Book Reviews - Library Books

In the last few weeks we have been discovering real treasures at the library so I thought I would share some reviews:
The If You Give...books by Laura Joffe Numeroff :
These are ones like If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, If You Give a Pig a Pancake, If You give a Moose a Muffin. They are very cute with fun illustrations. The kids enjoy them and BigGirl even tries to come up with more adventures that follow the story pattern.

Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown :
This is one lots of poeple have heard about and do a fun geography project with. In the story a boy named Stanley becomes flat(half an inch thick) when a bulletin board falls on him. He goes on adventures, including being mailed to stay with a friend, used as a kite, and more. He has a jealous little brother. I read this first and we are halfway through it as a family. Very very cute! The kids are loving it. For those unfamiliar with the geography project, the basic idea is to have a child make a Flat Traveller and send to friends in other states and countries to have adventures. The host family keeps a diary and hopefully a photo and mails it back home. Flat Travellers can be a miniature of your child, an animal, or anything really. Laminating them helps them live longer I've heard, and sending out several copies at once to different locations speeds the process some. While we don't plan on doing this right now, I'm considering it for when we study US geography in a year or two.

The Gingerbread Cowboy by Janet Squires:
Fun retelling of the gingerbread man set in the old west.

The Gingerbread Girl by List Campbell Ernst:
This gingerbread girl has heard about the misfortunes of her brother and sets out to take care of that fox who ate him.

My Heart Glow, Alice Cogswell, Thomas Gallaudet, and the Birth of American Sign Language by Emily Arnold McCully
What a beautiful book with the story of the beginnings of ASL. I loved this one.

Singing Hands by Delia Ray:
This is a chapter book set in the South in 1948. Interesting story of a hearing girl raised by deaf parents. It shows the prejudices of the time against deaf/handicapped people as well as blacks. I wouldn't read it to my kids yet, but will probably use it in the future when we are a bit older. I enjoyed the story a lot though.

Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett:
What a treasure! One where the gingerbread does NOT get eaten, and Jan Brett's drawings are beautiful. I went back to the library for more Jan Brett books and they are all gorgeous!


That's all I've got time to review for now!