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Some Books My Kids Love

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Books kids will loveOK, I love reading.  I love words and stories.  I love it so much I studied it in University and I teach it today.  So I want my kids to discover the glorious beauty of words and the wonderful things these can make your imagination do.  I try to make them love books, and stories, and reading by reading to them whenever I can.  Here are some of the books my kids love.

1. I Love You Forever by Robert Munsch

This was actually a Christmas gift to me by a dear, dear friend a year ago and now it’s one of the mommy-and-kids bonding books.  The story starts with a son who is just born and continues through his toddler years, his teen years, and even on to when he is a grown man.  The mother sings to him every night:  “I’ll love you forever, I’ll like you for always, as long as I’m living, my baby you’ll be.”  My kids love this book. They love the story and love seeing parallels between the boy in the book and themselves.  This is true for my daughter as well even if the baby in the story is a boy.  It helps that they love music and singing too and that I sing the lullaby part to them as well.  It is a great way to express the love a mom has for her kids and vice versa.  I must say, I cried while reading this to them the first few times.  Amazon currently sells it for $5.95, you can find it here

2. The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein

This is a simple story about the relationship between a boy and a tree.  The tree loves the boy very much and gives him everything, even  allowing the boy to cut him down to be used to build a boat.  The boy comes back to the stump later when he is old and chooses to sit and be quiet with the tree who still loves him so.  I know, it sounds kinda depressing, and kinda selfish.  But I love the part about giving because you love the person. This is what I focus on with my kids especially emphasizing them giving to each other as brother and sister.  Amazon is selling it for $12.23, you can find it here

3.  Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

This was a children’s book I knew nothing about until I took a Children’s Lit class in University.  I have loved it ever since. It is the story of a boy, Max, who flies into a tantrum and is sent to bed without his supper by his mom.  In his room, he imagines a  wild forest and sea and sails to the land of the Wild Things.  There he becomes king and does anything he want.  But he soon becomes homesick and so goes home, back to his bedroom, where he finds his supper waiting for him, still hot.  I love how this book deals with anger and how it shows that tantrums aren’t good and that at the end of the day, you can always come home to your parents who love you and to a safe and comforting place.  It helps too that there is a movie about this book!  Amazon is currently selling it for $10.82, you can find it here

So, these are the top three books of the moment.  I know these will change as I stumble upon newly remembered books of childhood years past.

What are your favorite children’s books?

The Kite and the Pigeons; An Aesop’s Fable

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Some Pigeons, terrified by the appearance of a Kite, called upon the Hawk to defend them.  He agreed at once.  When they had admitted the Hawk into their coop, they found that he killed a larger number of them in one day then the Kite could injure in a whole year.

Avoid solutions that are worse than the problem.

The Kite and the Pigeons
Image on Fotopedia

How would you use this fable to teach your children?

The Bowman and The Lion, an Aesop’s Fable

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A very skillful Bowman went up into the mountains to hunt.  All the animals of the forest ran at his approach; only the Lion challenged him to fight.  “Stop,” said the Bowman to the Lion.  “Here is my messenger, who has something to say to you,” and then he let fly an arrow.  The Lion, wounded in the side, rushed away in terror.  When he met a Fox who chided him for lack of courage, the Lion replied, “If the man sends so fearful a messenger , what will be the power of the man himself?”

Be on guard from those who can strike at you from far away, whether that strike is physical or something else entirely.

Bowman and the Lion
Image from Briarpress.org

How would you use this fable to teach your children?

Review of Owly Volume 1 by Andy Runton

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Owly Volume 1As I have mentioned in previous posts, I have loved and enjoyed comic books for most of my life. Most people that have never been truly exposed to the medium lump them all into one category, childish superhero fantasy.  While I am a big fan of superhero comics and find most modern superhero comics to be anything but childish, the point of this review is to show you that the medium of comics can and does tell a wide variety of stories.

Comics, in the simplest terms, are stories told with both writing and art.  They cover a huge variety of genres and are aimed at an equally wide number of audiences and age groups.   Owly is an independent comic book that is both written and drawn by Andy Runton.  There is very little text in Owly.  Mr. Runton uses expressive imagery to tell very emotional and heart warming stories.

Who is Owly?

Owly vol 1 is the first comic book I bought for my children.  Harrison was 3 and Sean was 1.  Both were too young for it but they have grown into it since.  Owly is not in the typical comic book format, it is shaped more like a standard book and much thicker than a comic.  The first volume includes two stories: The Way Home and The Bittersweet Summer.  Owly is an adorable owl who knows what it means to be human.  He is a reflection of the sweet and innocent child in all of us.  In the first story, Owly is lonely and in search of a friend.  He is misunderstood by the other animals around him but he perseveres and in the end he learns the meaning of friendship.  In the second story, Owly needs to learn how to let go but he also learns that goodbyes aren’t always forever.  Both stories teach a valuable life lesson to children.

As I mentioned previously, there is very little writing in Owly, it’s done almost entirely in black and white pictures but that is the beauty of it.  The art is so expressive that it’s easy to take your child through the story and talk about what is going on in the panels.  The book also allows your little one to express himself through the images, to create his own dialogue and explain to you what is going on.  It let’s them use their imagination to tell a story that matches up with the images in front of them.  My wife had a hard time with this book at first.  The first part of the first story is heart wrenching, poor little Owly just wants to be friends but is rejected at every turn in the beginning.  The art is so expressive it nearly brought her to tears the first time.

If you can’t already tell, I highly recommend Owly.  I reviewed vol 1 simply because it’s a good starting point but there are 5 volumes that I know of.  Owly is published by Top Shelf comics and may be available via your local comic book store.  If you can’t find it locally, Amazon has it at a great price.  Check it out for yourself at Owly Vol 1.

The Wolf and the Sheep, an Aesop’s Fable

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A Wolf, sorely wounded by dogs, lay recovering in his lair.  Being in want of food, he asked a Sheep who was passing by to fetch some water from a nearby stream.  “If you will bring me drink,” he said, “I will find meat myself.” “No doubt,” said the Sheep, “If I should bring you the drink, you would make mince-meat out of me.”

The moral of the story?  Hypocritical speeches are easily seen through.

The Wolf and the Sheep

How would you use this fable to teach your children?

The Fox and the Grapes, an Aesop’s Fable

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“A hungry Fox saw some clusters of ripe grapes hanging from a trellised vine.  She resorted to all her tricks to get at them, but she could not reach them and tired herself out. At last she turned away, muttering to herself, “Well, who cares? I’m sure the grapes are sour anyway”

This fable is actually where we get the often used term “sour grapes” from.  The fable is a popular example of Cognitive Dissonance, once of the most studied theories in social psychology.  I am no psychologist nor have I studied social psychology so my insight into this concept is limited but basically, what I believe it means, is the rationalization of something in order to deal with two conflicting ideas.  In this case the fox’s conflicting ideas are that he wants the grapes AND doesn’t want the grapes since they are probably sour anyway.

How often do you see this kind of activity in your life.  I know I have done it myself and I know that I see my kids react this way if they aren’t able to complete a task they were originally excited to tackle.  It seems almost like a natural defense mechanism, a way to convince yourself that it’s okay to not have accomplished what you set out to accomplish because it was never really worth while anyway.

The Fox and the Grapes
Found on Pixabay

How would you use this fable to teach your children?

Aesop’s Fables, a New Regular Feature on Kids Ain’t Cheap!

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Aesop's Fables make great teach tools for kidsI love the simplicity of Aesop’s Fables.  They tell a tale most of us can relate to in just a few sentences and typically feature the animal kingdom as the primary characters.  They are morality tales that were used to help teach children right from wrong.  They are very old which makes them even more special.  It’s amazing that no matter how advanced we become as a society, something from ancient Greece is alive and well and still being used to teach our children right from wrong.

The story behind Aesop and his fables

For me, the story behind these fables gets more and more impressive and increases my enjoyment of them.  Aesop was actually believed to be a slave when he wrote his fables, he lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 560 BCE.   Aesop’s fables were a spoken tradition, handed down throughout the generations until years later when scholars collected the stories and put them down on paper.  There are some doubts as to whether Aesop was the originator of these fables and there are similarities and connections with both India and Ethiopia.

I am no expert on the subject, what I know about Aesop doesn’t extend any further than what I have just written but I am a big fan of his fables and do use them to try to teach morality to my children.

Every so often I am going to share one of these fables with you on this site and tell you what it means to me.  I would love to hear what the individual stories mean to you.

Do you like Aesop’s fables? Do you use them as a teach tool?

A Fun and Economical Way to Get Kids Interested in Reading: Comic Books

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Batman Brave and Bold 21Yes, I am indeed a comic book geek but I am a proud geek at that.  As a parent, I think we all hope that our children will come to enjoy the same things that we enjoy.  To have a son or daughter you can share your hobby with is a fantasy most parents have, whether that hobby is sports, a favorite team, movies, music or in my case, comic books.  I grew up with comic books, they have fueled my passion for reading and have kept my imagination active.

Instilling a Love of Reading

We try very hard to instill a love of reading into our children.  Every night when we put them to bed, we read them 1 – 2 books each and we encourage them to spend time with their books on their own.  They are always getting new books on their birthdays and Christmas, from friends and relatives whose children have outgrown their books, from the library and from Goodwill when we can spare a couple of bucks.  They love it and I hope it continues.

One of the things I started incorporating into their reading just this week is comic books. Comics can be a bit edgy and most are no longer written for kids, they are written for adults. The content of comics, and even Japanese manga series like onee-chan wa game o suruto hito ga kawaru onee-chan, is typically too mature for young kids. However, there are a few publishers that make comic books specifically for children. DC Comics puts out a few featuring their stable of heroes as does BOOM (who bought the rights to make Disney comic books). Both are putting out quality books every month for younger audiences.
Both of my kids know who Batman is and both like him so for our first month I got them Batman Brave and the Bold from DC Comics.  So far, they have requested that comic as one of their nightly books every night this week.  It’s been really nice to see their excitement and interest.  They are still a little young for it but they love it nonetheless.

Comic Books Can Be Educational

I believe comic books can be an educational experience for children and an economical choice for parents.  On average, comics cost $2.99 each.  That is actually a bit steep when you are an adult and you are getting 20 – 30 titles each month.  As adult collectors, we buy them, read them and then generally stick them in a back with a backer board and save them as part of our collection.  Children get significantly more use out of them.  They aren’t concerned with saving them forever now are they worried about keeping them in good condition.  Even though they can’t read them yet, they pour through them and look at the pictures, they come up with their own stories and they exercise their imagination.  It gives them exposure to a new art form that they may not have ever experienced before.  It helps them develop their imagination and most important of all, it is a fun activity for Daddy to share with his boys.

If you don’t have a comic book shop near you, there are plenty of online comic book stores. When I was buying comic books for myself every month I used to use Discount Comic Book Service, now I just go and get 1 or 2 titles per month at my local comic book store.

What are your thoughts on using comic books as a reading tool?

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