In the second half of January, Your Humble Blogger read to his Perfect non-Reader ...
- Rosemary Wells, Don’t Spill It Again, James; the title story, along with Skokie and Goodnight, Sweet Prince. Up to her standard.
- Else Holmelund Minarik, A Kiss for Little Bear; a sweet story with lots of kissing. And Sendak illustrations, of course.
- Maurice Sendak, Hector Protector and As I Went Over the Water; two obscure nursery rhymes, Sendak-ized (Sendakated?) to no particular purpose. I had high hopes, as his Down and Out with Jack and Guy was so disturbingly brilliant.
- Maurice Sendak, In the Night Kitchen; possibly the best children’s book ever. Possibly the best book ever. I never get tired of it. OK, I do, but it takes twenty or thirty readings. Avoid the surprisingly weak Peter Schickele narration in the Scholastic video.
- Jan and Stan Berenstain, Inside, Outside, Upside Down and Big Bear, Small Bear; I loathe the Berenstain Bears, but my Perfect One likes ’em.
- Stan & Jan Berenstain, Berenstains’ C Book; inferior to the A book and the B book. No, really.
- Alma Flor Ada, Daniel’s Mystery Egg; Seemed good, but not a hit.
- Alexa Brandenberg, I Am Me!; Again, not a hit, and I don’t know why.
- Kevin Henkes, Circle Dogs; This one wasn’t a hit, and I didn’t like it much myself.
- Robert Lopshire, New Tricks I Can Do!; The biggest hit of the cycle. An immense talking dog who can ride a unicycle and shoot baskets worries about his job security in the circus. Not for grown-ups.
- Jane Breskin Zalben, Papa’s Latkes; some people just can’t let go of Hanukkah.
- Beatrix Potter, Giant Treasury of Beatrix Potter including “The Story of a Fierce Bad Rabbit”, “The Story of Miss Moppet”, “The Tale of Tom Kitten”, The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck”, and “The Roly-Poly Pudding”; Not successful with the non-Reader, despite plenty of sex and violence.
- Deborah Kovacs, When is Saturday? featuring Grover and other Sesame Street Muppets; Quite a favorite, and actually helpful in learning the days of the week.
- Jon Stone, Would You Like to Play Hide & Seek in This Book with Lovable, Furry Old Grover?;Brilliant and a big favorite. Reminiscent of the author’s masterpiece, Monster at the End of This Book. Introduce toddlers to meta-jokes a la Sesame Street!
- Trinka Hakes Noble, Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch; better than either of her Jimmy’s Boa books we read, tho’ the non-Reader appears to disagree.
- Megan McDonal, The Night Iguana Left Home; not really memorable.
- Dr. Seuss, On Beyond Zebra;I know there are bad Dr. Seuss books, and super-brilliant ones, but this, like many of them, is just run-of-the-mill great.
- Gabrielle Vincent, Bravo, Ernest and Celestine; One of the noticeable things about this series is the big bear’s matter-of-fact poverty; in this one they turn street musicians to pay for needed roof repairs.
... and a bunch of nursery rhymes, including A. A. Milne’s, and a couple of Brer Rabbit stories, and at least one book read in the library and instantly forgotten. And, as will always be the case with these lists, there are things I’ve forgotten, too.
And it doesn’t belong on this list, but our non-Reader now knows that Interjections show Excitement or Emotion.
Redintegro Iraq,
-Vardibidian.
I misread “turn street musicians” as “turn to street musicians” and thought you were saying they asked the street musicians to pay for the roof repairs. After I understood there was no “to” there, it still took me a minute to understand that “turn street musicians” does not mean the same thing as “roll street musicians.”
… or if turning street musicians is like turning tricks. Not, perhaps the most felicitous phrasing Your Humble Blogger ever chose…