Children's Classics

Children's Classics - Christmas

It's that time for the Children's Classics carnival over at 5 Minutes for Books. This month's theme is about Christmas or the December Holiday you celebrate with your family and the books you share with your children. Follow along or join in, either way it's tons of fun!

As a child, we didn't read many books at home. Actually, I don't remember any until I was old enough to check them out myself at the school library. Instead, over Christmas, we watched the much loved programs like Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, Santa Claus is Coming to Town and How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

I still love to watch these programs and am sharing them with my children although they don't seem to be very interested.

Unfortunately at the time of this posting How the Grinch Stole Christmas still hasn't been made available, so hopefully we'll get it before Christmas for me to share with the little ones. If not, we'll get next year. Until then, this is what we've shared so far.

Mouse's First Christmas by Lauren Thompson and Illustrated by Buket Erdogan (Ages 2-6)

"Twas a night still and starry and all through the house, not a creature was stirring... just one little mouse." Through the story a little mouse discovers all the things that remind us of Christmas, from Angels to Presents to Stockings and the Tree, including Santa himself who has a message for the little mouse. I love the illustrations cause they are simple and full of color.

Madeline's Christmas by Ludwig Bemelmans (Ages 3-8)

"In an old house in Paris. That was covered with vines. Lived twelve little girls in two straight lines." This one is no different, except this time, all of the little girls are sick... except Madeline. She feels just fine! She was up, tending to all of the other girls and Miss Clavel. She was even tidying up and dusting until a magician, selling rugs came to knocked on the door.

We loved both of these and will be reading them again and again for the next couple of weeks! :)

Merry Christmas!

Comments

Tena said…

Mouse's first Christmas sounds adorble!!

Tuesday, December 9, 2008 at 4:13:00 PM CST

Alicia said…

Great books. The illustrations on Mouse's First Christmas look amazing!

Tuesday, December 9, 2008 at 4:39:00 PM CST

I Spy a Freight Train

I Spy a Freight Train by Lucy Micklethwait (ages 4-8) While at the library my son spotted this gem and asked if we could bring home. He loves trains, so of course I said yes. We have a large freight train station in town, so it is rare that we not see a train. It's fun to see his excitement when he sees a train, but it hard to also watch him panic as the train keeps going and disappears. I called this a little gem because I didn't realize that the book about more than just freight trains. We got to spy on airplanes, row boats, horses, sleighs, a baby carriage and many more. Not to mention the other 'made up' things we spied while making a game of it. It was fun. Even more so, my children haven't heard the term baby carriage or sleigh, so that was fun to see what they thought was it. Here's another excerpt of the book. Oh, and while I am not much of an art know it all, in the back of the book are the credits for all of the pictures used. You will find the likes

Expectations

The Little Red Hen by John Escott (Ages 4-8) 2003 A little red hen lives on a farm with a few friends. One day she and her five chicks come upon some grains of wheat. The little red hen decides it would be nice to be able to bake these into a loaf of bread. Now, getting grains of wheat baked into a loaf of bread is lots of work. First you have to plant the seed, harvest the wheat, mill the wheat into flour and then bake the flour into the bread. Now each time a task was to be done, the little red hen asked for assistance from her friends, to each time they declined to help. So the little red hen did everything herself. Without giving away too much more, this is a wonderful story about hard work, the pay off and what you can expect from helping or not helping. Happy Reading!

Putting it in Perspective

Babar Goes to School by Laurent de Brunhoff (Ages 4-8) 2003 Being a King is hard work, but when children proclaim that it is difficult to be a child, Babar is baffled and decided to live a day in the life of a child, again , since he doesn't recall it being so difficult. Babar decided to go to school with the children one day and quickly learns that it can be difficult being a child. Especially learning that he doesn't quite recall how to do a math problem correctly or getting scolded for talking to his neighbor at circle time.... even though he was just trying to help. At the end of the day, Babar was quite tired and decided that it was much easier to be a grown up. Happy Reading!

Inspiring Bookworms

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