Learning to Be Kind is Easy

One of the most important duties any parent or caregiver has is to teach children how to treat their peers in a respectful and friendly way.  This can be especially hard when there are other children around them who are setting a bad example by being mean or even bullying.  Luckily there are books out there that can help parents get the message across that being a good friend is always the way to go.

Say Hello by Jack & Michael Foreman is a simply worded and drawn picture book with an equally simple premise.  From the jacket flap --

When someone looks lonely and in need of a friend, one little word can help ...

The book starts by following a lonely dog who finds a group of kids on a playground and joins in to play.  Then it switches to a small boy who feels alone and left out.  Luckily the dog notices him and run over to invite him to the group.  The kids welcome him with a hearty "Hello!"

I'm sure you are aware that kids on their own make easy targets for bullies.  So even if your child isn't bullying, they may be unknowingly contributing to the problem by not being friendly to the kids on the fringes.  Teaching them to keep an eye out for lonely or left-out children may make all the difference.  This is a perfect way to remind your child of how nice it feels to be included.

The star of his own series, Andy Shane has met his match in Andy Shane and the Very Bossy Dolores Starbuckle.  Written by Jennifer Richard Jacobson and illustrated by Abby Carter, this is a book about dealing with a difficult classmate.

Andy Shane (his first and middle name, I think) doesn't want to go to school anymore.  He feels harassed and intimidated by Dolores Starbuckle, the class know-it-all.  Andy's grandma decides to make a surprise visit to the class to show Andy a different way of dealing with a tough situation than just avoiding it and staying home.  He is able to use his own inner strength and smarts to make peace with the difficult Dolores.

Andy Shane's predicament may feel familiar to many kids.  He is rarely able to answer a question in class without being interrupted and he's being told on for every little thing he does that veers from the norm even though there is nothing wrong with his choices.  This can be very hard on children and make them believe that they don't enjoy school.  This book helps show that there are ways to change the situation through one's own actions.

We can all use tools like these books to help navigate the difficult waters of parenthood.  Z and I not only read them together but discussed how he felt about the topics and how he felt he was doing in his peer relationships.  I plan on donating these books to Z's school in hopes that the right kid will pick them up when they are most needed.

Educating and improving,
K and Z


Support our site and buy Say Hello and Andy Shane and the Very Bossy Dolores Starbuckle on Amazon or find them at your local library.  We received copies for review from the publisher, Candlewick Press.

Comics for Fun and Learning

A few weeks ago, Z and I went to the library and ended up with an early reader level comic book.  He loved it so much that I looked for more this last time we went and found that the first one is part of a great series called Toon Books. From their website --

We are thrilled to introduce our new collection of TOON Books from the Little Lit Library. TOON Books represent a whole new approach to books for emerging readers—a rethinking as radical as the first time Theodor Geisel put a hat on a cat.

TOON Books are the first high-quality comics designed for children ages four and up. Each book in the collection is just right for reading to the youngest child but perhaps more remarkable: this is the first collection ever designed to offer newly-emerging readers comics they can read themselves. Each TOON book has been vetted by educators to ensure that the language and the narratives will nurture young minds. Our books feature original stories and characters created by veteran children’s book authors, renowned cartoonists and new talents, all applying their extraordinary skills to fascinate young children with clearly told tales that will welcome them to the magic of reading.

At the K-1 level, we ended up with Jack and the Box by renowned artist Art Spiegelman.  Jack is a little bunny whose parents give him a box as a gift.  He's startled when a it turns out to be a jack-in-the-box.  This is no ordinary Jack, though ... it's Zack, a wacky, sproingy clown who takes things literally and likes to cause trouble.  It's a bit reminiscent of The Cat in the Hat except without the Cat's oblivious good nature.  Jack has to learn to watch what he says because Zack just might make the worst of it!  By the end, though, everything is okay and back to normal.

Z liked the art on this one but I'm not sure he really connected with the story.  We'll try it again another day!

From the Grade 1-2 set, we got Benny and Penny in Just Pretend by Geoffrey Hayes.  I saw this book last year when I volunteered in the school library but I never really read it.  Benny and Penny are mouse siblings -- Benny is the older brother and Penny the younger sister.  Benny is out having a fun day playing pretend pirates but Penny disrupts his game.  So Benny offers to play hide and seek with Penny but really takes off, leaving her alone for a long time.  Eventually, he feels guilty, goes and finds her and sees what value she brings when they play together.

Z liked this one but, since he is an only child, I don't think that he really understood why Benny was being mean to Penny.  This would be a fantastic choice for warring siblings though -- both the older and the younger.  There are lessons about playing together, not being a pest and not using mean words to each other.  The text is very simple in this one and the drawings are detailed and interesting on their own.

Finally, the one that started it all for us (and happens to be at the Grade 2-3 level) is Otto's Orange Day by Frank Cammuso & Jay Lynch.  Z loves this one!  Otto's favorite color is orange (as is Z's).  He colors things orange, sings songs about orange and plays with orange toys.  One day, he gets a package from a distant aunt and inside is a small lamp.  Otto rubs the lamp and out comes the genie -- offering only one wish to Otto.  He thinks about wishing for something orange but goes one better -- wishing that everything could be orange!  At first he loves it but then he realizes that not everything is better when it's orange and even the color loses some of its lustre when everything else is the same.

Z thought this was a hilarious idea!  I wonder if he had thought about everything being orange before this.  This one is a bit longer and is broken into three small "chapters" but since it's a comic, it's really not too taxing for younger kids.  The artwork is amazing in this one and I have a feeling that it's going to be a fight to take it back to the library.  I may end up having to buy Z a copy of his own!

I honestly did not ever consider getting Z to read comics but these have great stories just like most picture books and I think they do a great job of keeping his attention with the multiple scenes per page.  We aren't going to go to an all comic reading plan but we can definitely put them into the rotation!

Enjoying pictures that are worth at least a few words,
K and Z


Support our site and buy Jack and the Box, Benny and Penny: Just Pretend and Otto's Orange Day on Amazon or find them at your local library. We borrowed all of these from the library.

Early Readers of the Week

The early readers that we picked up from the library last week have something in common. They are both by fantastic all-in-one writer/illustrators.

First we have Barkley by Syd Hoff. This is the story of a circus dog that starts to get too old to do all of the tricks with the other dogs. He leaves the circus to see if he can fit in somewhere else and he thinks he has found the place in a yard full of kids. But the kids have other ideas when they see him perform some tricks and they decide that he still belongs at the circus. When he gets back, he finds that even if he is too old to peform, he's not too old to be useful. He can teach the young puppies all of the tricks he knows. The thing about some of these older books (this one was written in 1975) is that they tend to be stronger and perhaps more esoteric in their moral message. This one is that your knowledge will always be useful to someone else. Maybe this book is supposed to inspire the thought in children that they should make use of the knowledge of their elders. I don't think Z got that at 4 years old. He just likes dogs and the circus.

Then we got Richard Scarry's Watch Your Step, Mr. Rabbit! This one is much more straight-forward. Mr. Rabbit is reading his paper while walking down the street and he steps into wet cement and gets stuck. All of the other animals work together to get him unstuck and yet he still goes off on his way with his nose back in the newspaper. This story strangely ends with Mr. Rabbit nearing the edge of a pier while wearing the residue of his previous mishap -- cement shoes. Not such an uplifting moral in this one -- more of a mob moral. Strange. Z really liked the basic text in this one though. It's a very easy reader with a good rhythm.

Fans of the pictures and the words,
K and Z


Buy Barkley and Watch Your Step, Mr. Rabbit! on Amazon or find them at your local bookstore.