Big and Little

Maya had her 15 month check-up today. I'm happy to report that she has indeed been growing. Her height is back up in the middle of the pack, and her weight percentage is in the double digits. Her head off course is still huge, apparently. You know I look at her and I don't see a kid with a balloon head, and nobody says as such. But on paper she should be a lollipop. Maybe you're all just being nice.

Big and Little, by John Stadler, is a treatise in perception of size. A mouse announces that Ellie the elephant is going to dive into the glass of water sitting on the table beside him. Can she do it? When Ellie slips and falls, the mouse runs for cover, but Ellie falls safely into the glass.

Each page is a fold out, with the mouse shown on the outside and Ellie shown on the inside. Only on the last page of course are you shown the whole picture, and there is a lesson in perception that you can talk with your kids about.

I had thought this book would be mostly for older children, but my preschool niece enjoyed it. I don't know how much she got the end, but I asked her questions along the way, "Is a mouse big or little?" "Is an elephant big or little?" "Is a mouse bigger than an elephant?"