Second disclaimer:
I married into a racing family that LOVES Indy racing. I have become thusly indoctrinated into the world of open-wheel auto racing and now enjoy a good race alongside all the other men in my husband’s family.

Put those two things together and this book was just meant to be in my hands!

The way that the author tells the story through the eyes of the dog, Enzo, is actually a fascinating idea that works beautifully! The racing analogies and metaphors that are used throughout the book are great, too. I feel like I not only learned a little more about racing, but a little more about how to apply those lessons to living life, too.

An emotional and deep read that keeps from becoming too serious through the levity of Enzo’s narration, this is a book I definitely plan to own and read again.

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by Leda Schubert

My review
rating: 5 of 5 stars

Winner of the 2007-2008 Texas Bluebonnet Award, this book filled with watercolor pictures of the true story of the Ballet of Elephants was captivating. When Igor Stravinsky (composer of The Nutcracker) was asked by George Balanchine (Russian Choreographer) to compose a piece of music for John Ringling North’s circus elephants to perform to, Stravinsky gladly jumped at the opportunity. My 6 year old listened to the story fascinated by the idea of elephants performing ballet, and was even more enthralled at the end when she realized this had been a TRUE story. Great book for introducing Stravinsky as a composer.

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by Shelley Rotner

My review
rating: 4 of 5 stars

My 2.5 year old loved this book and actually did quite well recognizing the objects’ parts before seeing the entire image on the next page. Great book for teaching parts to whole.

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by Joanne Ryder

My review
rating: 4 of 5 stars

Beautiful pictures and poetic text lend to a great description of Earth. Particularly moving for Earth Day, this book helps a child to relate to and almost feel like Mother Earth in order to have compassion for this planet we call home.

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by Joy Masoff

My review
rating: 4 of 5 stars

This interactive book about every kind of ‘boo boo’ is a great way for kids to learn about injuries and how to handle them. Written in a very upbeat kind of way so as not be scary, the sing-songy text still manages to convey important concepts. “Stitches itches as they heal. Tickling, tightening, a wee bit frightening! Stitches itches, but not for long. In a few short days, they will be gone.” My favorite part is the ending where the author reminds kids that injuries are only temporary and their ‘super-power bodies’ will heal from the inside out. Great book to take the fear out of everyday injuries.

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A bit about the book…

What we loved…
While the illustrations were quite unique, I also loved the way that the author used typesetting to help ‘illustrate’ certain passages. During a passage about “diving in tropical lagoons and rowing on blue-green seas”, Anholt typesets the words in curves that go around the fish in the picture behind the words to hint at the motion of swimming and waves. But, more than anything, it was the story itself that captured both my attention and the attention of my six year old. There’s just something fascinating to me personally about an artist creating a chapel in a new and different way.

Age appropriate…
While Kate enjoyed the story and illustrations, I’m not sure I’d recommend this book for children younger than 1st grade. The pictures are just different enough and the text just long enough to lose a small child’s attention. Definitely a great read for elementary schoolers, though.

From the book…

Matisse was delighted to see Monique again.
“You are all black and white,” he teased, “but I have found a way to be more colorful than ever! Look, I’ll show you… First I put on some music. Jazz is best. Now I shall paint some big sheets of paper… as BRIGHT as I can!”
Then with hands as quick as butterflies, Matisse cut a hundred dancing shapes, and soon they were pinned up on every wall of The Dream.

Check it out…
This book is only one of a series that Laurence Anholt has written about artists. He’s also written children’s books about Degas, DaVinci, Monet, Picasso, and Van Gogh. So, now, I’m off to our local library to see which other ones we can find to explore and enjoy!!

A bit about the book…

What we loved…
Barrie Carson Turner has done a fabulous job of commentating and setting the tone for this entire work of Saint-Saens. The first few pages describe why Saint-Saens wrote the piece (although I’m not positive it’s historically accurate, it’s a very cute story) and then describes an orchestra, the different instrument families, and how they are all arranged during a concert. A perfect introduction to the orchestra! The illustrations, by Sue Williams, that accompany this are a great visual for kids to ‘see’ it all, too. Turner’s descriptions of each musical movement and it’s corresponding animal are incredibly written so that you can easily hear the subtle nuances of each piece without getting bogged down in too much verbiage.

Age appropriate…
This book and accompanying CD* were a great addition to Kate’s Kindergarten year. We probably could have used it in earlier years also, but I think she was at the perfect age to really sit still and listen for the things that Turner described were going to happen in each piece. And the illustrations are great to look at while listening, too.

From the book…

This accessible commentary on Camille Saint-Saens’s classic piece allows children to follow each section of the music by listening to the accompanying CD. The whimsical illustrations, a simple text, and evocative melodies create an ideal introduction for young children to the world of classical music.

Check it out…
Carnival of the Animals was a perfect addition to our school experience and I highly recommend starting your composer study with something as easy and accessible as this book turned out to be. Now Kate is much more interested in Saint-Saens himself and is also more likely to pay attention to the nuances of any classical piece to which we listen.

*Our library’s copy of this book didn’t include the CD, but we were lucky enough to find another recording of Carnival of the Animals, narrated by Jonathan Winters, to listen to while we read.

A bit about the book…
We first were introduced to the characters of Jane and the Dragon during the tv show of the same name in the qubo block on NBC Saturday mornings.  Kate instantly fell in love with Jane, and the CGI by Weta workshops (think Lord of the Rings trilogy) was pretty cool, too.  We’ve since found the books and have enjoyed them even more.

What we loved…
Martin Baynton has found a fresh way to address character issues through this series.  In this book, the moral of the story is to follow your heart and do something unexpected.  By the end of the book, I was in tears as Jane, who was supposed to grow up to be a lady-in-waiting is able to finally become what she really wants to be – a knight.

Age appropriate…
Kate, who is 5, enjoyed the book immensely, especially since the heroine of the story gets to become something out of the ordinary from most princess books.  Ethan, who is 3.5,  liked the dragon parts in particular (hello, he IS a boy), but my 2yo, Karis wasn’t exactly attentive.  Probably best for the upper pre-school to lower elementary crowd.

From the author…

Fairy tales are tough on girls.  Within their cruel pages, girls scrub floors, eat poisoned apples, sleep for centuries and are only saved when a handsome prince arrives to sweep them off their blistered knees into a world of Happily Ever After.  Not so Jane.  Jane saves herself and she most definitely does not want to live happily ever after.  She wants adventure, danger, challenge – and ‘happy’ just isn’t enough.

Check it out…
Jane and the Magician is equally as good a story with a great lesson about apologies and forgiveness, including forgiveness of oneself, without even using those ‘big people’ words.  I’m ready for the next in the series!

A bit about the book…
The Princess and the Pea has long been a favorite fairy tale of mine, so when I saw this title, I just had to check it out. When we got home to read it, I realized that, while based on Hans Christian Anderson’s original tale, it was a version written and illustrated by Lauren Child, the author and illustrator of Charlie and Lola, a book series and one of our favorite cartoons on the Disney Channel.

Lauren’s artwork is really fascinating because she uses a mixture of photographed and hand-sketched elements together to make a very unique look. The kids enjoy it because it’s a bit whimsical and her characters are so funny. The parents love it because of the depth and detail of each picture. You’ll catch yourself saying, “Oh my gosh. Look! It’s a teeninesy little bowl of peas on the kitchen table.” “Wow! Look at the detail on the chandelier” and on and on…

What we loved…
While Lauren keeps the basic story line the same, her embellishments on the plot and the dialogue that goes with it is quite unique. She makes an old fairy tale come to life again with fresh new verbiage that is just a bit towards the sarcastic side of funny. (Which means that the adults reading the book will laugh hysterically and want to keep reading – always a plus for bedtime material!)

Age appropriate…
While my 5 year old enjoyed the story (she is a connoisseur of princesses and books written about them), my 3 and 2 year old were done with the length of the dialogue by the 3rd page. I would say this is definitely a book geared for early elementary, a little too lengthy and verbose for the preschool set.

From the book…

Once upon a time there was a king, a queen, and a prince. The prince was of the right age to marry and his parents wanted him to find a suitable mate. The prince agreed to this plan but he wanted to marry for love. This would have been fine except that though he met all the nearby princesses, none of them had “a certain … something about her”. So the prince searched high and low for someone to love but no one was quite right. At the same time that the prince was getting depressed about this, a beautiful girl who lived in a treetop house started following the moon to see whether or not it was just as beautiful above and beyond the mountain as it was in her home. Of course this meant that she became hopelessly lost, but fortunately she stumbled across the king and queen’s castle.

Check it out…
At the back of the book, Lauren devotes a few pages to explaining how exactly she and photographer, Polly Borland, created all of the artwork contained in the previous pages. My artist-daughter was fascinated by the process and gobbled up every detail.

Where in the World? Around the Globe in 13 Works of Art, by Bob Raczka, has turned out to be my newest favorite book for Kate. It’s a collection of 13 works of art from around the world (duh, you probably got all that from the title) with a page describing the geographical location of the piece as well as the artist and the time he/she lived in. It’s written for kids, so the language isn’t a stumbling block but, thankfully, it’s not sing-songy either.

Since I’m planning on using the Charlotte Mason approach for homeschooling, this fits in PERFECTLY with her idea of picture study (which is just studying pieces of artwork). In fact, I can even see us making a color copy of the page with the artwork and hanging it on the fridge for a week or two as we discuss it and enjoy it and describe it to one another before moving on to the next piece of artwork in the book. Oh, and here’s another idea – after studying that piece of artwork hanging on the fridge, move it into the schoolroom and tack it on the giant map on the wall onto the country it represents. One could even put it on a timeline as many of the pieces span centuries of art.

But, the best part has been Kate’s reaction to it. As soon as we sat down and started reading about the first piece of artwork by Katsushika Hokusai from late 1700s Japan, Kate was spellbound. Of course, it helps that one of the things about Hokusai was that he loved art from the age of, you guessed it, FIVE. As soon as I read that, Kate interrupted me and said with a twinkle of excitement in her eye, “Mommy! I’m five. And I like art, too!”

At the end of the reading, the author includes the last words of Hokusai:

“If heaven gives me ten more years, or an extension of even five years, I shall surely become a true artist.”

Kate looked at me and said quite seriously, “But, he IS a true artist.” To which she added, “Mommy, I’m sad that he died. Because I would like to meet him and learn more about art from him.” This. From a five year old. Wow.

Kate is excited to read tomorrow night about Little Bay, Australia and the artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude. And the next night about Tahiti and Paul Gauguin. And before we finish our ‘world tour’, I may have just learned a few things about art, too!

Oh, and BTW, Bob Razcka has written SEVERAL books around art.  I think I want them all!!

• I LOVE how easy this booster is to move from car to car. Basically unthread the seatbelt from the shoulder belt positioner and you’re good to go!
• Ethan loves the race car color scheme (as does his daddy!) and the fact that he now feels like a ‘big boy’.
• Kate loves that she’s not getting hit in the face with the side of a huge car seat. (She sits in the middle of the back seat between her two siblings. Not something she’ll be able to do much longer as her hips and shoulders grow and become wider than the opening between the two seats. Hopefully we’ll be able to purchase a larger vehicle by the time that becomes an issue. And when we do, we’ll probably get Kate the pink princess version of this same seat.)
• Shawn loves that the price didn’t strain our pocket book too much. I think we got ours on sale for around $40.
• Karis loves the fact that she’s not stuck in that rear-facing infant seat anymore. She loves being able to see out the windows! 

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