The Twelve Days of Christmas by Laurel Long

What I liked about this book was the artwork, which shows you the things that are mentioned in the lyrics.

King of the Stable

There's this kid who's rich and he has servants do the work. One day he finds out from somebody that his father has been captured so he needs to go live with his uncle. When he gets there, he cleans the stable and takes care of the animals. His cousins tease him a lot, and call him the King of the Stable. One day Mary and Joseph come, so the guy has to prepare the stable. So he does that, and then Mary has her baby.

The Christmas Day Kitten

There's a doctor named James Herriot and he's friends with this lady, Ms. Pickering. She sort of has a cat, a stray named Debbie. One day James comes at Christmas and Debbie's lying on the carpet with a kitten. Debbie dies, and the kitten becomes Ms. Pickering's cat. In the end, she decides to name him Buster. He can retrieve balls.

- Nino, 9

Worst of Friends

Worst of Friends starts out explaining the differences between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. In the middle of the book, it says that they had different ideas about what power the president should have. So they got super angry with each other and then they weren't friends anymore. The Republicans adopted Tom's ideas and the Federalists, probably Democrats now, agreed with John. The night before Thomas Jefferson was sworn in  was when John left the White House in the middle of the night. And then a few years later, John sent a letter to Thomas and then they kept on sending letters back and forth until Thomas said they should forget about what happened last time. And then they were friends again. The End.

Nino, 8

The Candymakers

Four kids: Logan Sweet, Daisy Carpenter, Miles O'Leary, and Philip Ransford III go to this factory called Life is Sweet. They learn how to make candy because they entered this contest to make a candy. And in the end, they all decide to help Philip win with his Harmonicandy. Philip wins, and receives a $1000 prize. The end.

The book tells the story from four different points of view, the children's points of view, so it turns out different every time at the end, because different things happen to them.

- Nino, 8

 

Survive! Inside the Human Body

This is the third volume of Survive! Inside the Human Body.

Geo and Dr. Brain travel to the brain and learn all about the cerebrum and synapses. Then they discover that Phoebe has a tumor in her brain so they take a sample of it to find out whether it's benign or malignant. They escape through the eye, and with the help of Kay, they find out that it's benign, but the tumor is pressing on the brain stem which could kill Phoebe. Kay and Geo go back inside Phoebe inside the SS Hippocrates (their ship). Dr. Brain uses the syringe they're in and injects near Phoebe's spine. They destroy the tumor with microbubbles and all is well.

I learned about that wrinkles that separate the different sections of the brain and can also save space because the brain, if there were no wrinkles, would be about the size of a newspaper. Ze End.

[Mom's Note: This is a graphic novel translated from Korean, sorta along the same lines as Magic School Bus.]

- Nino, 8

The Griffin and the Minor Canon

There's this griffin who has never seen his reflection. And then he finds out that there is this stone image of him on a church (the church doors). So he goes over there to check it out. And he's in a field, and basically all the people in the village get freaked out. So this dude, the minor canon, goes out to speak to him. So the minor canon comes back after talking and people find out that the griffin wants to see his image so some angry people try to destroy the griffin's image. But the minor canon protects the church so they can't crush it. And then the people (oh, I'm probably spoiling the story by now) send the minor canon away because they figure out that the griffin probably stays with him because he likes the minor canon. So the griffin gets really angry when he finds him gone. He tries to do everything that the minor canon did and since everybody freaked out, they did everything good, like the school children behaved better, the sick people leaped out of bed because they didn't want to be visited by him, and then he got really angry when they told him that the minor canon was gone. So they all freaked out again and brought the minor canon back. The End. - Nino, 8

I Sure Am Glad To See You, Blackboard Bear

This is one of those books that is so adorable in its illustrations, so appealing to the eye, so lovely in concept... BUT.... as a parent, this is not the type of book I like to read to my child. I understand that there are many kids who need to deal with bullying in their lives, and hopefully this is one book that will help them. (I'm not sure how, but perhaps that *is* the target market here.) There's a bit too much focus here on "getting back" at the other person, I think, that might not be helpful at all to those kids who need some good solid advice -- or even just comforting -- on what to do when other kids are being mean to you. Sigh.

To Catch the Moon

I'd say "Eh, don't bother," but this book does have an element of cuteness about it which may be attractive to some kids/parents. Certainly our toddler liked it enough to ask that it be read to him several times. I think he also likes that big brother Paco's name is in it. I *think* the message is that some things are better appreciated from afar, or that we need to think our actions through to make sure we'll be okay with the consequences.... but these may be messages that a toddler won't appreciate.... yet. For that reason I'll say this is more suitable for older kids and leave it at that. (The illustrations are somewhat reminiscent of Babar.)

Fifteen Animals

We first "met" Sandra Boynton when hubby and I were dating. He introduced me to Boynton greeting cards and our courtship/dating months were peppered with Boynton cards and gifts. Naturally we bought Boynton board books for the kids when they were born. Twenty-plus years later, Boynton hasn't lost any of her charm. This board book which introduces counting to little ones oozes with Boynton's trademark cuteness AND silliness. It's one of the first books that our toddler has "memorized" and he loves "reading" it to us, except for the last page which is a bit challenging for him. I won't tell you what it says, you'll have to get the book! :)

Back to Blogging Books!

Now that we've got a toddler, it's about time we got back to blogging books!  Nino, 2 3/4 loves loves loves books, has loved books almost from Day One.  He has certainly progressed from chewing on books, to being able to sit still for one word per page, to actually listening to several paragraphs per page -- all in the span of 2 years.  Amazing, this process of learning to read.  So far we've raised four great readers, and looks like this fifth one is well on his way.