Library picks

On our last trip to the library, Will picked up this book, which I am by no means recommending to you.

“Mom, this is so cool!” he said about 15 times in a row in what was most certainly NOT a library voice. "Look at all these bad boys."

I wasn’t too keen on the book, which features lots of knights wielding axes and lances and the “LEGO” brand named stamped across the cover, but Will's desire to get the book was way too intense to veto. It’s a good reminder to me that my idea of a quality book doesn’t necessarily matter all that much. Will studied this book many times independently and he asked about words as we read so that by the end of the story he had learned about chasms and lances -- and shudders and gulps – and found great satisfaction in reading the book repeatedly with Rob and me.

So I let Will pick a few things that tempt him when we go to the library. But he tends to want every book he touches – even though he doesn’t necessarily enjoy them all that much once we’re home. So I try to do a good bit of the book-finding myself. Now that I’ve exhausted the Caldecott shelf at the library, I’m starting to keep a library list – this is my equivalent of a shopping list for the library. As I hear about books I’d like to read with Will, or find recommendations in an article or on a blog, I’ll jot them down, and look up the titles on the library’s online catalog to see what’s available there before we go. Then while Will browses through books, I can go straight to a few titles I think we’re likely to enjoy.

On a recent trip, I picked up five titles recommended in an article entitled “The Unheralded Classics” in the March issue of Cookie Magazine – which featured “The 33 Best Children’s Books You’re Probably Not Reading Yet.”

Here are two (billed as books for 4- to 6-year-olds) that we especially loved:

"The Gruffalo" by Julia Donaldson Will thinks this story of a clever mouse and his invented Gruffalo (that just happens to be real) is really funny. We’ve read it again and again.

"Amos and Boris" by William Steig I love this story of life-saving friendship between a whale and a mouse – and Will does too.

How do you choose books at the library? Any recent favorites for my library list?

Reading -- not just a contact sport

Yesterday Owen sat through an entire reading of "Goodnight Moon," the bedtime story we've been reading every night, without once attempting to attack the board book. This is the first time he has been so enthralled by the pictures and words of a story that he hasn’t been desperate to turn the pages back and forth through at least half of it. Until now, reading has been a mostly physical sport for Owen. So watching his wide, enthralled eyes and his finally relaxed arms last night brought me real joy. I’ve got another reader on my hands.

(After our story, Owen and I also make a nightly routine of saying goodnight to at least a dozen different objects -- from lamps and chairs to painted cats and wooden frogs – in Will’s room each night. He loves the goodnight tour, and so do I.)

What nighttime rituals help your children transition to sleep?

Spiritual parenting

I enjoyed listening to the podcast of “The Spirituality of Parenting,” http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/spiritualityofparenting/ which aired yesterday on American Public Media’s "Speaking of Faith" program. It’s an interview with Sandy Eisenberg Sasso, an Indianapolis-based rabbi and children's book author.

Sasso offers a simple framework for how to think about spirituality in children, regardless of what religious path you follow, and reminds listeners that: “Society does a very good job of teaching us how to be consumers and how to be competitors. The question is how do we not just teach our children’s minds – how do we teach their souls. We want our children to be gracious and grateful, we want them to have courage in difficult times, we want them to have a sense of joy and purpose.”

She offers some simple suggestions for making prayer a meaningful practice for children, and she suggests that taking a bit of time daily for silence and reflection is nourishing for a child. Her suggestion for saying a bedtime prayer with a child: “Ask children if they will tell you a prayer from their heart.” And if they don’t know what to say at first, then offer a model. She suggests saying: “ ‘Well would you mind listening while I say one from mine.’ Name your hopes, name what you’re grateful for, name your fears."

She also offers a list of book suggestions – including children’s literature with spiritual overtones and books on parenting and spirituality.

And while I'm on the subject of spirituality, I’ll mention that this book has meant more to me than just about anything I’ve read in the past few years. It also reaches across faiths -- and it offers some insights about parenting too. More on that in a different post….