kidlit – Page 6 – Kristin Houlihan, Writer

Prairie Girl – My first book of 2018

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So my first book of 2018 was a kids book, and I didn’t even read it to one of my kids! My oldest read it on her own and I decided to give it a quick read last night for myself. I’ve been a big fan of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books ever since I read them in second grade. I still remember my second-grade teacher taking me to the bookcase in the school library and suggesting I read the series. (I also continue to be irked that she did not recommend them to me in chronological order but rather had me start with Little House on the Prairie.)

So, I went my entire childhood and most of my adult life thus far believing the Little House books were nonfiction. And then. I found them for my daughter in the “JFIC” section of the library. MY WORLD WAS UPENDED. Ok, not really, but I was disappointed. I felt like I had been lied to, which is kind of ridiculous, but I felt unsettled knowing the books were partly/mostly true but not knowing which parts! This was obviously not a pressing priority in my life, but I did kind of have in the back of my mind the desire to read more about Laura’s actual life and about the writing of the books. I happened upon Prairie Girl in the library one day, and so I checked it out — more for me than for my daughter, though she did read it first 🙂

On its own, the book isn’t amazing, but I did enjoy it. It’s nowhere near as engaging as Laura Ingalls Wilder’s own writing, but it is a very simple and approachable biography for a child and a great introduction to her biography for an adult. It very straightforwardly addresses tragic events (like the deaths of Laura’s infant brother and later her infant son), which seemed to go over well for my daughter. It helped put the fiction books into context for me and understand how Laura herself could say the “stories” were “true” without being works of nonfiction, and I learned a lot about her adult life. It seems strange, in a way, to think of adult Laura owing a car — in my mind she’s always the little girl in the covered wagon or the teen in a buggy with Almanzo, her suitor.

In any case, this is a lot of rambling today but I wanted to share my first book of the year! I got an overall positive feeling from the book and now I’m interested in reading a biography of hers written for adults rather than children.

Three stars!

My Favorite Dr. Seuss Quotes

Inspired by the season (and notwithstanding last year’s similar post – I guess I’m predictable), I thought I’d share my two favorite Dr. Seuss quotes:

Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before! “Maybe Christmas,” he thought, “doesn’t come from a store. Maybe Christmas…perhaps…means a little bit more.”

– How the Grinch Stole Christmas

AND

A person’s a person, no matter how small.

– Horton Hears a Who

Oh the Places You’ll Go and The Lorax round out my top four Dr. Seuss books but I found I just couldn’t pick a favorite quote from either one – there are too many, and the books pack in so much wisdom that you really need to read them in their entirety.

That’s all for today! I’d love to hear your favorite Dr. Seuss books and/or quotes. There are still a handful I haven’t read so maybe you’ll inspire me to pick up a new one!

Reading to kids – it’s also about values

So I’ve talked before about the importance of kids’ books for teaching language to children, but there’s also a lot to be said for using literature to transmit values. I believe we need to be intentional about what we read to our children. By this I am referring both to what we choose to read and what we choose not to read. I could rail against all the garbage being written for kids these days (and always, it’s not all new), but in the interest of keeping things positive I’m going to just mention one valuable story we read in my house recently.

We love Frog and Toad (you know that already, though, because I mentioned them in my last post, too) and recently got Frog and Toad All Year from the library. My absolute favorite story in the book, and the inspiration for this post, is The Surprise, in which Frog and Toad each secretly rake each other’s leaves. They each independently come up with the idea and do the good deed in secret. Then the wind blows all the leaves out of the piles, undoing their hard work; when each returns home, he finds his own yard a mess and never knows what the other did for him. The best part of the story is that Frog and Toad each go to sleep that night happy to have helped a friend, never finding the need to take credit for it. Each of them is happy just to have done a good deed, without needing or seeking credit.

This is love in its truest sense – seeking the good of another just for the other’s sake. I’m not sure if my kids understand the message of the story, but it has certainly served as a reminder for me to check myself every time I want to say to someone, “oh, hey – did you see this nice thing I just did for you?” I know that books teach us (there’s a reason I called this blog “The Edifying Word”), but reading The Surprise was, for me, a reminder of the power of stories teach values and not just facts.

I’ve generally been pretty good at screening out the “bad” from what my kids read (at home, anyway – I can’t control that my daughter’s teacher reads Junie B. Jones with all her sass aloud to the class). My goal going forward is to remember the power of teaching positive values rather than just avoiding the things I don’t approve of, and using that as a guide for choosing what we read. We learn by repetition, and if I repeatedly and intentionally expose my children to the values I want to instill in them, they will absorb the message; literature is one of many tools I have as a parent to do so.

What do you think? Any suggestions of other positive, edifying books for kids?