Goodnight Moon

Like you need me to tell you anything about Goodnight Moon. We have two copies, and I'm sure you have more. But I have to tell you this story.

We've been reading Corduroy and Goodnight Moon religiously twice each day for a couple of months now, right before sleep. A long time ago a professor advised that I should always tell the name of the author and illustrator of each book I read. So I do. Why not?

Well, Nana babysat last night. When we came home she said she picked up the two bedtime books and read the title, "Goodnight Moon". Maya immediately said, "Marget Wi Brown, pictures Clem Hud." Which is her translation of, "By Margaret Wise Brown, pictures by Clement Hurd."

She always waits to show off to the new guy I guess.

Speaking of bedtime, here's how I found Maya the other morning. How does she sleep like that?

Who Am I?

Last week at Jammies Storytime I had to give an apologetic look over to the librarians when we sang a song about Two Little Dinos, "...one named Quiet and one named Loud". This week when we sang it as Two Little Kittens, we left that verse out.

Maya got a little loud in the library herself when she figured out the book/toy Who Am I? (a novelty book by Begin Smart Books). It doubles as a mask with two eye holes in the middle and handles on the edges. Each page has a different animal face. Just hold the book up to your face and make a noise.

When Maya found the cat page she began running around the library, "MEOW! MEOW!" Thus our quick departure (of course we checked out the book and took it with us).

Now Maya did have trouble figuring out that she needed to point the kitty away so others could look at it. So at home we tried it in front of the bathroom mirror. That worked well.

Here's a picture of Maya in another disguise. See if you can guess which piano key plunker she is.

Good Luck Bear

Maya's second birthday last week was close enough to St. Patrick's Day that we made it an Irish affair. We had corned beef and cabbage with shepherd's pie on the side. Not bad. On the day, Maya got a green bowler from her Aunt Marty, who loves all things Irish.

For storytime Tuesday night we inserted an appropriate book into our dinosaur theme. Good Luck Bear, by Greg Foley, is about a lucky little bear who is searching for a four-leaf clover. He's having trouble finding one, and the other animals aren't helping at all. Monkey says there's no such thing, Rabbit finds one but eats it, and Groundhog asks, "If you don't find one, does it mean that you're unlucky?"

Poor Bear feels like the most unlucky animal. But he is lucky. Why? Because he has a friend like Mouse, who brings to him not a four, but a five-leaf clover.

In the past, I usually ignored St. Patty's Day, because I couldn't find any books I liked. But now I'll keep this one on my list for years to come.

I mentioned Maya's birthday. Here's a picture of her blowing out her candles with a little help from Cousin Addy, who had experience from a couple months before.

He's Got the Whole World in His Hands

Okay, it's time for one of those gratuitous dad posts. Our little girl's world has been pretty small thus far, but it's getting bigger all of the time. She's meeting more kids and adults, and she's just beginning to learn how to get along without Mama or Daddy. The little milestones that occur each day make me very emotional. I want to absorb everything for her, but I can't. I'm thankful that I know she has someone bigger than me holding onto her.

I'm talking about this after taking another look at Kadir Nelson's He's Got the Whole World in His Hands. It's such a beautiful book. I'm going to be keeping my eye out for this illustrator.

Amazing scenes of a family interacting with their world accompany the familiar song. We start big with a view of the heavens, then the San Francisco skyline at daybreak, then right to a boy holding a picture he drew of his family. "He's got my brothers and my sisters in His hands." It just gets better from there.

I highly recommend this inspiring book to all families.

Here's our little one out in the great, big world. As my grandmother used to pray over me, "Be round about her, Lord." God be round about you, too.

10 Things I Can Do to Help My World

Unfortunately, when we lost our camera, we hadn't downloaded the photos and videos of Maya playing in and around our new composter (I call it Darth Vader). It's full of scraps now, so we're probably not going to reproduce those. You'll just have to imagine. But here are Maya and I stealing leaves for Lord Vader from Uncle Wade and Auntie Katie when they weren't home (their trees are leafier than ours).



It's hard to imagine that preschoolers could enjoy a book about green living, but Maya really likes 10 Things I Can Do to Help My World, by Melanie Walsh. Some pages are die-cut to entice page-turners like Maya.

The tips are simple, like turning off the water when brushing teeth or making a recycle bin. There are two levels of text. I'll confess we just read the big "I" sentences. But there are short explanations for older kids.

Say Daddy

I've been noticing that Maya is very good at learning the words we aren't stressing and ignoring the ones we are. For example, I've been stressing the word "book" since she was, oh, two weeks old. My professional pride was riding on that being her first word. Nope. But she will walk up to us and say, "Reeuuuu," which is her version of "read".

Say Daddy!, by Michael Shoulders and illustrated by Teri Weidner, is about just this phenomenon. Each family member reads to the new baby and at the end says, "Say Daddy" or "Say Nana." But baby doesn't comply.

Finally, the baby comes out with "Book." Everyone is pleased, though Daddy just won't give up.

There is a lot of text here, so I'd say this one is a little long for preschoolers.

Here's Maya showing off her reading skills and Mama's first attempt at pigtails.

Where's My Mummy?

I guess it's a mummy theme. Where's My Mummy?, by Carolyn Crimi and illustrated by John Manders, is one of Maya's new favorites.

Little Baby Mummy wants to play hide-and-seek instead of going to bed. So he "tromped, tromped, tromped to the deep, dark woods, the spookery woods..." At each turn he hears scary noises. "Clank clink clank Woo boo woo Clank clink CLOO"

Each time it's a familiar face who tells Little Baby Mummy to get on home because it's dangerous out in the dark woods.

Finally he comes upon a truly frightening creature. A mouse. Luckily Moma Mummy is there.

Lots of great sounds. Even glubbing and gurgling.

Here's Maya raiding her loot. We of course ate her candy, but not before she mushed it up for an hour. Does etiquette dictate that we trade our candy for our neighbors', knowing that we'd be eating theirs? Ah, never mind.



She's a frog, BTW.

Boo, Bunny!

All right, I know I'm late for Halloween, but I have to get a few of Maya's first trick-or-treating photos up here. We went to three of our neighbors' houses then came back to hand out our own candy. Patty and I were both off work for Halloween for the first time that I can remember. It was very pleasant meeting some new neighbors. Here is Maya knocking on a door (ours actually). Luckily she had been practicing "Knock knock".


Boo, Bunny!, by Kathryn O. Galbraith and illustrated by Jeff Mack, is a good introduction to trick-or-treating. It shows the bunnies being a bit scared, but having fun. Good mental preparation for your timid toddler.

The pictures are vibrant, and there is some great onomatopoeia.

Snowy, Blowy Winter

It's another early winter day here in Minnesota. Maya hasn't been that excited about the snow thus far, but once it starts piling up on the ground, I think she'll get into it. Here are pictures of what may have been our last cookout.

Snowy, Blowy Winter, by Bob Raczka and illustrated by Judy Stead, is a fun winter book with an infectious rhyme. The best part are all the adjectives, real or made-up:
"Six more weeks of snowy blowy glowy frosty freezy stuffy sneezy strappy zippery icy slippery...." It goes on and on.
In the back is a recipe for Snowy, Blowy Ice Cream. That's right, a dessert made of snow. I'm a bit wary, but Patty swears she's gonna try it. I did put my foot down on where she gets the snow.
Mayareads got another nod from a website for parents by teens. We're on the list of 50 Best Dad Blogs. Thanks to the teens who chose us. Here's a link to their site:

http://www.onteenstoday.com/2008/11/10/50-best-dad-blogs/

Hush Little Baby

So I like the melody of Hush Little Baby, but I've always been bothered by the words ("Daddy's gonna buy you"). Have you felt the same way? Well, luckily Sylvia Long has. Her version of Hush Little Baby I really like.

I'm going to assume she would be happy to have you sing this to your child instead of the materialistic one, and that you will want to go out and get the book with the pleasant illustrations once you read it. Here's a sample of the song:

Hush little baby, don't say a word,
Mama's going to show you a hummingbird.

If that hummingbird should fly,
Mama's going to show you the evening sky.

Isn't that great? I once tried to change the lyrics myself when I was rocking Maya to sleep, but mine were too snide, especially when I got to diamond ring. Long's words are so gentle.

The image of rocking a baby to sleep, singing a lullaby is one of those that brings up feelings of warmth, peace, and love. But we all know sometimes bedtime can be anything but peaceful. Maya, like all babies, is so beautiful when she's sleeping. But occasionally she sprawls herself out like a drunken frat boy. Here's a photo of my little cherub sleeping.

Edwina The Dinosaur Who Didn't Know She Was Extinct

Our last guest reviewer is Natalia (2), who chose Edwina The Dinosaur Who Didn't Know She Was Extinct, by Mo Willems. It is the story of Edwina, a dinosaur who everybody loves, and Reginald Von Hoobie-Doobie, who "knew just about everything about just about everything". When nobody will listen to Reginald's scholarly arguments showing that dinosaurs are extinct, Edwina takes an interest. She is convinced Reginald is right, but she decides she doesn't care. In the end Reginald doesn't care either.

Natalia says her favorite part is "Edwina the dinosaur who doesn't was stinky" (Note the quotation marks).

Matthew's Truck

Our next guest reviewer is Elaina (4). She chose Matthew's Truck, by Katherine Ayres and illustrated by Hidelo Takahashi.

Matthew likes his toy truck. He imagines himself driving his truck up huge, enourmous mountaions (the back of the couch) and splashing into deep dangerous lakes (the fish tank). Good thing the cat is always there to keep an eye on him.

Elaina says her favorite part is when Matthew carries a bunny in the back of his truck.

Sally and the Purple Socks

We're going to have three quick guest reviews by our very special guests this week. Maya's cousins read a great number of books with us to work on filling up their reading records for Summer Reading at their library in Indiana.

I asked each of them to pick out there favorite and tell what they liked about it. Our first reviewer is Katiana (6).

Katiana chose Sally and the Purple Socks, by Lisze Bechtold. Sally gets some magical socks that grow and grow. She uses them as a scarf, a blanket, up to a circus tent until they shrink down again to perfect size.

Katiana says her favorite part is the circus.

Young MacDonald

So we have a very technologically savvy little girl already. Maya loves to type on the computer and talk on the cell phone. She sits in my lap and presses things on the laptop while I'm surfing. In the past she has managed to pull up functions I never knew existed. Once she called up the source info for the web page I was on.

We rarely let her touch the cell phone, since in the past she would suck on it and make the speaker fuzzy. But in a desperate moment to keep her awake in the car till we got home (been there, haven't you?) I pulled out a ringer (get it, ringer?). Maya managed to take three pictures, change our ring tone, and call my brother.

I'm sure if I could see her I would have seen her What? look, shown here when we caught her tearing open a package of outlet covers. So much for safety.



Another adaptation of a familiar children's song, Young MacDonald, by David Milgrim, is about a boy genius. It's a bit of an homage to Young Frankenstein, as our hero does experiments in cloning. He joins various barnyard animals together to make new species. I know it sounds disturbing, but the results are pretty cute.

Here's a sample verse:

Young MacDonald had a farm, ee-i-ee-i-o.
And on that farm, he make some Deese, ee-i-ee-i-o.
With a Hee-Honk here,
And a Hee-Honk there,
Here a Hee, there a Honk,
Everywhere a Hee-Honk.
Young MacDonald had a farm,
Ee-i-ee-i-o.

You know how I often say a book will take a little practice to read it smoothly. Definitely one of those here. But you might want to give Young MacDonald a try. It has to be seen to be believed.

Carry Me!

Hallelujah! We had two breakthroughs this week. Maya took her first steps the other day, and last night she did a lot of walking. She has a long ways to go before she's running around the playground, but she's on her way. I know everyone says we'll be wishing for the days when we didn't have to chase her around, but after five months of Maya walking all over holding onto our fingers, our backs are a little sore. I'll see if I can get some video on here tonight.

Rosemary Wells' Carry Me! is a touching book showing parent and child being close even as the child grows and becomes more independent. It comes in three sections: Carry Me!, Talk to Me!, and Sing to Me!

In the first section, the little bunny sings to her Mom and Dad, "Carry me into the garden Under the plum tree's shadow. Carry me over to hear the bees. Stuff my pocket with early peas."

In Talk to Me!, the little bunny can stand with help and is learning to be by herself, but she longs to hear her parents' voices. "Red eyes blink from moonlit wings. Tell me a story about these things."

In Sing to Me!, she can run and play on her own. "Sing me a winter song I'll sing you right along The old song we know...."

As Maya grows I know I'm going to miss those cuddly times, so I'll just make sure I'm there waiting when she comes looking for a pair of arms.

Here's a great daddy song for Father's Day. I change the words liberally to make it Maya's and mine.

Dance to Your Daddy

Dance to your daddy,

My little laddie.

Dance to your daddy,

My little lamb.

You shall have a fishy

In a little dishy.

You shall have a fishy

When the boat comes in.

Dance to your daddy,

My little lassie.

Dance to your daddy,

My little lamb.

You shall have an apple.

You shall have a plum.

You shall have an apple

When your daddy comes home.

Holly Bloom's Garden

Maya and I were weeding the garden again yesterday. Maya is getting so good at finding things to do outside while I work in the garden. We make a few small concessions. I think a little dirt gets eaten each time (what my dad would call 'good clean dirt') and one of the herbs was sat upon. These are, in my opinion, small prices to pay for Maya getting to interact with nature.

I had thought Maya had found the first fruits of our labor. She saw a bright, red strawberry before I did and tried to pick it off. I wanted Patty to see it first, so we had quite a discussion about leaving it be for the time being. I was amazed. How did she know what to do? Turns out she picked and ate one the other day I hadn't heard about.

So our little garden is moving along. The family in Holly Bloom's Garden, by Sarah Ashman and Nancy Parent and illustrated by Lori Mitchell, has a real knack for gardening. The Bloom children all have foretelling names. Rosie and Bud grow big, beautiful plants. But poor Holly can't seem to make anything grow.

She goes to bed defeated. But after everyone is asleep she has an idea. She sneaks into her artist father's studio and works all night to create a big, beautiful flower garden in her own way. It's a great lesson in finding joy and satisfaction in your own strengths.

Here's our little picker in action:

Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!

We had a milestone yesterday. Maya and I wanted to meet Auntie Kati and Cousin Addy at the Children's Museum, but Patty needed the car. So Maya took her first bus ride. It was a short jaunt downtown and back. We did miss our corner by four blocks, but nothing wrong with a little extra walking on a nice day. We have a good picture. I'll add it tonight, so check back.

Fortunately the bus driver was a person and not an animal. Lord knows what would happen if it were, say, a pigeon. Mo Willems warns us not to let that happen in Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!

Pigeon is short, and the text is not written in a narrative style. When it first came out years ago, I didn't really like it, to be honest. But it's grown on me, probably due to seeing how much fun kids have hearing this book.

The bus driver has to step out for a bit, and he asks us to make sure the pigeon does not drive the bus. The pigeon tries to coax us in so many ways. "My cousin Herb drives a bus almost every day!" "Hey, I've got an idea. Let's play 'Drive the Bus'!" And my all-time favorite, "I'll be your best friend!"

The best part about this is when the children get to shake their heads and yell, "NOOOOOOO!" for each one.

The illustrations are so sparse and child-like, can you believe Willems received a Caldecott Honor for them? He did. On closer inspection, I can see that he does such a wonderful job of conveying emotion with so few elements. A rising scribble lets you know when the pigeon is fuming. The pigeons one big eye says a lot with the smallest changes. And the page where the pigeon is really letting go is full of motion conveyed with just a few black lines (and some flying feathers).

Pigeon is great for big groups, but you can have a blast with this one no matter how many children are with you.

Book!

I'm not sure that Maya understands yet when she gets a new book. There a quite a few books around the house, and library books come in and go out all of the time. But one thing I know she likes to do is choose books. Check out Maya perusing the big kid books at home.



And here she is picking out books at the library.



And maybe you're saying she's just taking them out. But check out her technique in this video.




The little boy in Book!, by Kristine O'Connell George and illustrated by Maggie Smith, is definitely excited about his new book. He can turn the pages and put it on the shelf (upside down of course). He reads it to the baby and the cat. He can read it anywhere, on his mommy's lap, under a table, upside down, or on his head. And of course he takes it to bed.

Considering the popularity of books about people who love books like Anne Fadiman, this may be a good introduction to bibliophilia for your little one.

Gallop!

Maya bought a unique new book for her cousin Addy's first birthday. Gallop!, by Rufus Butler Seder, has pictures that move. The cover calls it "Scanimation". They look sort of similar to those original film cylinder motion pictures.

Each page has a different animal. The horse gallops, the dog runs, and the eagle soars. It's like TV in a book. Stop at a store and check it out.

A classmate sent us an article about a pediatrics resident in Madison who "took time out" from medical school to get his library degree. He now has a unique assessment tool when he is examining his young patients. He gives the children books to see what they do with them. Do they hold it right-side up? Do they open it? Can older children describe what they see in the book?

So I started paying attention to what Maya does with books, and I have some pretty good evidence that I could bring her to this doctor and be proud. Here are some photos for those who have asked for more Maya pictures:



Doesn't it look like she should have a latte in her right hand on that last one?

Of course, she also has a habit of taking a book and smacking herself on the forehead repeatedly with it. Maybe I better stick with our current doc.

Sorry I don't have the link to the article. It was from a local paper, so the one I received doesn't work anymore.

Good night.

Introductions

Hi, my name is Larry Longard. I am a Library Science student at the College of St. Catherine and soon will be an intern at the Minneapolis Public Library in the Early Childhood Programming department. I am also a new father. Maya is my eight-month-old daughter. I've decided to try a New Year's resolution for the year of 2008. My goal is to read a picture book, fiction or nonfiction, each day (preferably to Maya) and write about it in this blog. In Cover to Cover, Horning says that professional reviews should not include personal anecdotes. Therefore, these will not be professional reviews. Who needs such a harsh restriction? I hope you find something interesting; please post responses and suggestions. I love talking about books.