart Hyman
Audrey and Don Wood

I also meant to include Garth Williams, who illustrated among other things the Little House books.

I know there are more, but I'm too lazy right now to go check my picture book section to see who did the illustrations.

One of my friends asked me this as a review comment, but I thought it was a topic that would interest many.

It's really hard for me to come up with one favorite illustrator because there are so many kinds of illustrations -- black and white drawings, color paintings, and more. Since one of my favorite genres is the picture book, I see a number of wonderful illustrators. Some of my favorites are Thomas Locker, Patricia Polacco, Itoko Maeno (who illustrated Papa Piccolo),Robert McCloskey, Jan Brett, Bill Peet, Steven Kellogg, C.W. Anderson (Blaze books),Ruth Wright Paulsen -- Do I have to stop with those? I discover new illustrators often. I tend to favor the ones who do the painting, like Locker. But I like the humor that Polacco, Bill Peet, and Steven Kellogg inject.

An illustrator can make all the difference in a book. Example: Compare an edition of Casey at the Bat published by Dover (can't remember the illustrator, but the pictures were, if I remember, drawings showing an adult Casey) with the edition illustrated by Patricia Polacco. (This edition is not listed properly at goodreads, probably because it's not listed properly at Amazon. If anyone wants to see it listed properly with the correct author and cover art, let me know and I'll send a link. Don't know how to send an off-site link here to my scan of the cover.)Anyway, the Polacco illustrations practically make the same words into a different story. It changes the tone, makes Casey look like a "cool" teen, and makes it very humorous.

My favorite non-fiction children's illustrators are Gail Gibbons and Ruth Heller.

I know there are more I haven't mentioned, but no doubt someone else will mention them. I have to do some boring bookkeeping now.

What bothers me about modern publishing for children is the trend toward not only using peer language in the dialogs and making bad attitudes seem "cool," but also the emphasis on dark themes. When I get a publisher catalog these days from a major house, probably at least 60% of it consists of dark themed series books, dumbed down versions of such classics as The Little House books into a yet easier to read series, books that have nothing much to say with little redeeming value except great pictures, and the modern series books that model bad language and bad attitudes so they can be "with it." I won't buy them, except accidentally (should I say "on accident?" because I couldn't see before buying.

Peter,

You're a man after my own heart! However, good writing for children didn't stop in 1960. There are still a few newer books worth reading to your children, just not many. As an online book vendor for educators of all kinds, including homeschoolers, I try to read a lot of the books I buy as soon as I find time, and I usually only buy books which appear from publisher reviews or educator recommendations to be books I'd let my own child read if I still had children at home. The books I like best I review in blogs or here, now that I've discovered this site. Unfortunately, I have to stock a few books that got Newbery awards or that are on school reading lists because there is demand for them from schools. I usually don't carry more than one of these at a time. I can't believe some of the books that have received the Newbery award.

The trend today is to get kids reading, and they'll publish whatever it takes even if the books model the atrocious language spoken by today's children, not to mention the disrespectful attitudes so many modern children display toward parents and teachers. When I grew up in the 1950's I'd never heard the phrase "on accident." I first heard it when my own children started to use it. I have no idea where they learned it -- probably from neighborhood children. Now I see books that include "he goes" and "she goes" to replace "he said" and "she said." Then we wonder why children have problems with the usage portions of standardized tests. That's my rant for today.

Can you go back and edit your questions? I made a typo in one I wrote tonight and didn't notice it soon enough.

I missed the last few paragraphs before my first answer. I've tried to add book and author links, but they never seem to make it. I must not know what to do with that little box to add the links.

I have found some questions on children's books. But most seem to be on Harry Potter, Anne of Green Gables, or Tolkien books, and they tend to go for a long time on the same book or series.

I'll have to figure out that little add author and title box somehow.

I've tried both. I've now answered 557 and skipped 811 that were about books I've never read or have forgotten details of. I some more questions almost every day. And I try not to ask more than one or two questions about the same book or series in a row. Nothing discourages me more than getting 10 questions in a row on a book or play I've never read and hitting skip, skip, skip .... A lot of my questions are related to children's literature and authors, and some are related to mysteries or nonfiction. I think I might not be the only one who just doesn't read the latest best sellers. Some of us read more nonfiction, and only an occasional novel.

I have been answering trivia questions every day for about a week now, and I'm running out of new questions to answer. They are starting to repeat, and that's no fun. If each of you would write a couple about children's books, it would be more fun. I've have written a few this week, but I need more about children's books. Then Anne of Green Gables books, Harry Potter, and the BFG are well covered in the questions. I'm looking forward to having some questions about other children's books -- or anything else except Shakespeare and mythology, which are also well covered, as are the Tolkien books.

I just found another one I read so long ago I'd forgotten it, until I saw it on a list of books I reviewed in a newsletter a few years back -- WILL THERE BE A LAP FOR ME? by Dorothy Corey. A young African-American boy, loves to sit in his mother's lap, but she is pregnant, soon has the baby, and Kyle begins to wonder if he-ll ever get to sit in her lap again. Read the full review by searching my books.

I find it's good to go with a child's interest in what he reads himself. My son got off to a slow start in independent reading, but he loved to be read to. We always read as a family after dinner -- usually things above the children's reading level that they enjoyed. We were really selective about the books we read aloud because we wanted them to model good English usage and imaginative writing to develop a taste for well-written books in our children. We also chose books that had lots of things worthy of discussion. These reading sessions helped build an oral vocabulary greater than the reading vocabulary.

Back to my son. He enjoyed the couple of Thornton Burgess animal stories I read to him and in about the third grade he started to read them by himself. We read the Narnia books and Ralph Moody's Little Britches series and a few other western biographies and memoirs written at adult level because the kids liked pioneer and horse stories and these books had both. But Jason still preferred playing outside to reading as recreation. When he was about 11 he got interested in reading Boy's Life, and then, when we started reading the Patrick McManus books aloud, he was ready to read all we could get our hands on independently. I always knew when he was reading them in bed because I could hear the laughter.

He was interested in detectives, and we had read a biography of Allen Pinkerton Aloud. He was fascinated. So I bought a copy of Cowboy Detective (another adult autobiography) when he was 13. I started to read it to him aloud, but I lost interest. When I said I didn't want to read anymore of it aloud, he continued it on his own, even though it was really above his reading level. The interest was there, and he was reading it until the day he died at 14. Never got to finish it, but he never gave up on it. That's what interest can do.

I now remember that he also loved reading the books in series written by Lee Roddy, a Christian writer of adventure and mysteries for upper elementary students, 8-12). Those probably helped him develop fluency.

I guess my strategy was to read the best books aloud to develop vocabulary and an appetite for good literature, and then let them read what they liked on their own. And I always made sure lots of enticing books on their reading levels were around. One more thing that helped -- we did not own a television. And this was before we had the Internet. Computers in the home were still new. We had one, but weren't on line.

I like the picture book poems of Diane Siebert: Truck Song, Train Song, Mojave, Heartland, and more. She captures the spirit of her subjects in such a way that they will engage young spirits from the boy who loves trucks to the child feeling his land around him.

How about The Hundred Dresses? Do you have to finish one book in a reading? I used to carry them over from day to day when I used to read during lunch time to keep the children from bugging each other.

I had grades 4 and 5 together. So I'd read one chapter a day. I used the Narnia books and read all of them. I also used to read them to children in my neighborhood who gathered in my home. They were diverse ages, from six to 10, and they were all interested.

Have you done Charlotte's web? Capyboppy by Bill Peet? SAM, BANGS, AND MOONSHINE,by E. Ness? The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Robinson? How My Parents Learned to Eat by Friedman? When you mention diversity, are you concerned with one particular race or culture? Or do you want a great variety? I tended more toward books with themes that applied to all cultures. And animal characters also cut across racial and cultural lines. I reread Newberry's Frosty last night, and although there is a Hispanic family who plays a major role in the cast of characters, I think children of any age and any race in America can relate to wanting a pet of their own -- the theme of that book. I reviewed that book last night.

Where is your school? Would historical fiction work for you if it's related to your location?

I love kids' books. Here are some of my favorite
picture books: For the youngest. Many are classic.

Have you Seen My Duckling by Nancy Tafuri

Rosie's Walk by Pat Hutchins humorously portrays a hen, unaware of the fox who follows her, foiling his attempts to catch her because of the obstacle course she's chosen for her walk.

The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf -- the story of the peaceful bull who did not want to fight

Diane Siebert's poems about transportation -- Truck Song and Train Song.

Over the Steamy Swamp, by Paul Geraghty ( I will post my review of this out of print book after I post this. I love it.

GROWING VEGETABLE SOUP, by Lois Ehlert

You can see my reviews of most of these and more of my favorites on my web site, along with cover art. The page with my favorite picture books is
http://www.barbsbooks.com/pb.html

I've read to the end, but didn't see Maniac McGee by Jerry Spinelli. It has main characters of different races interacting with each other in friendship.

Another book I didn't see is one of my favorites, Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley and Me, Elizabeth by E.L. Konigsburg. The main characters, best friends, are white and black. This was my first Konigsburg book, and after reading it I started reading her other books.

Both these books are for upper elementary readers.

I was going to mention Laurence Yep. I enjoyed Ribbons, and the Star Fisher (which I have reviewed.)