Every Christmas (birthdays, too) Scott gives each child one special
picture book. Yes, our older girls are well past picture-book age by
now—except that you’re never past picture-book age, not really.
I’m certainly not. And this is a treasured family tradition; it’s
always great fun to see what gems he comes up with.
His picks for Christmas, 2008:
Rilla: an oldie but one of the best. Caps for Sale
Our dog-eared paperback copy was recently destroyed in that little bit
of flooding we had on my birthday. Scott replaced it with a hardcover,
because Rilla is ripe for that time-honored, giggle-inducing refrain of
“You monkeys you, you give me back my caps!”
Wonderboy: a newish Boynton book called Fifteen Animals!
Beanie: Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale
This would have been a fine choice for any of our brood, but Scott
singled it out for our belly-laughing Bean, and belly-laugh she did. We
all loved the Caldicott honor-winning combination of black-and-white
photo backgrounds and whimsical Willems art, and poor little Trixie’s
desperate attempts to communicate the disappearance of her beloved
bunny to her father are utterly priceless. A slam-dunk, daddy dear.
Rose: A Visitor for Bear
This was one of the Cybils nominees, and when I read the library copy,
I knew it was a keeper. Sweet, funny story about a rather curmudgeonly
bear who, despite his best efforts, finds himself playing host to a
persistent and amiable mouse. I showed it to Scott, who instantly
pegged it as a perfect Rose book. Endearing art, charming story.
Jane: Diary of a Fly
in years past. I believe Scott said he chose this one for Jane because
of the line about the young fly being relieved to discover that he’s
not the only kid at school who likes regurgitated food. (Cue satisfying
shriek from thirteen-year-old.)
Of course our Christmas book bounty didn’t end with the Daddy-books, but the rest of the treasures must wait for another post.
(A note about the links here: I stopped including Amazon links in
my posts a long while back, for various angsty reasons of my own.
However, a recent Kidlitosphere discussion alerted me to the copyright
question involved with using book cover images from Amazon and not
linking to that site, so in this post I have returned to my old
practice of including the Amazon link. Since I have an affiliate
account, any purchases made from a clickthrough here will earn me a
small referral fee. Wanted to be very up-front with that info! In years
past, such referrals helped pay for the maintenance of this site. For
that, I thank you!)
Hi Mom! The others are out for a walk, so I’m reading your blog. I haven’t been on the computer in a while, as you can see. I wanted to say something about this post. You said Various children have been given the ‘Diary of a Fly’ companion books, Diary of a Worm and Diary of a Spider, in years past. That is close, but not quite true. I was given both of the other books, which is why, when Dad held out the three books, and asked us to guess which one was ours, I immediately said that one. (I was right, but that wasn’t the reason. It was that line about ‘regurgitated food’, just like you said in the post.)