A Net in Time

Curriculum and book reviews, faith, homeschooling and more!

Elementary

The Fish and the Cat

By Leave a Comment

Have you ever discovered the sheer joy that a wordless book brings?   To be able to look at pictures and formulate your own story?   I tell you, it is SO MUCH FUN.  To sit with a wordless book like “The Fish and the Cat” and tell any old story you choose…it’s a great thing.  And then to flip it around and let the child tell the story to you?  AH!  THIS I LOVE!   I love helping children learn to tell their own stories, and having a prop book just helps them along the way you know?

The Fish and the Cat, a wordless book that encourages creativity

About the book:

The Fish and the Cat is a playful story of pursuit between a cat and pet fish that starts in the house, moves through the neighborhood, and ends in the sky with a chase around the stars and the moon. This wordless picture book, full of action and humor, encourages children to create their own stories and adventures.

Marianne Dubuc brings to life the cat and the fish, using shades of black with splashes of orange-red for the fish.  We are privileged to follow the fish and the cat on their journey through the world and even to the moon!

What kind of adventures do you think one fish and one cat could get into?

Geared for ages 4 and up, this hardcover book, with mostly black/white illustrations, is filled with easy to follow illustrations, making it easy to concoct an adventure for fish and cat to get into. 

The Fish and the Cat, a wordless book that encourages creativity, sample page

My Thoughts:

I LOVE, dearly love books like this.  To be able to sit down with a child with a book in hand that has no words, just pictures to spark conversation and story.  It harkens back to the days when I would ask children I was babysitting to give me three words, any three words I would make a story from them.  We had SO much fun together it was simply delightful. 

The simplicity of the drawings leads to further flights of fancy as I’m not distracted by too much in the illustrations, or I can simply add something not yet seen, only to be imagined.  I simply adore the creative process wordless books like these lend themselves too. 

One time for my homeschool co-op I taught a story-telling class.  I brought in all my story telling props… like story cubes, picture card deck, ghost  story box, grammar fish and more.  We had a lot of fun using these aids to tell stories and to learn all the parts of a story.   A book like The Fish and the Cat would be a welcome addition to my resources.   Wouldn’t it be fun to give this book to a bunch of 9-12 year olds and see the story they would each come up with?  And then share how they came up with it?  Simply marvellous.  

Or you could even make it simpler and have a story time with 6-8 year olds… that could be a blast don’t you think?   Helping creative minds learn how to tell a good story?

The Fish and the Cat, a wordless book that encourages creativity, sample pageI hope that you are as delighted with this book that I am.   Wordless books can be a bit disconcerting at first, but once you discover the joy of telling your own story, or in listening to a child tell their own story, you will find yourself hooked. 🙂

The Fish and the Cat, a wordless book that encourages creativity

The Fish and The Cat
Marianne Dubuc
Princeton Architectural Press
Hardcover, Wordless Book, Ages 4+
at least 60 pages (I kept losing count)
Wordless, storytelling, creative

My Vacation Drawing Book

By Leave a Comment

My Vacation Drawing Book is a great book to take along with you on your vacation. Geared for 5-8 year olds, this is a creative book that introduces art elements around the theme of going on vacation.

My Vacation Drawing Book

Imagine being able to design your own menu, or draw some of the scenery before you as you go down the road. What about learning to draw some of the interesting animals you will see?   Do you know how to draw a bird, or how to turn a box into something new and fun?  Staying in a tent?  A trailer or a Resort?   Wouldn’t it be fun to draw it and see what you can add?  How about making a sign post of all the interesting places you will go?   Ideas like these and more fill the 72 pages of this hardcover book.

Coming with an elastic band as a placeholder, this book is built to stand the rigors of an early elementary student hauling it with them on their travels.

My Vacation Drawing Book, place holder

I  loved the space given on each page as well as the variety of activities provided.  Lessons are taught using simple lines that children can easily copy, and yet I found the children are pushed a bit to become better at what they are doing (like practicing where to put the horizons, and working with vanishing points).  

My Vacation Drawing Book, sample pages

All in all I found this book to be a well designed one that many children would delight in working through, giving them a keep sake to remember their vacation with. The only page I wish could have been made different was one where they were asked to add captions to images.  The space for captions was too small for children of this age bracket to write in. Asking Mom or Dad for help would solved this problem.   This is a nice book that I would have no problem giving any child.

My Vacation Drawing Book

My Vacation Drawing Book: How to draw, sketch or scribble your adventures.
Gillian Johnson
Lonely Planet Kids
72 pages, 5-8 years,
Drawing, art, sketch, vacation, activity book
Hardcover with elastic band
Reviewed for: Raincoast books.
Where to find: Amazon link.

Review: The Big Bed

By Leave a Comment

You know how mother’s day is coming up?  The Big Bed is a fun book for a dad to give a mom knowing that it will make her smile.  True, it’s a picture book, aimed at the young folk, but really… this is a book to make a mom smile as it pokes fun at dad a bit. 

The Big Bed, my review

Bunmi Laditon is a Canadian author who writes about the joys of toddlers.   In this book she has a little girl talking with a dad about what she considers to be a big problem. Tom Knight does a marvellous job of illustrating this little girls complaint to her daddy. 

The Big Bed sample page

The complaint is simple “Daddy, we need to talk about the big bed” and from there her reasoning takes place.  She talks about the importance of her mommy and her place in the world, and what daddy’s place should be and so forth.

The Big Bed sample page
I admittedly wasn’t sure what to make of this book, it was cute and made me chuckle a bit, but I honestly couldn’t say that I would want to sit down and read it with a young child.  I showed it to a seasoned mother friend that I know and asked her opinion.  She chuckled and said “this is a book a dad would give to mom and they would chuckle over it together, but NOT one to give to a child or even read it to them”.   Once she said that I agreed.  It would make a fun mother’s day gift, but not as a book to read with a youngster.  Might give them the wrong ideas about their place in the family and how they should be treating their dad. The Big Bed, sample pageMs. Laditon does an excellent job of capturing a young child’s logic as well as filling in some of her own ideas to round out the story. It’s a fun little book.I love the art work by Tom Knight, the full colour images, the bright colours, the capturing of expressions, it was priceless. I loved how the young lady saw the great things that her daddy did.  

I suppose I just wanted it to be more.   I loved how her momma laughed at her daughter’s final conclusion and could easily see many a parent doing that, I just wanted momma to correct her little girl and say NO, we don’t do things like that to daddy. That part didn’t happen, ergo, it’s a great book to give to mommy so that Dad and Mom can laugh together. The Big BedThe Big Bed
Bunmi Laditon author
Tom Knight Illustrator
farrar, straus, Giroux
ages 4-6 years, 18 pages, softcover
Reviewed for Raincoast books.

 

Polly Diamond and the Magic Book, a review

By Leave a Comment

Oh heavens but I loved this book!  Polly Diamond and the Magic Book was a simply hilarious read through, watching the mind of young girl and the events of her life as she waits for her baby brother to make his appearance.

Polly diamond and the magic book, my review

Polly Diamond will make you laugh, shake your head, chuckle to yourself and have the other moms waiting for their children at karate give you curious looks, and then ask if it’s okay if THEY read the book while they are waiting.  🙂  

And if you are a curious child, you’ll have your mamma read it to you while you (and her) wait for your brother to be done and then I, the official reviewer will grin at your exclamations of delight.  (and think to myself…. I HAVE to put this in my review).  🙂  

So what do you get?

An extremely fun 169 page booked aimed at kids 6-9 years old.   As soon as I read it I said “I need to find me an 8 year old”.  🙂   Alice Kuipers wrote a delightful book cleverly illustrated by Diana Toledano. You will be tempted to race through it, but I’ll caution you… Take your time. Savour the fun and the delight of a child’s mind.  Short chapters and lots of white space with great illustrations makes this an excellent book for young readers, and for their folks if help is needed. This is book one.

Particulars. 

Prose that is great for 6-9 years old, not just easy words, but longer ones to delight clever brains.   The fun of a good book, the delight of imagination, the joy of undiscovered meaning to words, all ties together to make a great fast paced early chapter book for grades 1-3.  

Polly diamond and the magic book,
Learning grammar and language and the fun of accuracy. Seeing how words can twist and change depending on how you define them.  The fun of it has you learning even when you don’t think you will. 

The graphics added to the story, bringing to life the words on the page, yet leaving parts to the imagination.   The fast pace and the upbeat tone make it a joy to read. 

Polly diamond and the magic book,My Thoughts:

Well, if you didn’t guess it already… go on, go get this book. Enjoy it.  Love it.  Help your children grin in delight. See Polly adapt to the change in her household with her love of the written word and a new baby on the way.   Will Polly manage to sort it all out in her creative, imaginative way?   Read it and find out!  🙂

Polly diamond and the magic book,

 

Polly Diamond and the Magic Book
Book One
Chronicle books
softcover, ages 6-9
reviewed for Raincoast books.

Where to find: Amazon Link.  

 

 

 

Review: Not One Damsel in Distress

By Leave a Comment

Not One Damsel in Distress is a fun read with girls as the heroines in the story.  The stories contained within the pages of this hardcover book come from all over the world.  They are folktales for strong girls. 

Not one Damsel in distress

What you get:

Jane Yolen has done an excellent job of collecting these stories from Greece, Niger, Germany, Argentina, China, Scotland, France as well as others.   There are 13 stories in all.  The hardcover makes the book durable, with the well illustrated fly providing an instant way to bookmark your page. The hardcover itself is a plain blue backing.   At the close of the book Ms. Yolen gives more information about the stories she included.  In this section she mentions things that she changed from the original story (or made more clear) and any variations in the stories found (sometimes a story will have multiple versions).  She will also mention where she found the story (often in old folktale books time has mostly forgotten). 

How I used it:

To be honest…I just had fun reading the stories.  Some of the stories I found more appealing than others, but that is the nature of books filled with stories, you rarely like them all the same.  It was neat to read a folktale book filled with strong girls, they aren’t that common.  I think my favourite story was Pretty Penny.   A lass that could have badly been taken advantage of turns the tables of the miscreant. 🙂  Good to see a girl with her wits about her in a time of crisis.  I did as I always do and ignored the forward (at least until I read another review about the author’s mindset presented).  I don’t know the age of Jane Yolen, but I remember tales of heroines as a child, so don’t know why she think they were hidden away not to be found.  Different experiences in life eh?

Some of the finer details:

The font size is lovely.   If you wanted to sit and read the book with a group of children, the larger font size makes it easy to read without having to strain your eyes.

Not One Damsel in Distress, sample page

As you continue reading, you’ll find at least one image per story.   They are all done in black and white and convey the story nicely.  Aren’t the details nice and clear?   I found they drew me into the story, and as I leafed through the pages they brought me easily back to my favourites. 

Not One Damsel in DistressSince these are tales from all over the world, they would be fascinating to read as part of geography or history series don’t you think?   Giving glimpses into the history of a land as each story carries the flavour of the land it comes from. It would just round out the study nicely I think.  🙂

My Overall Thoughts: 

It’s a well done book.  Illustrator Susan Guevara does an excellent job with black and white images to convey the story.   She helps us picture in our minds eye the story we are reading. Could the stories have survived without the images?  Yes! The images fit so well though, they helped to tell the tale!  I can easily see young ladies thoroughly enjoying the stories contained within the pages.  The only issue I had was that sometimes she changed who the hero was in the story… sometimes it was originally a fellow.  Are there not enough old folktales with girls/women as the heroine that you need to change the story included in this book?  I don’t know the answer to that, just part of me is bothered by the changing of history to suit a present day mindset.

Not one damsel in distress, book cover
Not one Damsel in Distress
– World Folktales for Strong Girls
128 pages, hardcover, age 7-10
Folktales, girls, history, geography
Reviewed for Raincoast Books.
Where to buy: Amazon Link.