Growing up, there weren't a lot of books in my house, which was weird, since both of my parents were elementary educators! They didn't care much for reading, and always seemed a bit... confused at how much I liked to read. We did go to the public library, but never often enough for the enormous amount of books I consumed. When I was in second grade, we were awarded a slip of paper for every book we read aloud to an adult during one month-- I read 109. My poor mother. (At left, me in 6th grade, showing pure joy at getting an Anne of Green Gables book for Christmas!)We did have Little Golden Books (they could be purchased at the grocery) and for a couple of glorious years were members of the I Can Read Club, so two books came in the mail every month. That was the best. Books were rarely a present, until I started to ask for them in middle school.
Oddly, I don't ever remember going into a book store until I was in about 4th grade. There was a Walden Books right by the Sears in the local mall, but it wasn't until I started babysitting and earning my own money that I started buying my own books.
It makes a HUGE difference to own books. My own daughters had a ton of books, usually from the thrift stores. I feel a little bad about that, and at least we donated a ton of books to their elementary classrooms. At the time, buying new books wasn't an option in my world.
If you have small children in your life, here are some great books to get them reading and avoiding the Summer Slump!
Zemke, Deborah. The Curse of Einstein's Pencil (Bea Garcia #2)June 6th 2017 by Puffin Books
Copy provided by the publisher.
Bea is "almost friends" with the smartest girl in her class, Judith Einstein. When the two are paired to compete in the Geography Stars competition in their class, Judith wants to do as well as her older sister did. Bea wants to do well, but keeps getting distracted by missing her best friend Yvonne, by her drawings, her younger brother, new neighbor Bert, and even small things like what pencil she will use. Judith is a tough task master, and says that she needs Bea to memorize a lot of the trivia so that their score is good, but Bea has a lot of trouble concentrating!
Kelley, Jane and von Innerebner, Jessika (illus.) Octo-Man and the Headless Monster (The Escapades of Clint McCool #1)May 9th 2017 by Grosset & Dunlap
Copy provided by the publisher.
Clint (whose real name is Walter), is constantly in trouble at school, where his impulsive behavior is ill-received. When walking home with his mother and two best friends, Marco and M.L., he sees a monster, and manages to get into a kerfluffle with it, taking off its arm. Unfortunately, the monster isn't real, but is part of a film. Clint is ordered off the set, but thinks he could definitely improve the film if he were to be involved. Luckily, the director was a similar child, and lets Clint become involved, although in an unusual way!
Krulik, Nancy, and Thomas, Louis (illus.) Crash! (The Kid From Planet Z #1)
May 9th 2017 by Grosset & Dunlap
Copy provided by the publisher.
When his family's space craft crash lands on earth, the family plans to fix it, but spends the night in a house that is for rent. When they wake up, someone has taken their craft! While they are trying to get it back, Zeke enrolls in school and tries to be as much like theEarth children as he can, so as to not arouse suspicion. He does fairly well, although his cat, Zeus finds it harder to fit in, although he ultimately is the one who is able to get a job and earn enough money for the family to get their ship back from the junk dealer who has hauled it away.
I liked the first Bea Garcia book and the others I definitely need to check out. They sound like books that would appeal to my students.
ReplyDeleteI grew up in a home that was always bursting with books, which I'm very thankful for. Even now my parents like to tease me because every time I visit them I end up taking books home with me. ;-)
ReplyDeleteWe didn't have a lot of books at our home, but my father read the paper and westerns and my mother read harlequin romance. We did have some kind of junior encyclopedia that was written to be read. I poured over the section on miniatures. I think it came with a collection of fairy tales that I devoured.
ReplyDeleteMy grandbabies are a bit young for these, but they already have their collections building.
I have a similar picture of me holding up Little Women as my favorite Christmas present.
ReplyDeleteAnd there's a vague memory of us kids (my family and my best friend's and maybe another family?) going to ToysRUs and told to pick out anything. I think we were supposed to make our yearly trip to the amusement park but it was closed or something? Anyway, we spent hours in there as at least six kids picked out their favorite toy from the enormous store. And, of course, I found the book section and picked out Little Men, Alcott's sequel.
I didn't have enough books either, because we were a foreign service family and kept moving, which meant books not taken with us (probably my life wouldn't have been much better if my mother hadn't left so many books behind each move, but still...)
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