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.

Dinosaur vs. Bedtime

If you're on facebook, you've seen those 25 Random Things About Me lists. One of Nathan's, a librarian friend of mine, is that his new favorite storytime book is Dinosaur vs. Bedtime, by Bob Shea. We of course immediately checked it out from the library.

Maya loves it. Like Maya (though she's building her lexicon daily), Dinosaur is a creature of few words. In fact his most used word is one of Maya's favorites - ROAR!

Dinosaur takes on all comers. "Dinosaur vs. a bowl of spaghetti! ROAR! ROAR! ROAR! CHOMP! CHOMP! ROAR! ROAR! ROAR! DINOSAUR WINS! ROAR! ROAR!" I think you can see the draw here. There are a minimum of three roars on each page.

A nice side effect is that Maya now trots around the house saying, "ROAR! ROAR! ROAR!" in various tones of voices. It's pretty funny.

Dinosaur finally meets his match when it comes to bedtime. The ROAR begins to be drawn out and turns into a snore. "Bedtime wins. Good night, dinosaur."

I suppose a bad side effect would be if Maya adds roaring to her anti-bedtime routine. So far so good.

Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See?

Well, were in that stage when Maya pretty much wants to read one book, and one book only. For the last couple of months it's been Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See?, by Eric Carle. She asks for it by name; "More Brown Bear, Brown Bear."

It's no wonder. This simple book has it all. There are, of course, animals. And there's repetition that Maya's already picking up on. And she's even just getting started on learning her colors with the end pages. In fact, Maya often forgets to read the book, choosing to just point at colors.

Oddly, aside from bear and dog, which were the first animals and animal noises she learned, Maya is really taken with the teacher. Before the holidays we were in a bookstore, and she started to say, "Teacher, teacher." Sure enough there was a poster of Brown Bear, Brown Bear showing the teacher.

So, I now can join Nicole in saying I have a side gig. Next week I'll start doing a pajamatime storytime at our neighborhood library as a volunteer. Patty and Maya showed their support by sewing for me a beautiful felt night cap. Now I'm off to find some bunny slippers.

Wabi Sabi

It's Caldecott/Newbery time again. Here is my pick to win the Caldecott this year. Wabi Sabi, by Mark Reibstein and illustrated by Ed Young, is clever in both word and image (though for the award the committee must think only about image).

The book is verticle, which makes it difficult to hold open for a long time but is mighty clever. I suppose that is because Japanese is read verticly, isn't it? But the book does read left to right.

Wabi Sabi is the story of a cat with the titular name who goes on a journey to understand it's meaning. It's very complex, so this is definately a book for older readers.

The kicker for me, a fan of haiku, is that there are two poems on each page, one in English and one in Japanese. The translations for the later are in the back and do not adhere to the 5-7-5 format, which is an English adaptation. Both poems are actually part of the story. It's like a Sunday NYT crossword.

Ed Young uses a variety of media, mostly collage. But also photographs, drawings, etc.

All in all and absolutely beautiful book.

We are the Ship

I would be happy if We Are the Ship won, too. Kadir Nelson is quickly becoming a favorite artist. He got a nod last year, but theoretically that shouldn't matter.

More later.

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.