The Day No One was Angry by Toon Tellegen & Marc Boutavant

Bobs Books Blog

The Day No One was Angry by Toon Tellegen & Marc Boutavant. Pub. Gecko Press, 2014.

The sort of storytelling one has come used to when reviewing Gecko Press publications and I mean this in the most positive way. Twelve short stories from animals each dissecting and giving meaning to the emotion of anger.

The unusual hyrax is first cab off the rank expressing his anger at the sun for not being around when he is wanting it. He misses the sunset and the sun rise. The sun never listens.

Elephant is angry with himself for trying to climb a tree that he always falls out of. beetle and earthworm are both angry but believe each is angrier than the other while aardvark tells squirrel that he is only angry when he stands on his feet and so he stands on his head where he is much happier.

Squirrel is…

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A Day At The Lake

An Education in Books Blog

A Day At The Lake is all fun and excitement. There are no problems and worries, just a day swimming, exploring nature and watching the sun set, all delivered in snappy rhyme with loads of onomatopoeia:  flittery flee, ziggity jig, yodelly song. Written by Stephanie Wallingford and Dawn Rynders, illustrated by Erica Pelton Villnave, this is a great nostalgic read for those end of summer blues.

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Nice people

booksandbassets

Nobody likes a grouch, except maybe Oscar the Grouch, who is an exception to the rule.  And remember that old saying “You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar”? Well, two new picture books have two really lovely characters who are as sweet as honey.

In  Brimsby’s Hats by Andrew Prahin, the mains character, Brimsby is a hat maker who is just a very nice person.

I knew I was going to like this book when, on the second page it turns out that Brimsby has a friend who makes wonderful tea and they sit down to it often and have wonderful conversations. Men after my own heart.

When Brimsby’s friend leaves to become a sea captain, Brimsby is full of joy and sorrow. Life becomes too quiet, so he decides he needs to make new friends. When he does, the results are spectacular.

Another very nice person is…

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Two Area Problems

Cloud Math

Geometric solids week is coming! Prior to starting a unit on surface area and volume, I wanted to spend a couple days working on their concept of area. I pillaged a couple of text books for some ideas.

Problem One:

We ended up having a great conversation about the best way to answer the question. They immediately wanted to tell me what they knew. I showed them the results from the poll here on my blog (thanks to all of you who voted), and asked them to vote themselves:

Then I asked them to justify their votes. Some students started to go into defining what larger meant (a really important idea). They wanted to give me that they “knew” that the soccer field is larger, but did not have a mathematical justification. Finally they asked for some measurements:

Some calculations ensued:

They eventually decided the area of the soccer field…

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Using smell in the classroom

Book review: Dixie O’Day: In The Fast Lane by Shirley Hughes and Clara Vulliamy

bookwormlets

“made me feel all jumpy because silly things just pop up from nowhere…”

Dixie O’Day (a dog) really likes cars and he enters a racing challenge. His friend is Percy (another dog). They are racing against lots of other players like Loella (a human lady) and they have to try to win the car race all around a place called Didsworth.

The story is a very exciting one and made me feel all jumpy because silly things just pop up from nowhere like when Loella’s car broke down and she had to get a new pink one.

The pictures are really nice. I liked the black, white and redness of them. There is at least one on every page.

I would really recommend Dixie O’Day in the Fast Lane. I read it all by myself but it would also be a great story book for younger children to have…

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Book review: The Selfish Giant by Oscar Wilde – Illustrated and abridged by Alexis Deacon

bookwormlets

“the best stories are always a bit scary.”

The Selfish Giant has very pretty pictures but some are a bit scary like the one where the North Wind is blowing at the giant’s window after he throws the children out of his beautiful garden.

The book was quite hard to enjoy because some bits were very frightening and some bits were a bit nice, so your head doesn’t get quite in control. But the best stories are always a bit scary. Like Harry Potter stories and The Warlock’s Hairy Heart.

If you don’t let things scare you, you will find a very nice story because the giant used to be horrible and then he becomes sad and after that he became friendly because of the children.

This is probably not a picture book for children who are too young like under 4s.

[note from Wiggle: The artwork from Alexis…

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Tales From Outer Suburbia (Bobby Gross)

Infinity and Me

LIBR 237 LMC Materials

Bibliographic
Author: Kate Hosford
Illustrator: Gabi Swiatkowska
Hardcover: 32 pages
Publisher: Carolrhoda Books (2012)
ISBN-10: 0761367268
ISBN-13: 978-0761367260

Summary
Uma looks up at the night sky and wonders how many stars are in the sky. The impossibility of counting makes her feel very small in relation to how big, how infinite the universe is. The next day, wearing brand new red shoes, Uma asks her schoolmates, her grandmother, the cafeteria cook, and her music teacher what infinity means to them. She finds that each one has a different perspective on infinity, but not one has noticed her amazing new shoes. What Uma learns is that infinity may be a concept too large to truly understand, except when it comes to understanding the infinity of love that she shares with her beloved grandma who in the end compliments Uma on “the most beautiful shoes she has ever seen”. Infinity and me

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The Most Magnificent Thing teaches kids perspective

Mom Read It

The Most Magnificent Thing , by Ashley Spires. Kids Can Press (2014), $16.95, ISBN: 9781554537044

Recommended for ages 4-8

One day, a girl and her dog set out to make the “most magnificent thing” – the girl draws up schematics (her dog is the assistant), gets materials, and sets up on the street, getting to work. When she’s finished, she takes a look at it – it’s not really what she had in mind. She tries again. And again. And again. She just can’t make her vision come to life, and she gets MAD. At this point, her assistant suggests a walk, where she starts to feel better; she finds she has regained self-control and even more, perspective, allowing her to go back and look at her previous creations with a refreshed eye.

Ashley Spires, who some may know from her Binky the Space Cat series, looks at the frustrating process of…

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