This is just a kids' book...a happy nappy kids book...that expresses joy for black hair. This is the way I think about black hair. bell hooks wrote thThis is just a kids' book...a happy nappy kids book...that expresses joy for black hair. This is the way I think about black hair. bell hooks wrote the words here and she was unambiguous: This can be a joy. Happy to be nappy.
The paintings within are really great: blobs of color and streaks of hair that represent styles. "These short tight naps, or plaited strands all...let girls go running free. Happy with hair all short and strong...Happy with locks that twist and curl...Just all girl happy!"
We’ve all been there: we have one or more (sometimes many more) kids to look after or entertain for an afternoon and don’t want to be remembered as thWe’ve all been there: we have one or more (sometimes many more) kids to look after or entertain for an afternoon and don’t want to be remembered as the “boring” one. But maybe we’ve used up all our ideas or can’t use a couple so are sort of desperate for some help. Donna Bozzo is a media personality with three daughters and lots of energy. She has come up with 427 Simple Ways to Have Fantastic Family Fun, and has written them down. That’s one step beyond what most of us do and is ve-e-e-ry helpful when we feel braindead after a busy week.
Looking through this book I could see many time-tried favorites, like mud pies and singing in the rain, but she came up with a few new good ones that seemed doable and something I wouldn’t have come up with on my own. One I thought had potential was Nighttime Driveway Bowling with glow sticks in water-filled plastic bottles and a glow-in-the-dark- painted ball. Not sure your husband would agree to have us paint his basketball, but a ball of that size and weight might work well. Donna suggests an old medicine ball. (WTF?!) That sounds so Californian, but no…she lives in Illinois.
One suggestion that doesn’t require painting anything is making a map on the walk to school. Seems like it could be a useful and fun, and maybe even a multi-day project, depending on the attention span, if the child is youngish.
The book has a few pictures which helps to get some idea of what she means when she describes making a robot, for instance, out of soup cans. But one photograph showed a woman in a beekeeper’s suit holding a hive frame covered with bees. The woman is smiling through her mask, and the activity suggests you bring your kids to see the bees work. Bozzo adds “trust me” and I guess we’d have to…though unless you can come up with some hazmat suits in a small size, I might put this one off until the kids are old enough to give consent.
When I read that you can have the kids report the weather like the folks on TV, using a green screen and some downloaded video footage, at first I thought, “oh come on!” But then I started to get kind of excited about the idea…mainly because I have a green cloth already that could be used for the screening. The cool thing is that everybody learns something with this multi-day project. The kids have to realize how they can speak about weather they can’t see—at least not in back of them. We’d have a little exercise in video-making, and once the kids realize how it all works, they can use real weather outside the window to report…somehow I can see a three-year-old saying dolefully “It’s raining” in front of footage of heavy rain in the yard, or a twelve-year-old pretty quickly learning to film her friends doing real reporting in front of their own footage. This multi-day project has some real potential for fun and learning for all.
So, when you are too frazzled to think much of anything, you might want to turn to a book like this to quickly pull something together for a party or something quieter for after school. You’ll see things you’ve done before, but you’ll also see how a busy, high-energy mother of three makes it work for her family. P.S. I notice there are only 427 suggested projects in the book now, though initially the title had 439 or more projects. Wonder if some of them weren't a little...like the bee hive visit. ...more
Penguin Young Readers has selected several storybooks from their G+D Vintage archives for reprint in time for Easter this spring, in advance of furthePenguin Young Readers has selected several storybooks from their G+D Vintage archives for reprint in time for Easter this spring, in advance of further titles coming along in early summer. Long out of print, these books are selected for their retro-chic appeal and classic illustrations.
This particular story features a little bunny who should be dazzled by the long lists of fun hats and delightful candies he discovers in the abandoned factory where he makes his home. It is only when he comes upon the field of carrots lying outside the factory doors that he finds true excitement. I love it when children turn up their noses at candies and go for the fruit—or vegetables--so this one is high on my list for big punch lines.
One senses the societal change in the fifty or sixty years since the book’s original publication when the list of jobs attached to the hats the bunnies find seem as distant as Shakespeare.
My family has long experience with rabbits, both the domestic variety and with the ones that nibble tender greens in my city garden. There is still something about bunnies that remind us of spring, so bring a little of the past into the present and share with your kids, grandkids, and great grandkids the truth about bunnies.
On sale Jan 26, 2016, ISBN: 978944844495, 32 pages, Ages 3-5, $9.99, G+D Vintage
More titles this Spring:
• Bunny Hopwell's First Spring by Jean Fritz, Illustrated by Rachel Dixon;
• The Noisy Clock by Jean Horton Berg, Illustrated by Art Seiden;
• My ABC Book by Art Seiden;
• The Too Little Fire Engine by Jane Flory.
Upcoming in June 2016: • The Animal's Vacation by Shel Haber;
• The Bingity-Bangity School Bus by Fleur Conkling;
• Mr. Wishing Went Fishing by Irma Wilde, Illustrated by George Wilde....more
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