Juvenile Classic: Ballet Shoes, Noel Streatfeild and Diane Goode

Ballet Shoes
Noel Streatfeild, illustrated by Diane Goode
ISBN: 0679901051 (library binding)
Re-read while off at a conference.

I don't remember the first time I read this book, but I know it wasn't during childhood.  Which is a crying shame, because I would have loved this sweet little classic domestic about three adopted siblings finding their passions and their purpose in the worlds of dance and performance and machinery.

The plot is simple: an old man is an inveterate traveler and fossil hunter, and he picks up three "fossils" along the way that are a bit different.  They're left at his big home in the care of "nanny" and his grand-niece, and while he's away, they grow up in difficult financial circumstances, necessitating them hosting boarders and the girls performing (dance and acting) professionally to earn money as soon as possible.

It's like Alcott, but less twee, and not really any moralizing at all.

There's a movie also, with a very peculiarly aged (and blonde!) Emma Watson, which I haven't seen yet, but seems watchable in that sort of "Shirley Temple" adorable saccharine way.

Nonfiction: The Importance of Being Little, Erika Christakis

The Importance of Being Little: What Preschoolers Really Need from Grownups
Erika Christakis
ISBN: 9780525429074
Read March 5, 2016

Discusses the hodge-podge nature of preschool and kindergarten education, and what we are discovering about effective learning environments based on longitudinal studies, other countries, developmental psychology research, and hands-on experimentation.

Tuesday Storytime: Black History Month, Children

I don't like to make a big deal out of Black History Month for my storytimes, but I do feel like I ought to at least reference major national observances just like I do holidays.  My usual approach is to simply select my usual storytime themes, but to limit my titles to those with obviously Black illustrated characters.  This means that I don't often do biographies of famous people, or "issues" stories very often, and I wonder sometimes if most people even recognize that I'm doing it, since I don't mention the Month during storytime at all.  On the one hand, that feels a little stealthy, but on the other, I like that I can actually DO a storytime about bedtime or families or city life without it having to be explicitly a "Black" story.

Little Monster
Barrie Wade, illustrated by Katinka Kew
ISBN: 0688095976
Mandy overhears her mom praising her for being good, but when everyone laughs about "little monster" Jimmy, she reconsiders.

I really like this story because it perfectly illustrates how kids overhear and interpret adult interactions, molding their behavior to gain a specific reaction or to empirically prove their ideas true or not.  Mandy is up late one night and overhears her mom praising her for being good, but when her brother Jimmy gets multiple laughs for being a "little monster," Mandy isn't so sure that being good is all it's cracked up to be.  The next day she's a holy terror in the most innocent of ways - sticking out tongues, minor direct disobedience, general acting-out, and by the end of the night, mom snaps and calls Mandy a "little monster," but mom being the bright sort, figures out immediately what's up, and reassures Mandy that love and affection and laughter are unconditional, whether a kid is a "little monster" or "good as gold."  Very sweet, but some families might be a bit uncomfortable that Mandy isn't punished for any of her "bad" behavior.


Ten, Nine, Eight
Molly Bang
ISBN: 0688009069
One of my favorite bedtime books.  A sweet father and daughter go through a countdown rhyme as she prepares for bed.

Previously reviewed here.  Always delightful, and even though I did it quite recently, it's a perfect middle book because of the very short narrative.


Please, Baby, Please
Spike Lee & Tonya Lewis Lee, illustrated by Kadir Nelson
ISBN: 0689832338
Adorable toddler is front and center in oversize, child's-eye-view illustrations.

This one isn't my favorite to read, and I hate that.  I LOVE the illustrations, and the "baby" is delightfully expressive and perfectly a toddler, getting into things and being entranced by things - just absolutely beautiful work by Nelson, and I really adore the loving attention he paid to details.  But, the narrative is 60% comprised of the words "please" and "baby" arranged in different orders as thus: "please, baby baby, please" or "baby baby baby please" "baby please, baby baby" etc.  Which is not only repetitive, but difficult for the reader.  It's not enough to keep me from doing it every once in a while, but it's absolutely enough to keep this book off my favorites list, which is a crying shame.  

 

Montessori, A Modern Approach. Paula Polk Lillard

Montessori, A Modern Approach
Paula Polk Lillard
ISBN: 080520394X
(1971)
Read March 25, 2014

I finally actually read it!  Bought a lovely 70's style orange and yellow paperback copy from the library book sale, and read it cover to cover in an afternoon.  I'd seen it before, and have had it recommended several times, but never gotten around to it.

I have to say, despite being nearly 45 years old, it holds up pretty well.  That either says a lot for how little we've changed as a culture in 45 years, or speaks to her ability to avoid "modernisms" that become outdated quickly.

Basically this is a polemic, supporting Maria Montessori and her methods of instructing young people.  I find it interesting that in America, the "land of the individual," Montessori has had such a tough time catching on, despite being pretty much designed around respecting and supporting individual interests and development.  I think that is because while adults in America are supposed to be rugged and self-supporting and independent, kids are supposed to be passive and obedient and tractable - I'm never quite sure how or when people are supposed to mature from the one category to the other.

If you're not familiar with Montessori, you will be after reading this book.  What I find interesting personally is that a lot of Montessori's ideas have been corroborated by modern scientific testing and developmental studies of children.  We now KNOW that kids develop in certain stages, that it's good for kids to try and amster new abilities, and that it's normal for them to focus on one ability to the exclusion of others (the early walker who won't talk, or the chatterbox who is still crawling at 16 months).  In fact, other than her didactic  "Sensitive Periods" which are debunked by a better understanding that ideas and experiences are picked up and processed sequentially through infancy and childhood, most of what Montessori learned through observation more than one hundred years ago is holding up pretty darn well to modern scientific discoveries.

Now, what I'd like to see, and haven't been able to find, is an actual "modern" update to this classic, talking about developments in science that back up their ideas.  No luck so far tho.

 

Tell Me a Story, Elaine Reese

Tell Me a Story, Elaine Reese, ISBN: 9780199772650

Read Sept 23, 2013.

Nonfiction: interactive story-sharing.

Excellent parenting/professional guide discussing how reading and literacy and oral language skills improve children's mental stats, their ability to learn, and their emotional skills, metacognition, and theory of mind.

Not a bad slate of improvements for a fairly simple technique - involving the child in telling (or sharing) a recitation of story - either from actual books (from wordless picture-books on up through adult-level fiction and nonfiction) or from telling and re-telling stories of your own family (from the time you went to the zoo, to the time grandpa ended up in the hospital) or from allowing the child to create stories of their own (from fictional "and then I grew wings and flew to the moon" to chapters-long created adventures cribbed from Star Wars or Warhammer.  

Nice balance between scientific study and child-development milestones (listed at the end of each chapter with real-life implications and indications) and actual transcripts of kids and parents/researchers using the techniques with actual kids (some of whom we see over and over again between infancy and teenagerhood).  Very interesting resource, but not complicated enough or profound enough to feel like I need to own it.

If you're already devoted to literacy and language skills, it's pretty much a simplified and straightforward set of examples to make sure you're loading as much language into every encounter with your kids as is humanly possible.  Knowing my husband and me, I doubt that's going to be a problem.     

Essential Baby Sign Language, Teresa R. Simpson

Essential Baby Sign Language: the most important 75 signs you can teach your baby, Teresa R. Simpson.
ISBN: 9781440560842

Read Sept 23, 2013

Slim volume with a brief and encouraging intro, a glossary of ASL letters of the alphabet, and a useful "troubleshooting" section at the end, is mostly comprised of clear b&w photographs of MOST of the 75 signs which are introduced here.

The signs are obviously selected to be of interest to a baby - milk, diaper, mommy, daddy, sister, brother, cat, dog, fish, airplane... Some interesting choices are on offer: we get options for cup, drink, milk, water, and juice.  We also get "pain" and "angry" which I don't see offered much, but are important for the baby's self-expression.  I would have liked to see a few options for zoo animals, as those are often highly interesting to babies, and maybe a few specific toy/encounter choices: ball, truck, blocks, swing, but overall these are obviously useful selections.

I did NOT like that there were several signs which didn't get photographs to illustrate - the directions for them are as clear as possible, but text instructing movement always has potential to be misinterpreted.  

Baby-signing is becoming mainstream, and it's a good thing, in my opinion.  This is an overall excellent choice for someone ready to try it out.

The Best Little Monkeys in the World

The Best Little Monkeys in the World, Natalie Standiford, illus by Hilary Knight.  ISBN: 978-0394986166  

Read July 17

Published 1987

 

Remembered from childhood and re-read.  "Mischievous" monkeys get up to all sorts of horribly messy trouble while their useless babysitter chats on the phone endlessly, but when the evening draws to a close and the sitter is fast asleep on the couch, the good-natured siblings put equal effort into (unsupervised and un-asked) cleaning up their mess, straightening out the home, and putting themselves to bed.  No one gets into any trouble when the parents return, none the wiser, to a clean house and a clueless but happy babysitter.

 

I was surprised to see this in the library recently - I remembered it fondly from my grandparents' house from my visits there.  I had always liked it because the monkey siblings were very active and imaginative and got into a lot of messes, but not maliciously.  That was a nice unforseen alternative to "bad" mess-making kids, or "good" quiet and wussy uninteresting kids.  I also very much liked that they were proactive (and competent) about cleaning up after themselves in order to keep their fun going.  As an adult, I'm a bit horrified at the message and the idea that these little berserkers were swift enough to bamboozle their parents into continuing to use the same worthless babysitter, but as a kid, I thought it made excellent sense.