Picture Books are Back

Do not, do not underestimate the power of the best form of literature for children. Picture Books!

Yes, they are simple, they have pictures, but remember how a picture can be a thousand words. Yes. Picture Books are a bonanza. And the market is full of fabulous books. Of real books, about real issues and real people, that can invoke the critical thinker in your children from early on.

We live in a world that we cannot allow our children to grow blind. We cannot turn a blind eye and pretend life is not happening. That life is all roses and games. Life can be great, but life can be shitty. We need to tune our children into reality, away from naivety, in a way they can understand. Picture books are a fabulous tool to that end. For toddlers, preschoolers, elementary school children, middle school children, high school children, college students, adults, grandparents, etc. For all.

So let's begin:


The cruelty of the trans-atlantic slave trade: 

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The cruelty of working your life underground, often dying young because of disease; the horror of your children inevitably following your foots steps. If you think this is unpleasant, then amplify this by the suffering of the native Americans in central and south America who died em masse in mines, weeks on end, until their last breath, without sun, without food, without proper air.

Relate this to how limited the naturally occurring resources in the crust are.

It's easy to say that Muslims are bad. As it has been easy to say that Jews are bad. Lets remember that Muslims and Jews were equally hated by christians and equally prosecuted by christians. The cruelty that christians exercised towards the jews and the muslims in the occupied lands is coming back to haunt them. Christians are criminals. So please tell your children that christianity in the past has been the single source of suffering, pain, disease and despicable deaths and tortures.

Nature is our home. If you pay attention in bio class, even if it is Bi-1 in Caltech, you will hear that in nature everything is in balance, and when deviating from the balance, works to go back to the balance, or to a completely new balance. But the drive towards balance, and predictability in nature is a real thing. Nature is finite. The resources in nature are finite. We must manage and plan accordingly. We also should not withhold essential resources, such as water and food, in attempt to subordinate, dehumanize and control people.

People may be different than you. That's not a reason for you to bully them. Let's face it if they are different from you, you are different fro them. 

What if the tables were turned? 

People with physical disabilities are talented and capable. Sick people are capable. Immigrants are capable. A new person is capable.

There is no reason you can determine someones is less than you, whatever that may mean, just by looking at them. What hidden talents does the person have? How can he surprise you? 

People are full of life stories and experiences that are different than yours. You can always learn from them. Taking advantage of someone's disability in order to enrich yourself and to hurt the person is a crime. It's a moral crime.

Why should you be stuck in the comfort of routine? Routine is good and predictable, but routine makes you a human-hater, makes you fearful of everything that is outside of your routine. We as people need to embrace diversity, embrace opportunities to learn, and not fear lack of knowledge and skill, but seek to grow the same. We need to live in comfortable discomfort with our own completeness. Only this way we can meet with open arms others. Only this way we can relate, we can extend a hand, we can understand. Especially, the US, a country of immigrants, is swimming in material reminders that we all came from somewhere else or we don't know where we come from.

Ten Little Ladybugs

A friend of mine's daugther is graduating from high school this week. My friend shared a snipped of her daughter's writing in first grade. Sweet Memories. At the same time another friend shared a list of her children's favorite books.

I remembered Ten Little Ladybugs. We have read it hundreds of times and have loved it each and every time. I, however, do not ever remember having read it properly. I always made the text as we went along. Sometimes I talked about colors, other times about animals, and so on we went.

I am reading completely different books to my children now. We always take breaks from heavy reading by returning to the cuteness of the simple picture books. Last night we read these two cuties. Quite simple for my kids, at age 6 and 8, but still received very well. In fact, my older suggested that I read Mamasaurus for mother's day and Gator Dad for father's day.

Fall in Focus

Little by little we are moving forward with history. Ancient Chinese history is particularly interesting because China and India's riches were the motivating power for the rise of imperialistic Europe. We start with fictional stories which contain sufficient real information to tie to more serious readings I weave in as the month progresses. Thus we started with "Adventures in Ancient China". The story is silly, but the important thing is that the characters are familiar and the format is fabulous. The characters are reading a book which takes them to experience the life during the time of the Hans dynasty. The travel guide reads like a textbook, but the kids are seeing with their own eyes, what archaeologists work hard to deduce. It's fabulous. Since the story referred to the Great Wall of China, I opened up the "The Great Wall of China" by Fisher book which I find quite well written and appropriate for my audience. Last week we visited the Field's museum and walked through an exhibit about China. Funny enough, we tied things we saw at the Ancient Egypt and the Vikings exhibits, to things we read about Ancient China. Example is the fact that when the smaller kingdoms were united they were quite different-used different money, different measures, etc-and this made the governance of the united entity difficult. We saw examples of different measures and money in the other exhibits and the kids understood that.

 We also briefly went back to picture books. Since we saw a Mammoths and Mastodons exhibit at the Fields museum last week, I figured it will be appropriate to read something, somewhat related. This is the silliness that I found in the library catalog. Nothing memorable, really, not by any stretch of the imagination even good, but otherwise, super easy, free flowing, and light in spirit, that I really did not mind reading these pair aloud one bit.


Here are the jams of the month. The adorable bear, a real bear. A real bear, a real boy, a real veterinarian. And then a real gorilla, mistreated by men, and then loved by men. The kids were saddened by both, but also left hopeful with the knowledge that something good happened. A war ended and a book for many was written. A resilient gorilla survived beyond anyone's wild expectations and taught people about the wild.  We will read the story "The one and only Ivan" after we acquaint ourselves with Leakey and Jane Goodall.

We are moving well along.

Soccer season is almost over and we are taken a two week break from sports activities before gymnastics begins! I am excited about gymnastics. It will carry us through the end of January.

Picture Books are Back!!!!

The wonderful things about picture books are that they are short, simple, full of pictures and they are everywhere!

During the last few months I concentrated my efforts on chapter books and I completely forgot about the rich content of picture books, well, forgot only until my last visit to the library.
I was searching for a particular book which was supposed to be 'on the shelf', and looking for the particular shelf which was supposed to host the particular book took me through rows and rows of picture books. Wow! I was thrilled with the discoveries I made. We are in need of simple, funny, amusing and short texts, and picture books are filling up this gap. They are a fabulous place to turn to when in doubt about what to read next. Pick a picture book. Any picture book can cure the uncertainty and can even point you to a direction. Don't forget picture books!

We love picture books.  Here are some that we have found quite enjoyable.

This book starts sad. A poor cat without a friend, roams the streets and is chased and unwanted, until an unexpected and maybe unwanted adventure takes her to an equally lonely person. The happy end! This is a great story. Yes, it is sad, but also very hopeful and positive and encouraging. Yes, you are not alone, keep on going and you will find your rightful place. This is a book worth reading several times. The first time for the listeners to understand the sequence of events and build some imagery. The other times to discuss all the wonderful themes in the book-loneliness, adventure, hunger, need, want, friendship, interpersonal relationships, attitudes, prejudice.

 This was the story that cheered up the mood in the house after we read the Scrawny Cat. It is a silly story, similar to the story about the chicken who cried that the sky is falling or the other chicken which cried that there is fire in the sky. This is a much more funny story and involves people from the neighborhood. As the previous book this one qualifies for multiple readings. On the first read, let the story settle and amuse. On the other readings, bring out discussion topics-the community and how all members are interdependent, the need/want for different professions, the relationship, the impact of a small event on the community. Great story, which is so more than a story. Enjoy!

 This was the third book we read. We did not like it much but it was funny. Again, it can be read multiple times and different things can be discussed. The first time we read it we tried to get the content but we also concentrated on understanding the pictures, looking for details and clues for the rest of the events. Upon other readings I think we will talk about 1) what is the chance that the two friends would take exactly the same routes and find each other-is it really as unlikely as we think (there is a lot of Bayesian to teach, priors-anyone!); 2) another obvious topic to tackle is geography-where do you think the friends live, why France(where is France), why Nepal (where is Nepal), What is Everest. Great starting point for learning.

What a gem! I follow a blog in which the lady presents with commentary the words she uses in her homeschool to cover topics and subjects. She provided a list with books related to the topic of home/houses which I also find fascinating, especially with my little man being into Legos and construction, and us living in Chicago which is rich in architectural history. There was one book which I picked and I liked-Old House, New House. It is a bit complicated but maybe we can give it a shot soon. Among the comments to the blog publication was mentioned the book which I am listing here. This is a fabulous book. I highly recommend it. It encouraged me to think about the large scale and meaning of home and all the details that form our living. It is a fabulous introduction to the structure of life, to the organization of communities, to the historical, geological, social, economic, technological and biological elements that form our daily existence and integration with nature. I am fascinated by the richness of the questions it is asking the reader to reflect on. It is a picture book with very concise and informative text. Enjoy!

Yes, you are right, this is not a picture book. The spirit of this book is like a picture book. The descriptions are vivid, the stories are easy to relate to, innocent, silly and amusing that yes, this is almost as good as a picture book. The stories are almost like the stories about Pippi Longstocking; but only almost! The children in this book are ordinary children, who see the world as all ordinary kids; they are not extravagant, they are plain ordinary and still manage to have most unbelievable adventures. This is Pippi Longstockings adventures but without Pippi, with only Tommi and Anika. I love this book. There are references to the older way of life; the childhood when there was no TV, no cars; when it was safe to on your bike around your neighborhood, when your neighbors knew you well, when a wagon rolling through the street and rising dust was a usual thing.  This is a fun book to pre-read and to post-read! Enjoy!

As we were reading the Moffats, I told myself: 'Wait, we have better Bulgarian books-Patilantsi', for instance. Turns out that, yes, our literature is better but it is also 100 years old which means that some of the language is difficult for me too. We are reading the Bulgarian book now because the chapters are shorter, equally silly and full of great cultural information.

Weslandia is a wonderful book about someone who is different. There was a speech this year at the Oscars by someone who said ' When I was 15 I wanted to kill myself. Look how far I have come. If you are weird, if you don't fit, please, keep on doing what you are doing, keep on being yourself.' This book is wonderful because it is educational and inspirational. If you want to cover history, social science, geography, science, math, whatever educational topic is on your mind, you can use this book. I find this book most remarkable because it allows you to understand that there is nothing wrong with just being different; in fact, this book can inspire you to think outside the box and see the extraordinary in the ordinary.

What a powerful story! This book is appropriate to all audiences 5+. It is so simple. It is not the detail of geography that the boy learned that make this book so special; the magic is captured by the mental adventures that the map allowed the boy to take, far away from hunger and poverty, far away from trouble.

This is an old favorite. I loved it the first time I read this book a few years ago. More or less we come across this book at least once each year. We always have something new to talk about, some new detail to uncover. It is a simple and straightforward story, so it is quite surprising that it is one of the few books that we have embraced over and over.

Yes, if you want a good laugh, this is your book. It is a silly book. In a humorous way you can talk about friendship, adoption, envy, jealousy, pop culture, economics, the self, self-importance. There is so much in this book which while very simple and silly is also very rich! It gave us the surprise we have been looking for for a while now. Read it and laugh, laugh out loud.






These two that follow are my own readings. I found both books quite interesting and engaging. One Crazy Summer is complicated for young readers, I think, or for anyone not familiar with this part of the US history, the black panthers. I was not familiar with the history, so it was difficult for me to tune in, but after a certain moment the book acquires a very humane image and you don't need the historical element to stay engaged. The Long Walk To Water is a fascinating book, and gives you a perspective on immigration. I am an immigrant but I came from a peaceful country. I did not have to fight for my life, I was never hungry. I am told we didn't have much but it was never evident to me that we struggled in our daily lives. The person who narrates the main story has struggled. What is most astounding is that along his story of survival, you hear a lot of stories of lost life. You wonder about evolution, about the meaning of humanity. Are we by being humane really being good to one another or are we the real evil by imposing rules that are not natural. What I mean is that hunger and poverty and drought will naturally wipe out the people who are in these places. This is driven by nature. But we by moving resources, and only very limited amounts, from area of abundance to area of scarcity, we create additional need, additional motivation for ferocity; we create the inhumane which what our humane gesture tried to avoid. To me the absolute resolution is absolute relocation from the geographical area of scarcity, but this is not feasible. Yet, the process of selection is full of conflict-selecting only the strong, only the fit, are we really not playing nature, are we really not pretending to be better; who are we to decide that one's life is worthy of saving and another's is not; why is being sick an indication of lack of potential. We have easily lost poets, engineers, just because their road to the point of salvation was difficult. I am very conflicted when it comes to humanity and the fine balance of resources in nature. The book is interesting, with positive end, but to me, humans playing nature, playing the merciful and also the villain who select the few to be saved presents a huge, unresolved problem. Good, easy, quick reads, worthy of discussion with young and old. I recommend both.