Book List Review

We've been working through the 100 Children's Books list and having a great time!

We are working through the books order for the most part, but we have to skip around as we are waiting for some of the books to come in.

We decided to revisit books that we are already familiar with on the list. It's been great sharing so many old favorites with D (age 3). He absoltely loved, "Chicka, Chicka, Boom, Boom." We own the book, but the girls keep it in their room. It was a great reminder to pull out some favorites to share with him.

We have used the list as a starting point to read books that aren't on the list, but are written by the same authors. Of course, one of our favorite authors is Mo Willems. We grabbed, "Knuffle Bunny" in addition to, "Don't let that Pigeon Drive the Bus," as well as a bunch of his easy readers to revisit. David Shannon is another one of our favorite authors. We loved reading, "Duck on a Bike," again as well as some new ones we have never read by David Shannon. And we grabbed some extra Froggy books by Jonathan London too! My little three year old, D, has loved the Froggy stories.

The girls loved, "George and Martha"! We all got a good laugh reading the short stories in the first book. Another fun find was, "Abuela". This book mixes some Spanish vocabulary in the story. I loved the illustrations in this book as well.

It's not going to take too long to get through the list, but there are plenty of lists to choose from!

100 Picture Books Everyone Should Know

When I went to the library last week, I realized that I was directionless. Our curriculum usually drives my library visit choices, but we are finished history for the year. So I wasn't really sure where to head and what to randomly grab.

I know our favorites and some good books and authors, but suddenly my checkout list decreased from about 60 or more books to less than 20.

Then, just in time I found this list of 100 Picture Books Everyone Should Know on the New York Public Library website. I printed it and decided we'd work through the list this month.

The list is below or you can see it on the site. I marked the ones that we have read before in bold. I was excited to realize that a lot of the books were part of our Galloping the Globe journey this year! It was neat to realize how many "random" books that we came across were on this list!

We'll let you know what we think as we go through the list!

1.ABUELA by Arthur Dorros,
2.ALEXANDER AND THE TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE, NO GOOD, VERY BAD DAY by Judith Viorst
3.ANANSI AND THE MOSS-COVERED ROCK by Eric A. Kimmel
4.ANDY AND THE LION by James Daugherty
5.BARK, GEORGE by Jules Feiffer
6.THE BOSSY GALLITO: A TRADITIONAL CUBAN FOLK TALE retold by Lucia M.Gonzalez; illustrated by Lulu Delacre
7.BREAD AND JAM FOR FRANCES by Russell Hoban; illustrated by Lillian Hoban
8.BROWN BEAR, BROWN BEAR, WHAT DO YOU SEE? by Bill Martin, Jr.; illustrated by Eric Carle
9.BRUNO MUNARI’S ABC by Bruno Munari
10.BUZ by Richard Egielski
11.CAPS FOR SALE; A TALE OF A PEDDLER, SOME MONKEYS AND THEIR MONKEY BUSINESS by Esphyr Slobodkina
12.THE CARROT SEED by Ruth Krauss; illustrated by Crockett Johnson
13.A CHAIR FOR MY MOTHER by Vera B. Williams
14.CHICKA CHICKA BOOM BOOM by Bill Martin, Jr. and John Archambault; illustrated by Lois Ehlert
15.CLICK, CLACK, MOO : COWS THAT TYPE / by Doreen Cronin
16.COME ALONG, DAISY! by Jane Simmons
17.CORDUROY by Don Freeman
18.CURIOUS GEORGE by H. A. Rey
19.DINOSAUR ROAR! by Paul Stickland and Henrietta
20.DON’T LET THAT PIGEON DRIVE THE BUS! by Mo Willems
21.DUCK ON A BIKE by David Shannon
22.FIRE TRUCK by Peter Sís
23.FREIGHT TRAIN by Donald Crews
24.FROGGY GETS DRESSED by Jonathan London
25.THE GARDENER by Sarah Stewart
26.GEORGE AND MARTHA by James Marshall27.GO AWAY, BIG GREEN MONSTER! by Ed Emberley
28.GOIN’ SOMEPLACE SPECIAL by Patricia McKissack
29.GOOD NIGHT, GORILLA by Peggy Rathmann
30.GOODNIGHT MOON by Margaret W. Brown; illustrated by Clement Hurd
31.GOSSIE by Dunrea Olivier
32.GRANDFATHER’S JOURNEY by Allen Say
33.HAROLD AND THE PURPLE CRAYON by Crockett Johnson
34.HARRY THE DIRTY DOG by Gene Zion ; illustrated by Margaret Graham
35.HENRY HIKES TO FITCHBURG by D. B. (Donald B.) Johnson
36.HORTON HATCHES THE EGG by Dr.Seuss,
37.HOW DO DINOSAURS SAY GOOD NIGHT? by Jane Yolen
38.I KISSED THE BABY! by Mary Murphy
39.IF YOU GIVE A MOUSE A COOKIE by Laura J. Numeroff
40.IT COULD ALWAYS BE WORSE: A YIDDISH FOLKTALE retold and illustrated by Margot Zemach
41.JOHN HENRY by Julius Lester; illustrated by Jerry Pinkney
42.JULIUS by Angela Johnson ; illustrated by Dav Pilkey
43.KITTEN’S FIRST FULL MOON by Kevin Henkes
44.LILLY’S PURPLE PLASTIC PURSE by Kevin Henkes
45.THE LINE-UP BOOK by Russo Marisabina
46.THE LITTLE RED HEN: AN OLD STORY by Margot Zemach
47.LON PO PO: A RED RIDING HOOD STORY FROM CHINA by Ed Young
48.LYLE, LYLE, CROCODILE by Bernard Waber
49.MABELA THE CLEVER by Margaret Read MacDonald
50.MACHINES AT WORK by Byron Barton
51.MADELINE by Ludwig Bemelmans
52.MAISY GOES SWIMMING by Lucy Cousins
53.MAKE WAY FOR DUCKLINGS by Robert McCloskey
54.MAMA CAT HAS THREE KITTENS by Denise Fleming
55.THE MAN WHO WALKED BETWEEN THE TOWERS by Mordicai Gerstein
56.MARTHA SPEAKS by Susan Meddaugh
57.MIKE MULLIGAN AND HIS STEAM SHOVEL by Virginia L. Burton
58.MILLIONS OF CATS by Wanda Gág
59.MISS NELSON IS MISSING! by Harry Allard and James Marshall
60.MR. GUMPY’S OUTING by John Birmingham
61.MUFARO’S BEAUTIFUL DAUGHTERS: AN AFRICAN TALE retold and illustrated by John Steptoe
62.MUNCHA! MUNCHA! MUNCHA! by Candace Fleming
63.MY FRIEND RABBIT by Eric Rohmann
64.THE NAPPING HOUSE by Audrey Wood
65.NO, DAVID! by David Shannon
66.OFF TO SCHOOL, BABY DUCK! by Amy Hest
67.OLD BLACK FLY by Jim Aylesworth
68.OLIVIA by Ian Falconer
69.OWEN by Kevin Henkes
70.PAPA, PLEASE GET THE MOON FOR ME by Eric Carle
71.PIERRE: A CAUTIONARY TALE by Maurice Sendak
72.THE POLAR EXPRESS by Chris Van Allsburg
73.PUSS IN BOOTS by Charles Perrault
74.THE RANDOM HOUSE BOOK OF MOTHER GOOSE: A TREASURY OF 386 TIMELESS NURSERY RHYMES by Arnold Lobel
75.ROUND TRIP by Ann Jonas
76.RUMPELSTILTSKIN by Paul O. Zelinsky
77.THE SNOWY DAY by Ezra Jack Keats
78.SPOTS, FEATHERS AND CURLY TAILS by Nancy Tafuri
79.THE STORY OF FERDINAND by Munro Leaf
80.THE STRAY DOG Marc, Simont
81.STREGA NONA by Tomie De Paola
82.SWIMMY by Leo Lionni
83.SYLVESTER AND THE MAGIC PEBBLE by William Steig
84.THE TALE OF PETER RABBIT by Beatrix Potter
85.TAR BEACH by Faith Ringgold
86.TEN, NINE, EIGHT by Molly Bang
87.THERE WAS AN OLD LADY WHO SWALLOWED A FLY by Simms Taback
88.THE THREE BEARS by Paul Galdone
89.TRASHY TOWN by Andrea Griffing Zimmerman
90.THE TRUE STORY OF THE THREE LITTLE PIGS BY A. WOLF by John Scieszka
91.TUESDAY by David Wiesner
92.UPTOWN by Collier Bryan
93.THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR by Eric Carle
94.THE WHEELS ON THE BUS adapted and illustrated by Paul O. Zelinsky
95.WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE by Maurice Sendak
96.WHERE’S SPOT? by Eric Hill
97.WHISTLE FOR WILLIE by Ezra Jack Keats
98.THE WOLF’S CHICKEN STEW by Keiko Kasza
99.YOKO by Rosemary Wells
100.ZOMO THE RABBIT: A TRICKSTER TALE FROM WEST AFRICA retold and illustrated by Gerald McDermott

Library

I love the library. I max out my teacher card on a regular basis - 60 books. The overflow goes on my regular card, usually another 10-15 books. It is crazy to keep track of, but somehow we only lost one last year.

I can't help it. I just love a good book.

Of course, what I truly love about modern technology is the ability to request titles from anywhere in the county from my home computer so that they are delivered to my local branch. Then when I get there, they are all waiting for me at the front desk so I don't have to try to find the books that I need with kids in tow.

Beautiful.

I also renew them all online, saving me lots of time and late fees! But a book won't renew if someone has requested it, so sometimes I have to dash off and make a return last minute.

That situation occured with a book on Columbus this week. It wouldn't renew, so I took the book back to avoid the fine. We hadn't gotten the chance to read it, but we had read some other ones. So it wasn't a big deal.

One day later I got an email from the library informing me that the Columbus book I had requested was available now.

You know...the one I had just returned.

Apparently I am the reason I couldn't renew it.

Wrap Up: Literature

We finished FIAR Book One this year and had fun with it. By the end, we were ready for something else and did a few comprehension activities from Veritas Press' First Favorites.

We focused on setting and main characters this year when discussing the elements of a story. Occasionally, the story lent itself well to a discussion of climax.

While reading, Clown of God, we were able to discuss the climax:


Other stories such as, The Rag Coat, were easier to focus on main characters and setting:


With other books like Mike Mulligan and his steam shovel, K dictated a summary (with help) and drew a picture:


Using First Favorites, we did activities like sequencing:


And of course, we did a ton of fun activities through FIAR that weren't "recorded" in a worksheet! It was a great year!

The plan for literature next year?

Most of our literature will come from our tour of the world using, "Galloping the Globe". The site, Homeschool Share, has some great resources and activities for many of the book titles.

We'll continue with First Favorites by Veritas, using both Volume One and Volume Two.

Read-alouds are continually going on in this house, so we'll keep referring to that Sonlight and Veritas catalog for some good titles!

My goal is to focus on some more elements of a story as well as narration next year. We will have tons of venues in which to do that! Literature is constant around here!

Storytime

Today we attended the most delightful storytime session. We were gathered into the room and seated on the floor by the lovely teacher. She took her seat and read with such enthusiasm and eloquence.

The tale was, "Owl at Home", and boy did we giggle at the funny antics of Owl.

T (age 4) sat on my lap the whole time as we listened.

K (age 6) was unavailable to sit on the floor with us. She was quite preoccupied because...

SHE was the storyteller.

And I have never been so impressed by any storyteller. I believe T and I shall attend her sessions again next week.

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
By: Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though,
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Illustrated by: K Wilson (age 6)


Also Illustrated by: P Wilson (age 4)


(Yes, it was the same lovely winter poem. I believe she is picturing those woods in springtime.)

We have enjoyed focusing on setting this year as we read literature. The girls have enjoyed expressing the setting of a story or poem through painting, words, and drawings.