Most of the kids' books are pretty good. Love the Boynton books. Skadi loves them too. She is particularly fond of the Dora books, Goodnight Moon (which has to be read every night before bed) and also Yertle the Turtle. She LOVES Yertle.
Leif is now into having chapter books read to him. I started off with Little House on the Prairie - which he loved. And then we moved and apparently I packed the rest of the set. Must find them. We got a few Cynthia Rylant books, a Patrick Carman book about a park in Walla Walla and then AB started reading Harry Potter. I wasn't terribly thrilled about this, but let him go with it. At first Leif kind of balked. Hearing about Harry and his cousin and the room under the staircase, wasn't terribly interesting.
So AB skipped that section and jumped straight to Hagrid and his world has since been changed. They are nearly finished with book one.
So these are the good books.
There are other really, really bad books out there.
Let's start with "A Party in the Jungle". This one is so bad that whoever wrote it left their name off. It has no author. It's just a "glitter book" and available for a penny from many sellers on Amazon. Not only does the story drive me insane - an elephant named Toby is shy, but he is invited to a party and asked to dance and miraculously overcomes his shyness. This is not how shyness is overcome, I can tell you firsthand.
Add to that neither of my kids are showing signs of shyness. I think the book should hit the trash. Don't waste your penny.
The main reason for this is one sentence in this book. I can get past the simple concept of the book. But the sentence "Everyone came including a mouse to eat, sing and dance." What exactly is the mouse's purpose? To be eaten? So so very bad.
And Skadi loves this book. Of course.
It's the glitter.
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Moving on...
Tonight Leif picked out a book handed down to him from our prior neighbor boy. The Little Tin Soldier by Hans Christian Anderson. I was thrilled he picked this out. It was aimed at his age group with lots of pop up action and this is a classic author! My son was reading a classic with me!
Ok, has anyone read this story? Classics should probably just go away. I tried reading Robinson Crusoe to Leif a few months ago after remembering how much *I* loved that book. I was appalled. I put it away. Far away.
Back to the Little Tin Soldier. Great concept. A tin soldier made for a boy, gets lost, eaten by a fish, mom buys a fish at the market and cuts it open to find the lost tin soldier.
If it ended there I would have been fine. I would have remained a touch grossed out by the fact that they bought fish with guts inside, but fine.
But no, the story doesn't end there. It ends with the soldier being thrust into the fire because it was defective and the little balerina that fell in love with him jumping in after him and all that remains in the fire the next day is his head and her heart.
GULP!!
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Enter Captain Underpants. Another book passed on by the boy down the street.
Need I say more?
Actually even Leif isn't terribly interested anymore. He thought the concept was hilarious to start, but Underpants is currently lying under a huge stack of books awaiting the repair of the cheap book shelf in Leif's room.
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There is one last book of Skadi's that slays me. It is another one of those grammar violation books. Stay tuned...
(Because I am tired now and need to go to bed.)
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