Books Books Books

We go through an average of 8 books per child per week. Mostly thanks to the local public library.

As usual the books are spread on the living room carpet and the house looks like some trinket store on North Mada street in Mylapore during off season where the store owner spreads everything too thin to make it look like he has many items.

An inventory of sorts is done by the kids (mostly the little one) to verify that all books that she picked were indeed checked out! Then the books are all put back in the bag and are brought out in the order in which they were prioritized. Top seeded books come out first!

Keep telling myself to write reviews for some fantastic books that come our way and some books that are really not tasteful for 5 or 8 year olds that end up in that section of the library or at least drop a short note in the blog about the books.

Never seem to take that note to self very seriously...

These two are so good that they need a mention.

The first one is "Miss Nelson is Missing". A fantastic book (which also happened to be the play that the little one got to see as part of her school Kinder field trip). She can read the entire book (has probably memorized it by now).

The funny thing about this book was that it was part of the blue book project for Jr. two years ago! However Jr. never understood the surprise in the book, or forgot about it. She had a "oh.. so that is what happened" light bulb moment last week on doing a second read.

The second book is "Sometimes I like to curl up in a ball". This is a rhyme or "intro to poetry" book that is very well written and beautifully illustrated. The wombat is incredibly cute and both Jr. and the little one love this book.

There should be a service (maybe it exists already?) where all books for kids get two questions..

a. how old is your kid?
b. on a scale of 1-10, how does your kid rate the book?

with that info we can figure out the ideal age group that loves the book and how much that age group loves that book on a scale of 1-10..

On a similar thought blockbuster/netflix etc.. have a rating scheme for movies. If only they had the age demographic to go with it we can go straight to

"movies rated by people in your age group" ranked by number of stars... that way the movies favorited by young teens won't be recommended to me strongly by Blockbuster!

As usual, I digress for purely selfish reasons.

These two books are great for 5-8 year olds. Now that is a wide spectrum these days considering 3 years is a big gap in that age group when it comes to book trends based on our observation in this house!

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3 books, 1 pick

Jr. got one book with the 4 bucks from mommy and between her and the little one puppyfaced me into buying two more books when I went to pick her up from school! Apparently the book fair was on till 5:00PM the next day in their common hall.

Now we have three books..

Bad Kitty Gets a bath - by Nick Bruel

June B. first grader, Dumb Bunny - by Barbara Park

Spongebob Slapshot - by Nickelodeon (how it makes it to a book fair is beyond me)

(The last one was picked by the LO, instigated and approved by Jr. with the vested interest of making it her book on a "binaami" name. She knows the LO cannot read yet!)

Of the three, the best book I liked (and we can speak for Jr. as well here) is Bad kitty gets a bath.

Why?

This is the first true humor book that Jr. has read! She reads it, over and over again and laughs out loud! I get to laugh as well.

If you want to get a kid hooked to reading, or books for that matter, humor is the way to go!

Jr. does like the other two books as well. She seems to get the Spongebob book, but we don't. Maybe because she knows the characters and understands the stuff between the lines while we are lost and go "what do you see in that book?". Guess, we just have to get used to it over time ?!

If you have a five or six year old who is just getting into reading,

Bad kitty has a bath is very very strongly recommended!

ps. The LO still claims Spongebob to be "my" book and pretends to read it with made up sentences. It is so heartwarming to see her imitate her akka.

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The past and the present

Just after picking up Jr. from school:

Jr. : There is a book fair in my school.

Me : When?

Jr. : You won't give me money anyways right!?

Me : Okay. This time, WILL give you some money.

Jr. : My teacher says I need some bills. like phone bills or something to buy the books.

Me : ????? I think she meant dollar bills.

Jr. : yes, right.. she said we can only bring dollar bills. no Indian bills, no Canadian bills either!

Me : (thinking...at least I tell Jr. no money to her face. disappointing the kid by giving foreign exchange is not right) She is right! You need dollar bills.

LO : (chips in from behind) how about Seattle bills?

Jr. : No silly. Only California bills!

Me : (laughing) Same bills in Seattle and California kids. It is the US Dollar!

Jr. thinks that people give us dollar bills when we finish shopping at the local grocery store! We use cards whenever we go buy gas, groceries, costco shop, etc.

The only time Jr. sees money change hands is when we ask for cash back after buying groceries, which usually is to buy tickets at the desi movie theater and Jr. never witenesses that transaction where we hand over the money! Took me a few days to understand why she thought that and explain the concept of money vs. cards.

We came home to another conversation

Jr. : Daddy is going to give me some money to buy books amma!

San : why? you have all the books you want from the library

Jr. : No. I want to buy some books to keep forever.

San : how much is he giving you?

Jr. : Ten dollars

San : You get four. Which book are you going to buy.

Jr. : this one (pulls a catalog and shows some spongebob squarepants book). I have already read it!

San : What ?! You should buy a book you have not read yet.

Jr. : I like that book. So I want to have it in our house.

(by now I am wondering where this is going to go, as we listen to the same CD over and over again.. maybe Jr. likes to read the same book over and over again?)

San : Why do you want to buy a book that you have already finished reading? Why don't you buy a new book?

Jr. : (realizing that she cannot argue her way out with mom, changes the tone)Actually I have only read the cover of that book and the first few pages. Haven't read it fully!

San : (now laughing) I didnt just become "____" (Voldemortage) without crossing six. I was six years old once too you know. You cannot fool me!

Jr. : (giggles and finally decides on a new book that was four bucks!)

Sometimes I am glad that my wife was six years old at one point and remembers everything. She seems to be more ready for a growing Jr. than I am!

We do buy them books, every now and then. They got books for Christmas presents, birthday presents, when they really pestered us to buy something at the Mall recently, etc.

Believe it or not, we are allowed to check out, upto 21 books at a time in the Library and they have a reallllllly nice collection of young reader books and you can keep them for upto 3 weeks. Also, Jr. has been going through 3-4 books a day in the last three weeks as part of a reading program and is really hooked.

My best memories of college or school are at the Library!

When we were in middle school every wednesday we would get to check out one book and return it the following wednesday. Couldn't wait for that day and we would stand in line after school, to get the next 3 investigators, hardy boys etc.. and before you know it, it was Jules Verne, Conan Doyle and Earl Stanley Gardner and we exited high school!

The BHU library was just plain amazing. You could just drown youself in an ocean of books in that place and be happy and contented browsing, reading.. what memories!

The libraries in the US were better, what with computerized VAX search tools of the entire catalog! Took a part time job shelving books on saturday and sunday for minimum wage when I was in grad school. It was great because I would get to reshelve the books, remember which ones to check out later and read them during the week and also get paid for it.

Wish Jr. takes to the library like her dad. She is guaranteed to have fun!

ps. Voldermort-age = the age that cannot be spoken
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Fantastic Book

Jr. brings home three books a week.

Two are part of the "Red Bag" homework where she reads the book with me and does a one page activity based on the book. The third one is her weekly pick from the school Library for weekend reading.

So far we must have done close to two dozen red bag books and only two or three stick to my mind, or to her mind for that matter. (The original Curious George, The very busy spider, Chica Chica boom boom, a favorite from her preschool days, Chrysanthemum , Sylvester and the magic pebble, and the dandelion seed to name a few..)

Some books were highly touted, but failed to impress me or in my opinion gave the wrong message like "The giving tree" , but Jr. liked the book.

She usually gets better books on her friday pick like "The rainbow fish", "Cleo and Leo",

This friday's book was "Is your mama a Llama?" by Deborah Guarino with drawings by Steven Kellogg. Wow!! Amazing. Jr. loved it and so did I. It is going to be one of my favorite books. I am a sucker for rhymes and the words of this book would make Bob Dylan proud.

This book is about a Llama called Lloyd who keeps asking baby animals if their mama is a Llama? and finds out what their mama is based on a description of the animal.

Here is a sample..

"Is your mama a Llama?" I asked my friend Jane.
"No, she is not," Jane politely explained.
"She grazes on grass, and she likes to say, 'Moo!'
I don't think that is what a Llama would do."

"Oh," I said. "I understand, now.
I think that your mama must be a....

and of course Jr. finishes off by saying "COW!"

Really great book!

Here's to many more such good finds...

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