Two New Books

Where’s My Mom? By Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler
This is the story of a lost monkey and the butterfly who works to reunite him with his mother. The title alone will provide an opportunity to discuss what to do if a child gets lost, and the twist at the end helps children see that not all children look like their parents. It would be natural to follow the story with an activity to help children learn the name of their parents. I like to do this by talking about what I call the parent and then also calling the children by the name of the primary care giver. Aside from the social-emotional value, the book has quite a bit of opportunity to build critical thinking and language skills. Children can be asked to consider how things are alike and different, how you can distinguish one animal from another. You might extend this to have children attempt to describe their primary care giver. If children are developmental ready, graphs could be made about various characteristics of children or parents.

I’m Bad! by Kate and Jim McMullan While I really enjoyed the I Stink and I’m Dirty books by the same authors, I almost decided not to write about this book, after my first read. I thought it just encouraged bad behavior and might be disliked by some of the children especially the girls. I decided to see what others had to say and all I found were glowing reviews. They pointed out that the story shows that even the toughest of the tough guys needs mom and even the toughest creatures don’t always get their way. All of this reminded me that I need to read books that will appeal to the tough guys in my class. As much as I might think the children would benefit from a book, such as Making Friends by Fred Rodgers, if the tough guys tune me out, they gain nothing from it. So use your best big, loud, bad voice as you enthusiastically read, I’m Bad!, it just might get the attention of the child who needs it most.