We've had some wonderful book finds lately. Rado's favorite, which Sava also requested to have read repeatedly over one whole week, is
Many Moons by James Thurber. It is the fairytale of a sick princess who begs her father the give her the moon in order to feel better; without spoiling the plot for those who may not know the tale, let me just say that she gets what she wants, and she gets it in a most ingenious manner. It is not exactly a book for a four-year old, since some of the language and various concepts are too difficult for him to grasp, but I think Sava enjoys the idea of the girl wanting the moon and getting it, and we enjoy all of the things that he can't understand yet.
We've also truly enjoyed
Crow Boy by Taro Yashima, which in this day and age would likely be read as a tale about an autistic boy in rural Japan. Thankfully, it was written over fifty years ago, so no such labels get doled out in this lovely story of a boy who is painfully shy (or pathologically unsociable), and who spends several years going to school without saying a word to almost anyone. His teacher is the only one who is able to draw him out, and he learns that the boy has a talent for imitating crow sounds. On the day of graduation, that gift finally endears the boy to his classmates, who realize that he is an exceptional person with a warm heart and a rare gift. It was not surprising at all that Sava liked the book, as he responds with empathy to all stories about downtrodden or misunderstood characters.
We've finally come around to reading
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst, which, it seems, is on every preschool and kindergarten reading list. Boy, did we all love it. The book probably requires little introduction to people born and raised in this country in the last thirty or so years, but for those unfamiliar with its "plot," it should suffice to say that the speaker is a grumpy pre-teen boy who wakes up with gum in his hair and in a bad mood one morning, and proceeds to have a most awful day, in which everyone and everything seems to conspire against him. He keeps comforting himself by saying that some day soon he will move to Australia, and by the end of the book learns that moving away from home might not be the solution to his problems. The book is funny and irreverent in all of the ways that a four-year old boy loves.
A sort of Zen meditation on the beauty and usefulness of trees,
A Tree is Nice by Janice May Udry is a lovely excuse to think and talk about nature in the comfort of one's bed. We borrowed the book over a year ago and Sava showed no interest in reading it, but this time he asked for it and appreciated it fully. It's one of those books that are profound in the simplicity of their message.
We've also just started to crack open for the first time
Shel Silverstein's Where the Sidewalk Ends, which is a collection of poems and drawings. After
The Giving Tree, which Sava loved way back when, and which made Rado cry in a way I am never likely to forget, this is only our second book by Silverstein; some of the poems are perfectly age-appropriate for Sava, but others remain well beyond his understanding. Still, the literary snob in me got a full-body massage from reading about a dozen poems, and I can't wait until Sava and Raya are old enough to appreciate every word of these wonderfully whimsical and thoughtful poems. Sava did ask me for the first time what a "poem" is, and I have no recollection of what I told him, but I remember thinking that here go all of my years in graduate school studying literature--when it comes to giving the definition of a poem to a four-year old, pretty much all critical jabberwock is useless; and that says something, because I have never seen an adult enjoy a poem as much as my four-year old enjoyed some of these Silverstein creations.
I am thrilled to announce also that all three of us finally read for the first time ever (emphasize "ever")
The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss. Make that for the first two dozen times, because I feel like I have been reading this book non-stop for the past few days. It would be an understatement to say that we love it, but I am not sure that another word will do. Sava giggles uncontrollably whenever Thing One and Thing Two appear, and he hyperventilates every time we get to the last few pages where the Cat in the Hat comes in to clean his mess with a car that has several arms extending from its body. The book is a work of genius. From the rhyme, to the concept of wild play behind mother's back, to the restoration of order where chaos reigned, every word and every picture work to engage a child's imagination. Truly, a gift to the English-speaking world.
Last but not least, a book we spent a good deal of time reading and talking about was
William's Doll by Charlotte Zolotow. I guessed it was written some forty years ago before I looked up the actual publishing date (1972), because it was clear to me that valorizing a boy's determination to own a doll, despite his peers' taunts and his father's disapproval, could not but have been written some time during the cultural upheaval of the seventies. Sava requested it many times, and even though he rarely commented with anything other than suppressed giggles at the other boys' taunts against William, it was clear that the idea of a boy playing with a doll engaged him. We, of course, endorsed the book's message that it is alright for a boy to play with whatever he wants to play with as strongly as we knew how to (though I don't think Sava is going to request a doll any time soon; we asked dear friends to give him a doll for his first birthday, and they found him a lovely homemade creation on Etsy, but the doll is finally being lifted out of oblivion by Raya; Sava couldn't have cared less for it in the past three years).
We've had some wonderful book finds lately. Rado's favorite, which Sava also requested to have read repeatedly over one whole week, is Many Moons by James Thurber. It is the fairytale of a sick princess who begs her father the give her the moon in order to feel better; without spoiling the plot for those who may not know the tale, let me just say that she gets what she wants, and she gets it in a most ingenious manner. It is not exactly a book for a four-year old, since some of the language and various concepts are too difficult for him to grasp, but I think Sava enjoys the idea of the girl wanting the moon and getting it, and we enjoy all of the things that he can't understand yet.
We've also truly enjoyed Crow Boy by Taro Yashima, which in this day and age would likely be read as a tale about an autistic boy in rural Japan. Thankfully, it was written over fifty years ago, so no such labels get doled out in this lovely story of a boy who is painfully shy (or pathologically unsociable), and who spends several years going to school without saying a word to almost anyone. His teacher is the only one who is able to draw him out, and he learns that the boy has a talent for imitating crow sounds. On the day of graduation, that gift finally endears the boy to his classmates, who realize that he is an exceptional person with a warm heart and a rare gift. It was not surprising at all that Sava liked the book, as he responds with empathy to all stories about downtrodden or misunderstood characters. 
We've finally come around to reading Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst, which, it seems, is on every preschool and kindergarten reading list. Boy, did we all love it. The book probably requires little introduction to people born and raised in this country in the last thirty or so years, but for those unfamiliar with its "plot," it should suffice to say that the speaker is a grumpy pre-teen boy who wakes up with gum in his hair and in a bad mood one morning, and proceeds to have a most awful day, in which everyone and everything seems to conspire against him. He keeps comforting himself by saying that some day soon he will move to Australia, and by the end of the book learns that moving away from home might not be the solution to his problems. The book is funny and irreverent in all of the ways that a four-year old boy loves. 
We've also just started to crack open for the first time Shel Silverstein's Where the Sidewalk Ends, which is a collection of poems and drawings. After The Giving Tree, which Sava loved way back when, and which made Rado cry in a way I am never likely to forget, this is only our second book by Silverstein; some of the poems are perfectly age-appropriate for Sava, but others remain well beyond his understanding. Still, the literary snob in me got a full-body massage from reading about a dozen poems, and I can't wait until Sava and Raya are old enough to appreciate every word of these wonderfully whimsical and thoughtful poems. Sava did ask me for the first time what a "poem" is, and I have no recollection of what I told him, but I remember thinking that here go all of my years in graduate school studying literature--when it comes to giving the definition of a poem to a four-year old, pretty much all critical jabberwock is useless; and that says something, because I have never seen an adult enjoy a poem as much as my four-year old enjoyed some of these Silverstein creations. 
I am thrilled to announce also that all three of us finally read for the first time ever (emphasize "ever") The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss. Make that for the first two dozen times, because I feel like I have been reading this book non-stop for the past few days. It would be an understatement to say that we love it, but I am not sure that another word will do. Sava giggles uncontrollably whenever Thing One and Thing Two appear, and he hyperventilates every time we get to the last few pages where the Cat in the Hat comes in to clean his mess with a car that has several arms extending from its body. The book is a work of genius. From the rhyme, to the concept of wild play behind mother's back, to the restoration of order where chaos reigned, every word and every picture work to engage a child's imagination. Truly, a gift to the English-speaking world. 
Last but not least, a book we spent a good deal of time reading and talking about was William's Doll by Charlotte Zolotow. I guessed it was written some forty years ago before I looked up the actual publishing date (1972), because it was clear to me that valorizing a boy's determination to own a doll, despite his peers' taunts and his father's disapproval, could not but have been written some time during the cultural upheaval of the seventies. Sava requested it many times, and even though he rarely commented with anything other than suppressed giggles at the other boys' taunts against William, it was clear that the idea of a boy playing with a doll engaged him. We, of course, endorsed the book's message that it is alright for a boy to play with whatever he wants to play with as strongly as we knew how to (though I don't think Sava is going to request a doll any time soon; we asked dear friends to give him a doll for his first birthday, and they found him a lovely homemade creation on Etsy, but the doll is finally being lifted out of oblivion by Raya; Sava couldn't have cared less for it in the past three years).
No comments:
Post a Comment