As much as I love old favorites, I can get pretty excited about a new book and Bernice just sent me four nice ones. The first Jibberwillies at Night by Rachel Vail and illustrated by Yumi Heo arrived last week. I decided the best way to find out if children would like it, was by reading it to my class. I started out by asking them what they were afraid of. They had plenty to say and did a good job listening to each other. By the middle of the book, I knew Bernice had picked a great one, because you could have heard a pin drop. At the end, they asked for it again. We followed up, by talking about things that help us feel better when we are afraid. I didn't do anything special, but it made me realize how seldom we take time to talk about being afraid. In the middle of the night, we can insist until dawn that monsters are not real, but just as we have a hard time reasoning when we are angry, being told there are no monsters, when we are scared, just doesn't work. The time to talk about these things is when we are all calm and rested. In the middle of the night, I go with the mom in this story, simply get a bucket, gather up those Jibberwillies and throw them out the window!
The other new book, I will share today is Twelve Terrible Things by Marty Kelley. As soon as you open the book, there is a warning which states that the book is full of terrible things and not to continue if you if don't want to see them. I have no doubt that the majority of the children will begging for the page to be turned. The illustrations are so wonderful that, there is little need for the few words of text describing the terrible things. Children will enjoy creating their own lists or pictures of terrible things and commiserating with others about which things are the most terrible. As I wrote that last sentence, I wondered if you can really enjoy commiserating, but most of us do just that and some how it makes us feel better to know we are not alone in our problems. Books like this will help children learn to take those everyday problems in stride.
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