Celebrating Goodness in The Week

      Celebrating today with Ruth Ayres and others who share. I want to celebrate what you can do with children, in this case, my grandchildren. Recently, a friend told me that she flew out of state to spend time with a grandchild so his parents could take a short trip. All he was willing to do was play with his Ipad or watch TV. She was quite upset, wondered why they didn't just hire a sitter since he was not interested in going anywhere, playing anything, reading books together, etc. My own granddaughters do play with different apps and they do watch TV, but mostly they "play" with toys, or imagine different scenarios in that kind of "play", or when something comes along that grabs their interest, they create, too. 
        I shared the following review earlier this week and had already read the book to my youngest granddaughter who will be in first grade. The girls spent part of yesterday and overnight till after lunch today with me. First, scooters around the neighborhood, then after dinner, this is what we did, after playing numerous games of Uno. 

      My review: I wanted to be sure to share this wonderful older book (1955) from Beatrice Schenk de Regniers and terrific Maurice Sendak. I can imagine kids taking off with their own ideas after reading this. These two ask the questions, then act out the silly answers, and in rhyme, too. What can you do with a shoe? "You can put it on your ear/on your beery-leery ear; You can put it on your ear, tra-la./Or wear it on your head/Or butter it like bread/Or use apple jam instead, ha ha." They move on to say this is nonsense and put the shoe in its proper place. There is more: what can you do with a chair, a hat, a broom and on. It is hilarious and my youngest granddaughter and I laughed and laughed. I hope you can find it and use it to find more items to brainstorm lists of "what can you do with a . . .! 

     

Scootering around the Block 

#IMWAYR - More Books To Know

          Visit Jen at Teach MentorTexts and Kellee and Ricki at UnleashingReaders to see what they've been reading, along with everyone else who link up.  

            Yes, it's still science-fiction and a bit of fantasy, yet there is a part of me that sees this story as the sweetest reunion of family. Like people torn apart in all the terrible times of our world history, seeing the sadness of parting between Roz the robot and Brightbill, her goose son and the joy of seeing each other after the separation brings tears as much as an adult novel will. After her repairs from the island capture, Roz is reassigned to Hilltop Farm where help is certainly needed by the family there. Roz uses her robotic abilities to do the work assigned, but her "extra" abilities endear her to the two children who live there. They've recently lost their mother, their father is injured and desperately needs help to maintain the farm. Not only does Roz befriend the children, but the dairy cows, too, and others who live there. She becomes fond of all, yet continues to miss her island and especially her dear Brightbill. Through migrating flocks, at last a plan for escape is made. Peter Brown manages just the right amount of tension and heartbreak met with actions of understanding and love in his second story of Roz. How he shows the least of the characters with heart is amazing. I smiled when I saw that Chitchat the squirrel remains, and was saddened that Greybeak, the pigeon was gone. It's a terrific story with just the right number of illustrations that punctuate the actions. 

             A few chapters, a lot of laughs, a fun book for early readers and any who love seeing friends have fun along with working out misunderstandings. “May I use your bathroom?” might be the most hilarious because Chick asks that question, and Fox thought what most of us might think, but Chick takes it to another level, “A PARTY”! There’s humor along with both sweet and tongue-in-cheek words. My granddaughter loved it and we both smiled all the way through. Thanks to Sergio Ruzzier, the text is brief but terrific, and the illustrations are straightforward and colorful. It’s created in a comic book format, easily navigated.