Book Review: Lucy Cousins' Book of Nursery Rhymes

A little over a year ago when I was reading The Read Aloud Handbook, Jim Trelease strongly recommended reading nursery rhymes to children, especially babies and toddlers. He listed a few nursery rhyme books he really liked at the moment, and Lucy Cousins' Book of Nursery Rhymes was one of them. I hopped on Amazon and ordered our copy.

McKenna was around 18 months old when we got it. She is now 27 months old. She has been in love with the book from the moment we got it to now. She loves it. At first, she would haul it around the house with her everywhere. Now, she looks at it at independent play every day and wants it read to her every single night. 

When we do nursery rhymes for learning time, she knows them all because of this book. 

I recently read Reading Magic by Mem Fox, which is another book on literacy. Fox also recommends nursery rhymes, and says important elements in reading are rhyme, rhythm, and repetition. 

Anyway, this is a great nursery rhyme book. In all honesty, it probably doesn't matter much what nursery rhyme book you get--a nursery rhyme is a nursery rhyme. The difference in book collections is which rhymes they include. There is also the picture factor--which I think is a big one. For whatever reason, children love Lucy Cousins' books. Another nursery rhyme book we have read and liked is Sing a Song of Sixpence: A Pocketful of Nursery Rhymes and Tales.

Book Review: Press Here

I often do book lists of fun books for holidays, but there are many, many books out there that are absolutely fabulous that have nothing to do with a holiday. So I thought I would share some every so often.

Today's book is a very special find. My toddler and I were in the library together one May day and came across it accidentally. Each library trip, I go through every single book in a section of the bookcases. I want to find those gems that you might not hear about otherwise.

And I do.

And this day, I did.

Book Info:
This book is titled Press Here. The author is Herve Tullet.
Age: Publisher recommends 4-8. I say 0-101+

Review:
Every so often I get so excited about something that I essentially get writer's block. I know I could never do it the justice it deserves. This is one of those moments.

This book is so simple. It is full of dots. But it is interactive. And it has everyone from my two year old right on up through my husband laughing. We checked this book out in May and we will hold on to it until they make us give it back. Then we will buy it.

This book is so creative. Brilliant, really.

This is a must read for you. If you own it, you will never regret it.

McKenna (two) loves to sit with the book and go through the instructions herself.

I can't recommend this book enough. If you click on the link (Press Here), you will read read 17 reviews that all rave about the book. Check it out! You will love it too!

Book Recommendation: The Read-Aloud Handbook

Are you ready for some gushing?

I don't know that I could really express how much I like The Read-Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease. In fact, the thought of trying to do so is so overwhelming to me I have a hard time trying to come up with words...writer's block!

First of all, this book was sent to me by a blog reader of my Chronicles blog. Now, publishers and publicists have sent me books to review before (I always let you know if a book was sent to me for review; but a book being sent to me would not slant my opinion at all). Readers have suggested I read books before. But never before has a reader had such a love for a book did she send me the book herself. I think that kind of gives you an idea how great this book is.

Second of all, I love books and I highly value reading to children. It is so important to me, one of the first posts I ever wrote on this my Chronicles of a Babywise Mom blog was on the value of reading. So a book about the importance and value of reading, full of references to various studies would of course be of great interest to me.

This is, without question, one of the best parenting books I have ever read. No doubt.

A very refreshing thing about this book is that Trelease is an actual writer, so the book is well-written. It is easy to read, and somehow Trelease manages to keep this informational book interesting enough that I kept coming back to it like it was a Dan Brown book. Okay, this might be in part to my extreme love for the subject, but I promise it is an easy and even interesting read.

This book is all about how to help children learn to love to read. Not how to teach them to read or how to teach them phonics...just how to teach them to love to read. Why love to read? I go through this in my much earlier post on the value of reading, but if you can read then there is no limit to what you can do. You never have to stop learning. Your knowledge and imagination can increase indefinitely. But in order to turn to books, you must love them.

Another importance on love of reading is that if you love to read, you will read. That will translate into becoming better at reading, and every subject in life requires reading.

So that is just a little bit of why. Trelease covers ages on when to do things, various strategies for teaching this love, some school topics, and technology vs. reading. And all of it is full of references and explanations of studies that back his recommendations.

And to top that off, he has a very large list of books he recommends for children in various ages along with a synopsis of many of them.

This isn't one of those books that you read and feel completely overwhelmed. It is very doable. And simple.

Every parent needs to read this book--and they need to do it as soon as they possibly can. Not only will it help you improve the lives of your children, it will inspire you to try to improve the lives of other children who do not have the support needed to learn to love to read.

I recommend this book with all of the energy I can muster. You will not regret this read!

I am cross-posting this with my Chronicles blog today. I will also be further reviewing this book on this blog and that one, depending on which blog it is more appropriate for.

The Preschooler's Busy Book

I have reviewed this book on one of my other blogs before, so if you follow both, sorry for the repeat. The The Preschooler's Busy Book,by Trish Kuffner, is a wonderful book full of fun ideas to do with your preschool age children.

The Preschooler's Busy Book also has 365 learning games and activities. It is for the age range 3-6 years old. Here is a list of the activities found in this book:

• Tips for planning activities
• Rainy Day Activities
• Kids in the Kitchen: This chapter has a lot of recipes that are easy to make with kids.
• Outdoor Adventures
• Out and About: This chapter has good ideas for things to do while driving in the car. I think this is great because you can do things that developmentally help your child rather than just turning the DVD player on.
• Reading, Writing, 'Rithmetic, and More: This chapter has reading readiness, math, geography, and basic botany.
• Music, Dance, and Drama: This chapter has ideas for music and rhythm, movement and dance, and dramatic play.
• Arts and Crafts: including drawing, painting, printmaking, sculpting, paper-mache, and crafts
• Birthdays and Holidays
• Recipes: Recipes for paint, finger paint, playdough, clay, glue, paste, and more.
• Gifts: Gifts ideas your preschooler can make
• Books: Good books for children in this age range

I really like this book. It is so inexpensive and has so many ideas. The activities are easy to do and inexpensive to implement (most are free).