It’s time for everyone’s favourite game: me talking about my recent favourite children’s books! What? that’s not everyone’s favourite game? Ok, just mine then. I can’t help it. The best ways to find great books are sheer luck and recommendations from friends. All of these were discovered by one of these two methods. So let me share a few of our recent favourites with you:
Ballerino Nate by Kimberly Bradley: There are plenty of books about ballet and dancing and pink and glitter and tutus and every single one of them is for and about girls. As the parent of a little boy who takes ballet I was excited to find this book on the shelves of my local library. My son has never expressed any concerns that ballet is just for girls or that taking ballet somehow makes him girly, however reading this book just reinforced for him that dancing is for everyone and that he should be proud to dance. This book features a boy who loves to dance but is worried that taking ballet lessons will mean he has to wear dresses and pink shoes like a girl and his older brother who, in the stereotypical manner, teases him for wanting to dance. My son loved reading this story and I loved reading a story that shows my kids that everyone can enjoy dancing and no one should feel ashamed to do what they love. Also, I learned that a Ballerino is the male version of a Ballerina. Did you know that? I didn’t!
Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson: I’ve featured books by Julia Donaldson before. I love her books. The stories are quirky and the rhyme is well-crafted and they are always popular in our house. This one was a major winner. The cute story of a witch who keeps losing parts of her costume and when she lands her broom to retrieve them, picks up extra passengers. The last page features a sweet-looking ride that my son never failed to say he wished we had in our closet!
Minnie’s Diner by Dayle Ann Dodds: This book is a fun to read that teaches kids about math concepts as family members enter a diner and order twice as much as the “brother before”. My kids wanted me to read it to them over and over. I’m pretty sure Dayle Ann Dodds has written other books and I’m going to be looking for them next time I’m at the library.
How to Raise Mom and Dad by Josh Lerman: Any book that features some kind of role reversal is usually a hit at my house. In How to Raise Mom and Dad a little girl instructs her younger brother (my kids immediately latched on as this is the structure of our family, too) in the proper training of their parents. Particularly funny was the scene where she reminds her brother to splash the water out of the tub as this will help keep the floor clean and mom and dad won’t have to clean it and running around naked after the bath keeps them from having to dirty a towel to dry you off. This could have been our bathroom any night of the week.
Mary and the Mouse, The Mouse and Mary by Beverly Donofrio and Barbara McClintock: I can’t really tell you why I like this book. The story is not at all complex but is somehow still engaging and I love the whimsical idea of a little girl and a little mouse living life side by side and never really interacting but being aware of each other and the way their lives are intertwined. It feels like a book that has been around for generations but it’s only a couple years old. A darling read.
A isn’t for Fox: An Isn’t Alphabet by Wendy Ulmer: A twist on the classic Alphabet book. We love the anti-alphabet book around here.
White is for Blueberry by George Shannon: As above, a twist on the classic colour book. A simple read but my kids love trying to figure out how white could possibly apply to blueberries and every other colour surprise.
It’s Not Fair by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Tom Lichtenheld: This was another library find that I just enjoyed – maybe more than my kids – because it pointed out that life isn’t fair. I guess I hoped maybe it would remind my kids that when the whine constantly about who has what and who went first and who got more that it really doesn’t mean anything and in the end we need to get the hell over it. Only it says that in a more kid-friendly way. 
Alternative ABCs by Dave Parmley and Eric Ruffing: Alternative ABCs is a board book and while we are no longer in the board book stage around here I did recently purchase this book as a baby gift and I absolutely love it. It’s way more fun than your standard baby ABCs where V is for vegetarian and S is for skull and G is for graffiti. I think it is a great way to branch away from the obvious A is for Apple.
The Day the Babies Crawled Away by Peggy Rathmann: This charming book has intriguing illustrations that are all done as silhouettes. The story of babies who are crawling away from their adults and only a young child who chases them to save them from certain peril is captured perfectly in this unique illustration style. You will enjoy reading this one, I guarantee it!
People by Peter Spier: I love this book. Can I say how much I love it? I love that it is sold at the Ten Thousand Villages MCC store by peace-loving, tolerance promoting, globally aware Mennonites. I love that it illustrates the many ways people in this world live. I love that it talks about different religions, cultural traditions, languages, homes, dress, games, skin colours and the many other ways people are different. I love that it also talks about the many ways we are the same. I love that it does so in a way that neither judges or condemns any kind of religious or cultural practice and points out one of the most important ideas that I believe makes healthy and fair-minded people, which is: If you were looking at yourself from the perspective of a different culture, you would look as funny as many of these people may seem to you right now. In other words, let’s all try and practice seeing the world from another person’s perspective. Wouldn’t that make the world a different place if we all tried that more frequently? I love this book. And my kids love it too. It is totally simple but it teaches incredibly important lessons. My kids love seeing the different ways people dress and talk and live their lives around the world.
If the World Were a Village by David J. Smith: I’m not sure my kids are quite old enough to understand the complete message of this book yet, but they still found it interesting. It illustrates the statistics of the world by shrinking it down to the size of a 100 person village. In that 100 person village, how many would be Asian? How many would be Muslim? How many would own cars? How many would have clean water to drink? It’s a very interesting perspective on the world and it really hits home that the way we live is not at all the global “norm”. Definitely an educational and interesting read.
Children Around the World by Donata Montanari: This is a great book for young children, introducing them to a number of fictional children from different countries around the world. Each child tells the reader some very simple facts about their life including the types of food they eat, where they go to school, what they do for fun, what kind of a family they have and what kinds of activities are part of a normal day for them. The illustrations are beautiful and interesting and my kids find it intriguing
Children Just Like Me by Barnabas Kindersley: This one has been around for a while already but it is such a fantastic way for kids to learn about different cultures. This book is less a “storybook” and more the type of book you sit down with and just flip through for a while and come back to again later. It is much longer and much more detailed than some of the other books I mentioned above. It is better for children who are a bit older and capable of reading on their own. My six year old likes to look through it although sometimes her attention is distracted after a few pages. The book covers several countries in each continent, one by one. The author actually travelled around the world, meeting and interviewing the children photographed in the story and just reading his own thoughts on the experience is fascinating. You see photographs of where the children live, go to school, the kinds of clothes they where, what they hope to do when they grow up, what kinds of pets they have, what games they play, what chores they do. It is a very thorough look into each child’s life in a very small amount of space. You could come back to this book one hundred times and find something new and interesting every time.
As you can see, we have been trying to expand our children’s view of the world by reading more books about people around the world and how they live. I read not too long ago that it is not enough to simply not express racism or prejudice. We need to actually spend time educating our children about the different kinds of people they will meet in the world. It is not enough to NOT say “People with _____ skin are bad.” We must also tell them “All kinds of skin are beautiful. There are many different colours of people but we all have the same kinds of feelings inside.” So that is part of why we have been on the recent kick. Of course we have the adoption to think of. Eventually our children will have a sibling who may have a different skin colour from them and so we are trying to find ways to expose them to differences. Since we live in a predominantly white part of the world, and a less culturally diverse city than many, we are doing what we can with books. Isn’t the library fantastic?
I hope this has been moderately interesting for you guys. If you have kids, hopefully you have seen one or two books you can consider checking out of your own local library. Enjoy!
