![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thanateMiss posting. Miss having time/brain to post. Working on re-organizing life so that maybe some day I will, tho we still have about 3 weeks of grauwulf on business trips to get through. (and that's two and a half of it all at once, ugh.)
Meanwhile, here are some of the picture books we've been enjoying. Many of them are even new!
Extra Yarn Mac Barnett, pictures by Jon Klassen. Girl with subtly magic box of yarn knits sweaters for all the things. Lots of animals, various shapes/sizes of people, fun with yarn, a little dramatic plot for the end. Megatherium approved. (Sadly monochrome of skin tones, otherwise five star)
Morris's Disappearing Bag Rosemary Wells. Actually, most Rosemary Wells is worth a look; we pulled this one off the Christmas shelf (which is next to the board books at the library) though I'm sure there's a copy around somewhere from my childhood-- possibly my mother has it. Anyway, Morris's older sibs think he's too little to be counted in as they rotate through playing with all their christmas presents until he finds a Very Interesting present that's been overlooked. I am particularly fond of how the boys choose to "beautify" themselves, and that one of the sisters gets a chemistry set. (You could argue that there's an underlying message about only sharing when there's something in it for you, but there's reality to that, too.)
Mama Talks Too Much Marisabina Russo. Child and mother walking to the supermarket on Saturday morning; mother keeps stopping to talk to friends, kid wants to keep walking until they meet someone with something she wants to talk about. Cute voice, diverse people, cityscapes.
Forest Bright, Forest Night Jennifer Ward, pictures by Jamichael Henterly. Board. This is all about the pictures. Technically a counting book with eastern deciduous woodland scenes with one diurnal and one nocturnal animal pictured in the number for that page (so, five blue jays & five skunks on the five page.) The first half of the book is day and the second half night, and there are slightly silly motion words on each page to identify the animal ("Leap and flash... deer splash") Gorgeous, highly recommended.
Red Car, Red Bus Susan Steggall. Intricate torn paper illustrations of a bus line-- follows the red bus #17 through traffic with lots of coming and going. The only words are identifying the vehicles on the road, but there are lots of people & animals and mini-stories in the pictures. Good diversity of both people & landscapes.
Waiting for the Biblioburro Monica Brown, pictures by John Parra. Book-starved girl in rural Hispanic village and meets traveling librarian. Good story; I think M likes this illustrator.
Green is a Chile Pepper: A Book of Colors Roseanne Greenfield Thong, pictures by John Parra. Little rhymes about objects in various colors, some explanations & glossary for the Spanish at the end. Generally fun, M's favorite color book so far. (There was something about not italicizing Spanish that came across my radar a while back-- I assume the argument was against othering it as a language or somesuch-- but I have to say it's super helpful to have the visual cue to switch pronunciation sets when you're reading little rhymes out loud. All except for the one where they italicized "chocolate" but only the English scans rythmically. Oh well.)
Crow Call Lois Lowry, pictures by Bagram Ibatoulline. Little girl and dad who's been away at war (WWII, I think?) go hunting together in the awkward process of trying to get reacquainted. We had this out a couple months ago, and M wasn't quite up to it yet, but I loved this one. Or possibly just the dad's line about buying the shirt.
Little Green Peas: a Big Book of Colors, Keith Baker. Apparently there are several of these? Anyway, fun and silly with little green peas wearing hats (hats are Very Important in this household) and doing things.
Laundry Dragons by Maggie Hogarth (ie MC Hogarth of "space marines" fame) Silly little rhymes and pictures of silly little dragons playing in the laundry supplies. Cute; there are a couple of the rhymes I want to mark up for scansion but I'm picky like that (and edit nursery rhymes on the fly, too) and some of the laundry paraphernalia doesn't match up with our washing process-- we've got a front loading machine, and don't use dryer sheets (ugh!) but hey, cute dragons patterned like socks.
Sarah's Unicorn Bruce & Katherine Coville. Early reader book with lots of pretty pictures, one of my childhood favorites. This was the favored bedtime book for about a week before being displaced by flipping through nursery rhymes. Very little blonde girl (but that's what we have in this household, so) but far less innane than most of the other girl & unicorn books I recall. Also
I rediscovered where my subconscious got that picture of the improbably large apple tree in a clearing by moonlight. Um.
We're also enjoying the Jane Yolen & Mark Teague dinosaur books, though there's a little informal switching up of gender pronouns. The particular favorite so far is How do Dinosaurs Eat their Food, though we're still struggling on emulating the "try every new thing, at least one small bite" bit.
Also, Sandra Boynton! Has music CDs! Parodies of pick-your-music-genre with silly animals and songbooks. I'm not sure there was ever a time I didn't need a love song to the chocolate cookies that are stuck in the jar out of reach. ("Faraway Cookies" from Philadelphia Chickens). Attn![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
heuchera if you haven't heard of these; at least you & your dad need to look them up.
---
And a dis-recommendation: the Musk Ox (A is for Musk Ox and there's a counting one) series is stereotypical frat-boy humor packaged for toddlers, and both Grauwulf and I found them appalling. (Which should tell you something, as we often have pretty divergent takes on mainstream humor.)
Meanwhile, here are some of the picture books we've been enjoying. Many of them are even new!
Extra Yarn Mac Barnett, pictures by Jon Klassen. Girl with subtly magic box of yarn knits sweaters for all the things. Lots of animals, various shapes/sizes of people, fun with yarn, a little dramatic plot for the end. Megatherium approved. (Sadly monochrome of skin tones, otherwise five star)
Morris's Disappearing Bag Rosemary Wells. Actually, most Rosemary Wells is worth a look; we pulled this one off the Christmas shelf (which is next to the board books at the library) though I'm sure there's a copy around somewhere from my childhood-- possibly my mother has it. Anyway, Morris's older sibs think he's too little to be counted in as they rotate through playing with all their christmas presents until he finds a Very Interesting present that's been overlooked. I am particularly fond of how the boys choose to "beautify" themselves, and that one of the sisters gets a chemistry set. (You could argue that there's an underlying message about only sharing when there's something in it for you, but there's reality to that, too.)
Mama Talks Too Much Marisabina Russo. Child and mother walking to the supermarket on Saturday morning; mother keeps stopping to talk to friends, kid wants to keep walking until they meet someone with something she wants to talk about. Cute voice, diverse people, cityscapes.
Forest Bright, Forest Night Jennifer Ward, pictures by Jamichael Henterly. Board. This is all about the pictures. Technically a counting book with eastern deciduous woodland scenes with one diurnal and one nocturnal animal pictured in the number for that page (so, five blue jays & five skunks on the five page.) The first half of the book is day and the second half night, and there are slightly silly motion words on each page to identify the animal ("Leap and flash... deer splash") Gorgeous, highly recommended.
Red Car, Red Bus Susan Steggall. Intricate torn paper illustrations of a bus line-- follows the red bus #17 through traffic with lots of coming and going. The only words are identifying the vehicles on the road, but there are lots of people & animals and mini-stories in the pictures. Good diversity of both people & landscapes.
Waiting for the Biblioburro Monica Brown, pictures by John Parra. Book-starved girl in rural Hispanic village and meets traveling librarian. Good story; I think M likes this illustrator.
Green is a Chile Pepper: A Book of Colors Roseanne Greenfield Thong, pictures by John Parra. Little rhymes about objects in various colors, some explanations & glossary for the Spanish at the end. Generally fun, M's favorite color book so far. (There was something about not italicizing Spanish that came across my radar a while back-- I assume the argument was against othering it as a language or somesuch-- but I have to say it's super helpful to have the visual cue to switch pronunciation sets when you're reading little rhymes out loud. All except for the one where they italicized "chocolate" but only the English scans rythmically. Oh well.)
Crow Call Lois Lowry, pictures by Bagram Ibatoulline. Little girl and dad who's been away at war (WWII, I think?) go hunting together in the awkward process of trying to get reacquainted. We had this out a couple months ago, and M wasn't quite up to it yet, but I loved this one. Or possibly just the dad's line about buying the shirt.
Little Green Peas: a Big Book of Colors, Keith Baker. Apparently there are several of these? Anyway, fun and silly with little green peas wearing hats (hats are Very Important in this household) and doing things.
Laundry Dragons by Maggie Hogarth (ie MC Hogarth of "space marines" fame) Silly little rhymes and pictures of silly little dragons playing in the laundry supplies. Cute; there are a couple of the rhymes I want to mark up for scansion but I'm picky like that (and edit nursery rhymes on the fly, too) and some of the laundry paraphernalia doesn't match up with our washing process-- we've got a front loading machine, and don't use dryer sheets (ugh!) but hey, cute dragons patterned like socks.
Sarah's Unicorn Bruce & Katherine Coville. Early reader book with lots of pretty pictures, one of my childhood favorites. This was the favored bedtime book for about a week before being displaced by flipping through nursery rhymes. Very little blonde girl (but that's what we have in this household, so) but far less innane than most of the other girl & unicorn books I recall. Also
I rediscovered where my subconscious got that picture of the improbably large apple tree in a clearing by moonlight. Um.
We're also enjoying the Jane Yolen & Mark Teague dinosaur books, though there's a little informal switching up of gender pronouns. The particular favorite so far is How do Dinosaurs Eat their Food, though we're still struggling on emulating the "try every new thing, at least one small bite" bit.
Also, Sandra Boynton! Has music CDs! Parodies of pick-your-music-genre with silly animals and songbooks. I'm not sure there was ever a time I didn't need a love song to the chocolate cookies that are stuck in the jar out of reach. ("Faraway Cookies" from Philadelphia Chickens). Attn
heuchera if you haven't heard of these; at least you & your dad need to look them up.---
And a dis-recommendation: the Musk Ox (A is for Musk Ox and there's a counting one) series is stereotypical frat-boy humor packaged for toddlers, and both Grauwulf and I found them appalling. (Which should tell you something, as we often have pretty divergent takes on mainstream humor.)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2014-09-24 09:07 pm (UTC)Those sound like really fun books. I've heard great things about Laundry Dragons.
no subject
Date: 2014-09-26 10:57 pm (UTC)wonderful
Date: 2014-09-25 04:07 am (UTC)Re: wonderful
Date: 2014-09-26 10:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-09-26 08:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-09-26 08:47 pm (UTC)(Also, picture sharing is still on my to-do list, but cannot bring out the camera without M clamoring to sit & look at all the pictures on it, so it's got to fight all the other non-baby tasks for limited time. Sorry.)