kid books

Book Review: The Darkest Dark by Astronaut Chris Hadfield

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Today we discuss the book I’ve read approximately 35 times a day for the last week: The Darkest Dark by Astronaut Col. Chris Hadfield.

The Darkest Dark by Astronaut Chris Hadfield, illustrated by the Fan Brothers

Did you know we’re in the 50th anniversary of the 1969 Moon Landing?? I’ll be honest; I didn’t. The anniversary of the launch was yesterday, July 16, with the anniversary of the landing on July 20th.

I didn’t plan to teach my toddler the moon landing, but here we are. #UnintentionalGoodParenting

I saw this book recommended on Instagram, maybe by Read Aloud Revival? I don’t think I really knew what it was about. But let me tell you, it was spot-the-hell-on for my life right now.

The day I picked this up from the library, I had been awake since 2am for the second time in two weeks with the 3yo. She’s developed a pretty serious fear of the dark, specifically robots in the dark. I myself struggled with this for a really, really long time, so I’m more than normally invested in doing it “right.” This page floored me because it was TOO REAL:

Pictured: Parent being woken up by child and face-palming in defeat and frustration. — Actual picture of my face-palm at 2am.

This book is about a family watching the moon landing in 1969, but it’s really about a little boy’s fear of aliens in the dark when he goes to bed and how the moon landing helps him overcome that fear. It has opened up so many good conversations about monsters in the dark with my 3yo, and while she is still struggling, I think this is really helping.

And bonus: it’s written by an actual astronaut. And includes a very cute pug named Albert. Only real downside I see is that every character appears to be white, but only one scene has people who appear to be outside the immediate family and they’re backlit in the dark in front of a TV screen.

Highly recommend.

Book Review: Before Morning by Joyce Sidman

On Facebook, I saw a post asking for recommendations for good winter picture books. What a great question, I thought! Being a good book nerd, I scoured through the recommendations and found a few to request through my library’s app. Technology is really amazing sometimes.

One of the books I requested is Before Morning by Joyce Sidman and illustrated by Beth Krommes.

Before Morning by Joyce Sidman, illustrated by Beth Krommes

It’s interesting because I really like it, yet I also don’t know how to read it. So it’s a little complicated for me.

My problem is that not all the pages have words. Or as few as two words. My toddler finds this unacceptable.

“Read it!”
“There aren’t any words/aren’t any more words.”
“Read it, Ima.”
“There aren’t any words here. Look, birds! And snowflakes!”

I think the illustrations are beautiful and intricate and provide a lot to talk about, but I guess I’m too used to a more structured book. It’s almost worse on the earlier pages, which are illustrated fully like a normal page but have copyright info or the dedication, for example. I normally don’t read those parts, but we usually can skip those pages entirely. They don’t look like the rest of the book. But when I tell the toddler there’s nothing to read there but it’s part of the narrative, she is frustrated. There are obviously words there.

Bonus points for the mother being a pilot (and the subtle placement of copies of a book about Amelia Earhart around the house).

And more bonus points for making their house look as “real” and “homey” (meaning messy) as mine.

Beautiful and realistic, plus the beautiful outdoor winter scenes.

I definitely recommend Before Morning. But maybe you guys can tell me how to better read such a lightly structured book?

Book Review: On Mother’s Lap by Ann Herbert Scott

I’ll cut right to the chase: I love On Mother’s Lap. Highly recommend.

It’s a sweet and simple story about a preschooler named Michael who wants to rock in his mother’s lap with all his toys but doesn’t want to share it with his baby sister. Bonus points for being drawn from everyday Inuit life without fetishizing it, with the drawings informed by the illustrator’s experience living in an Inuit village for a short time. (Eskimo is written in the book jacket but is often considered a derogatory term today.)

The moral: “You know, it’s a funny thing, but there’s always room on Mother’s lap.”

If you have more than one child, you need On Mother’s Lap in your life.

I Finally Censored a Book

We all get the urge to censor books. At least I think so 😉

We’re reading a good book, and then…ughhhhhhhhhh something makes you groan.

Why is that there? Why on earth did that seem like a good idea? Why did authors have to be so racist/fatphobic/horriblehumanbeings/whatever?

It’s often not so easy to censor a book. So usually, if it bothers me, it goes into the rehoming pile. I certainly have enough books left, and there’s no mandatory book list my toddler will be required to read by 18. (I know it feels like there is, but there isn’t. I promise. I’m a perfectly well-adjusted adult who has never read the Little House series, though I do plan to read it. Whether I read it to my kids remains to be seen after I’ve read it myself. I know all this is practically heresy in the homeschooling world.)

But I like Harold’s Circus by Crockett Johnson. And my toddler loves it too. It’s why she insists on pretending to fly on the flying rings every half hour, holding something in the air over her head, demanding that I get her down from the high rings. Groooooan.

But there’s a particularly offense page about the “fat lady” of the circus.

No thank you. But Gd had mercy, and the offending two pages are the same page. It can be removed without changing the story. We just didn’t read it for months, but she’s wising up to our method. Drastic measures had to be taken. Remove the content or remove the book.

I have a few other beefs with the book, but they’re pretty picky. I’ll keep the book until they bother me enough.

So I tore the page out. Believe me, it hurt me more than it hurt the book. Tearing a page out of a book?? Heavens to Betsy. Sacrilege! It tore out cleanly, thank Gd, yet I still hesitated to throw it in the recycling bin. Once I threw it away, it’d be real. No backsies. No taping or gluing it back in. But I knew I’d never put it back in the book.

Get out of my house. Good riddance.

Book Review: The Seashore Book by Charlotte Zolotow

I own few children’s books as pretty as The Seashore Book.

It’s full of beautiful, realistic paintings (if very dated to the early 90s in the few pictures with people).

This first page of the book sets the story: the book is told in the form of a mother telling her child a story about visiting the seashore, where her son is the main character. It’s a calming, quiet story perfect for bedtime or during the baby’s nap.

Amazon tells me that the book was recently re-released last year (2017), and it looks like they re-did some of the pictures in a brighter style and changed the formatting a bit. From just a glimpse of the sample pages on Amazon, I actually prefer the original 1994 edition. Unfortunately, the lowest price for that version on Amazon as of today is $40 (new; used copies as low as $5.50). Compared to $14 for the new version, no contest, I’d buy the new one. However, this older book is a great candidate to look for at library used book sales, library discard sales, and other used book sources. I found it for $4! And it was in person, so no shipping!

A side benefit of the book I didn’t expect: I don’t know how to tell stories. I much prefer reading them aloud. This book is a great middle ground because by reading the book, I learn one way to tell a story and build some “muscle memory” of phrasing, so to speak.

Because we often visit the beach, I prioritize finding naturalist-style books about the ocean and beach, and this one is excellent. Highly, highly recommend The Seashore Book!