children’s literature

Of Board Books and Bibliophibians

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 1 Comment

Chris caught Sprout “reading” earlier this week. He obviously didn’t understand the words, but there he was on the floor of his bedroom, flipping through a book page by page. As a touch and feel book, he was running his fingers over the textured spots and even had it the right side up! Moments like this make me glad we haven’t abandoned physical books yet. As convenient as e-readers are, they don’t have the material presence of books, which is essential for a child to build an appreciation of them.

For one, e-books can never provide the tactile feedback of board books. You can’t allow babies to gnaw on the edges or turn the pages with drooly little fingers, even with the best covers. There’s no such thing as a touch and feel e-book, with furry and fuzzy patches that simulate the baby’s senses. Having a direct interaction with books, not just seeing them held at the parent’s arm length and out of reach, is important for a baby. It builds an inherant affection for books that they’ll carry throughout their lives. Many lovely e-picture books have sounds and animations, but those just aren’t the same, especially for infants.

E-books also don’t have the physical presence in the house that regular books do. While this is a huge advantage when you are traveling or facing a serious lack of shelf space (who, me?), you can never get the sense of being “surrounded by books” as you can with a good family library. It’s been shown that kids that see their parents reading regularly are much more likely to read themselves. I feel that having a physical library reinforces the self-image that “we are a family who values reading and books.” To quote Wondermark, I want Sprout to be a bibliophiban, to breathe books as he does air.

Relatedly, e-books also don’t allow a child to have a personal library, unless you purchase them their own tablet. Despite Amazon’s claim that an Kindle is a perfect Christmas gift for a one-year-old, I disagree. But with board and picture books, Sprout already has a whole bookshelf full of wonderful stories that he enjoys pulling off the shelf on a regular basis. Many of them carry special inscriptions in the front, reminding him of the fact that a gift of a book is a sign of love in our family. With electronic versions, it’s much harder to pass down beloved books. It’s simple to let a child read one, but it lacks the history of worn covers and bent pages that remind you that you were once their age.

I’m glad that in this day of electronic media – which I’m certainly prone to favoring myself – that there’s still a place for physical children’s books. I know reading to him on my lap, watching him turn the pages (even if it’s often backwards), has given me more appreciation for their simple charms.

Book Club: Little Pookie

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 1 Comment

Book Club is a semi-regular feature on the blog where I reflect on a children’s book (or series) and my personal experiences with it. (Just a note on this one – this is based on three of the five Little Pookie books, but they’re simple enough that I’m guessing the three are fairly representative.)

Sandra Boyton is known for her silly, cute children’s books featuring wide-eyed animals. Although most her books lack a plot or consistent characters, her Little Pookie books dig a bit deeper, presenting a rare portrait of a present, competent modern mom, even if she isn’t human.

The Little Pookie books focus on the relationship between Little Pookie, a young pig, and his mom. (Little Pookie’s gender is never specified, but the clothes are stereotypically male.) In most children’s books, the parents are either absent or ignorant of their children’s goings-on. In contrast, Little Pookie’s mom is present and engaged with the story. In fact, she’s the narrator. The books consist of her conversations with Little Pookie, where she invites him to do something – go to bed, dance, think about who he is – and he responds.

Through these conversations, we see a mom who is a good role model for parents reading the books to their kids. She talks to Little Pookie at his level, with relatively simple language, without talking down to him. She is playful, pretending she doesn’t recognize him when he’s sporting giant sunglasses or knowing where he is when he’s hiding under the sheets. She trusts him to be independent, offering guidance without nagging: “Now you brush your fine teeth and wash your fine nose.” However, she does set limits, illustrated by her counting to three when she wants him to get ready for bed. She encourages creativity and movement, with an entire book of her inviting him to do a silly dance, including a part in “his very own style.” She offers choices and is flexible when he doesn’t quite pick either one. For example, when given two sets of pajamas to choose from, he mixes the top from one with the bottom from the other. She encourages reading, illustrated on the last page of Little Pookie, which shows them reading the very same book together in a clever bit of recursiveness for a board book.

But most importantly, Little Pookie’s mom tells him how much she loves him, sincerely and often. Because parents are often disconnected from the events in children’s books, this message usually isn’t communicated at all. On the other end of the spectrum, some children’s books focus on that message to the exclusion of everything else. As a result, it comes off as forced and saccharine. But the mom’s expressions of love in Little Pookie flow naturally from the rest of the story and relationship.

While I don’t think most parents would look to a pig as a role model, the Little Pookie books offer a surprising amount of insight into a good parent / child relationship. I know I’d enjoy having Sprout and I hang out with her and her adorable piglet.

Reading Where the Wild Things Are as a Parent

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 8 Comments

"Re-Reading Where the Wild Things Are as a Parent" Some books resonate with you as a child and then again in a totally different way as an adult. (Photo: Young man reading Where the Wild Things Are to a baby under a baby gym.)

When my husband was three, my mother-in-law was convinced he could read. After all, he flipped through the pages of Where the Wild Things Are as he spoke the words out loud with perfect timing. But it just happened that he loved it so much that he memorized the entire thing, word for word.

While I never memorized it myself, Where the Wild Things Are too holds a special place in my literary canon. As a teenager, I remembered it fondly, along with Winnie the Pooh and Alice in Wonderland.

But then a series of events illuminated how much the book still speaks to me, especially since I’ve become a parent.

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