Family Briefs

A friend of mine, who is not a book lover, likes reading my book reviews. She knows the importance of reading to her child, but she has no idea which of the MILLIONS of available children’s books to choose. Since she just had her first child a few months ago, she asked me to suggest some good books for babies.

While I was pregnant with our first child, my husband and I read aloud to each other from The Runaway Jury, by John Grisham. Shortly after he was born, we finished reading it to him. Now, I’m not suggesting that you read John Grisham or Stephen King to your children; but I am saying that when children are very young, it doesn’t matter what you read to them as much as THAT you read to them. So if you aren’t into children’s books, you can get away with reading them something you like when they’re really really young (unfortunately that changes as they grow, and they are likely to choose your least favorite book as their all-time-have-to-read-it-every-night favorite!)

As they get a bit older and you want to begin drawing them into the world of books, a popular choice for years has been Pat the Bunny by Dorothy Kunhardt. When I received this book at our first baby shower, everyone else seemed to recognize it as THE children’s book to have. I felt like I’d been living under a rock somewhere for the last decade - “what kind of mother is she going to make if she doesn’t even know about Pat the Bunny???” Well, that’s what they said in their minds . . . if nothing else, perhaps this review will save you from that embarrassment.

Pat the Bunny is an enjoyable little interactive “touch and feel” book, there are several others in the Pat the Bunny series that I enjoy more (for varying reasons). I think one of my favorites is Five Red Apples. There are five plastic apples across the top of the book that slide back and forth. Presumably for counting, but I love how they entertain my youngest in the car! Another in the series, called Butterfly Roundup, is also great for entertainment value - there is a plastic bunny that swirls around up and down a little pole, so the butterfly seems to be fluttering around.

Another Pat the Bunny series favorite is Sweet Dreams. This little book has a extension attached to the book that has a plastic bunny with a push button. When you push the button, the bunny lights up! One of our children enjoyed sleeping with this book in their bed - if she got scared, she had control of her own nightlight (in addition to the three that were already on, of course!).

Within this same series, we also received a fabric book, called Sleepy Bunny. It has a stuffed bunny on a string that you can slip into a pocket so he looks like he’s “in” some of the pictures in the book - all of course while working his way to bed! Several of my children like to sleep with books, and soft ones like this make it easy to say, “yes!”

If you’re looking for more books with textures, we really like DK Publishing’s “Touch and Feel” series. We have the Baby Animals book, but I’ve seen others that are equally good. The bunny fur feels so real to me, and I love the leather for the baby elephant’s ears. And of course you can tell your little one, “They are all babies, just like you!”

My favorite tactile book is That’s Not My Puppy by Fiona Watt (Usborne books). This book goes through all these different dogs with, “That’s not my puppy!” and then says why it’s not (its coat is too hairy, or its collar is too shiny, etc.). The various textures presented combined with the repetitive nature of the story, makes this such a fun read for children AND adults!

Enjoy these and may others and snuggle up and read tonight!

This week has been plagued with some weird and repetitive conversations with our 4-year-old. He keeps asking about dying. There’s simply no way that a child that young can grasp the concept of death - I’ve still got questions about it at 37!

He began by asking if he was going to die. Well, we didn’t want to lie to him, so we explained that everyone, every living thing, would die at some time. That led to specific questions about rocks, Lego’s, trees, flowers, and even his teddy bear. So we launched our explanations about the difference between the living and the non-living (which led to LOTS more questions . Flowers and trees were tricky - annuals, perennials, the flower itself, the plants, etc. - you get the picture.

Even though we thought the matter was somewhat resolved for him, we found him in tears the next day because he didn’t want to die. I thought it would make him feel better to explain that it’s just our bodies that die - our soul/spirit/personality lives on with God. Well, that just opened the door to the conversation about Jesus and God - are they alive? have they ever been alive? when did they die? where are they now? Once the conversation wraps up, we think we’ve made some headway on the subject.

Another incident in tears left us knowing the subject may never be resolved to his satisfaction. Not only did he want to know how he was going to die, he’d also like to know how we’re all going to die and WHERE! Without making life too scary, we tried to explain that there are lots of different ways a person can die (sudden plane wreck, drowning, cancer, just plain getting old and your body gives out - you better believe I played this one up!). You never really know when or where - it’s a mystery.

Even though each conversation has it’s seeming resolution, the “wheels” spin some more and another conversation emerges. Since many of these are redundant, I’ve decided to focus on and include in all of our “death conversations” that we need to enjoy every day that we have. We should not focus on death - when or where it will occur - we have little control over that (although we’ve already pushed the idea of making healthy choices - eating right and not smoking - to get the most out of our lives). What we do have control of is finding the joys and pleasures of every day.

I know for me, it’s easy to get wrapped up in the drama of all the bad things going on - the sudden need to replace a sewer line in the front flower bed, the shingles that are sliding off the roof, the A/C unit that reminds you it’s on it’s last leg by requiring $100 worth of freon - AGAIN, not to mention the temper tantrums and sibling rivalry amongst the children!

What was I saying??? Oh yes, the joys and pleasures of every day life. I think sometimes we have to force ourselves to look for them; they are often found in the mundane - a husband that cooks breakfast 5 days a week, the first grade teachers agreeing not to give homework for the rest of the year, the temperature NOT getting over 85 degrees, the best game of Battleship I’ve played with my 7-year-old.

Despite my complaining, there is pleasure in these “death conversations.” I’m getting to think more about my own faith and what I believe about death, and I’m getting to share that with my 4-year-old to help him shape his own beliefs. I’m also really glad that he’s asking me questions (other than “why,” which is where my 2-year-old seems to be stuck for now :-). Not too long from now, he may not be willing to talk to me about anything important. You better believe I’m going to try to enjoy every conversation I can have with him between now and the teenage rebellion!

**I wrote this several months ago . . . not sure why I never published it. The death conversations stemmed from the Easter season at his preschool - his OLD preschool. We realized (a bit too late, I’m afraid) that their idea of “age appropriate teaching” was not the same as ours. We’ve been at a different preschool this last year that’s much more on the same page as we are - we’ve loved it and haven’t had any more tearful discussions about death or dying. Now we’re trying to explain why things break when he stretches/bends/pulls/pushes things beyond their limits - much simpler, but no less repetitive!

I just hate when my children select a bedtime story that doesn’t help get them ready for bed! They have some books that make noises; some that require you to get up and dance; others that have scary stories or pictures. I’m often able to reject these non-sleep-inducing books before we’ve snuggled in to read, but sometimes those library books surprise me. So much for a smooth transition to bedtime!

But there were no surprises in the book, Animals are Sleeping, from Sylvan Dell Publishing. The story begins with, “Shhh . . . shhh . . . the animals are sleeping . . . ,” and proceeds to show a wide variety of animals asleep in different positions in their habitats. The short and simple text on each page allows children to soak in the rich illustrations, and the illustrations lend themselves to mini-nature explorations. For example, on the page with the groundhog, my 3-year-old loved pointing out the dandelions above ground - she calls these “blowing flowers.” Another picture with birds perched in a tree lent itself to a discussion about what kind of birds we were seeing, the fact that one of the birds is facing opposite of all the others, and how many colors we could count on the birds.

Because the book is not FULL of text, it’s easy to increase or decrease your discussion based on how much time you have before bedtime! And, of course, all the discussion opportunities within the story are in addition to the activities available at the back of the book. There are also “Learning Links” and “Teaching Activities” available on ’s Web site.

So, if your kids are sleepy (and even if they’re not), this might be just the story for you to send them off to dreamland with! Happy reading!