Inspiring Bookworms

Visiting the Art Museum by Laurene Brown and Marc Brown is a wonderful book to get you and your children ready to visit an art museum. It's illustrations and photos of real life art make it a fantastic starting point. Journey from Australia to Samoa to America to the Ivory Cost to Mexico. See sculptures and paintings and learn something yourself along the way. A nude Frisbee player? Really ? Pharaohs all wore false beards. Interesting . Follow a young family of five as three children and their parents navigate through the ups and downs of visiting a museum. Can you imagine? Comforting your six or seven year old afraid of a ceremonial costume while your tween is making comments about that nude Frisbee player. Oh, and don't forget the toddler sneaking out of their stroller while you gaze at a portrait too long.

Perfect Pigs : An Introduction to Manners by Marc Brown & Stephen Krensky (Ages 4-8) I'm not sure about you, but I really feel that during my short tenure as a mom, that teaching manners to children has to be one of the toughest challenges thus far. The practice of 'please' and 'thank you' is not necessarily easy, however, it is the easiest to teach. Ensuring our children practice this specific behavior correctly is a common lesson that is able to be taught each day and eventually, it sets in with little or no "What do you say?" prompting. I must confess. This book jumped out at me while at the library. One, it had the word Pig and Manners in the title - two words you don't see together often. You see, my beloved daughter is a very messy eater and sometimes, I think she does it on purpose. Well, ok, all of the time and I try my best not to tell her what I am thinking... that she is eating like a pig and I don't approve, my frustration do...