Three Bears in a Boat

The sea in each page and the sky are pleasant. When the bears come to the cave, looking for a blue seashell for their mom, I was reminded of the 'Cave' book by Diane Siebert that I picked up along with this book. I am glad that there are connections that I can use to interlink books.

Bugs Galore

The well spaced imaginary  bugs filling the page is engrossing. The lightning bug did make us wonder where we could we catch them at the nearest.
Firefly in Arizona
I have seen fireflies in Georgia, in an apartment which bordered woods. I then had to explain my daughter about woods and forest.

Molting

When I looked at the characters, I related it to the movie Mud from a scene. The book has an accent which makes it easy to get into the world of west, potential outlaws. There is a raw quality where kids innocence and ignorance (because of their isolation in an Orphanage) meet the real world. A controlled 'Lord of the Flies'. Characters Me and Billy are like the differing voices in the head, one giving in to another. The clash and survival of the adventure and wisdom hats.
The teenagers faced with their first brush with freedom and responsibility assess the world with its good, bad and the ugly.

Almost hypochondriac

As soon as I opened the package,I was amazed at the size of the doll. I saw the 'Try me' pointing to the stethescope. A gentle press led to a disco throb. The sick baby doubles as a beautiful doll as well as a great baby who knows whats wrong with her and asks the little mommy/doctor leading questions so she can be nursed back to feeling better. I didnt recognise the ear thermometer when I saw it. In that matter, the packaging was good with names of each of the instrument that the little doctor will need to make the baby feel better. I hadnt expected the sick baby's face to go red with fever. Luckily the insert had instructions on how to heal the baby with the medicine. Your little doctor can provide cure on the go with all his/her instruments that fit well into the doctor bag.
The sick baby talks in full sentences and struggles with words like stethescope and tongue depressor. A fun game that will teach the kids about identifying problems and solving them.

What time is it Mr Crocodile?

We read this story as children about a beguiling crocodile wanting the sweet heart of a monkey for her husband in The Monkey and the Crocodile. I didnt realise that this rivalry was universal. In 'What time is it Mr Crocodile?', the crocodile thinks the monkeys are pesky. Mr Esquire even makes an agenda for tomorrow involving the extermination of monkeys. The list of activities to be done reminded me of the Frog's list in The Frog and the Toad series.
After reading the story, my daughter kept telling papa that the crocodile fell upside down. It didnt strike me at all, that it was in this book. I had totally forgotten about it. In that page, crocodile is upside down having tumbled from the skate board. At first, her reaction was that the book is upside down.
In the end, the crocodile has a change of heart, after the monkeys realise that the crocodile is tired and make him 'Monkey stew'.
What might seaweed ice cream be?

The Predator Paradox

I picked this book 'the Predator Paradox: Ending the War with Wolves, Bears, Cougars and Coyotes' as it was categorised under Science & Math. I was curious what science was about to bring to the ecological situation. Numbers are a very good lens to use on this problem of whos depleting what by their actions. With all the studies and statistics, 'perception-blight' hypothesis, 'compensatory mortality' show the fallacies that we are prone to without quantisation. Even putting a number on how much less time an animal spends foraging under the fear of a predator shows the role of predators.

And Away we go

Compared to the sly fox in The Fox and the Stork, its a merry fox in 'And Away we go' that lets all animals join the hot air balloon ride and enjoy friends company.

I know its Autumn

'I know its Autumn' is a human version of Little ferns first winter, where the kid recounts all things different in autumn - acorn art, picking apples, raking leaves.

Little Fern's First Winter

While playing hide-and-seek and taking turns to hide, rabbits Fern and Bracken learn how all animals prepare for winter. This informative book is connected with the frame of these little rabbits, knocking at every animals door, if they can hide where they stay.

Come Along Daisy

The other day, I was telling my toddler that dragonflies are found near water. She goes 'No. Ducks are in the pond'. 'Come Along Daisy' is the perfect book to refute that with Daisy duckling playing with dragonflies.
The illustrations, zoomed to a duck's view are amazing.

How Do Dinosaurs Love their Dogs?

I am just wondering how would 'How Do Dinosaurs Love their dogs' have been, had the author interspersed the questions of how Dinos treat their dogs with how they do instead of bunching all the bad behaviour in one section and all the good in another. Wouldnt the 'They dont this, they do this' work better on the same spread?

With each page and a dinosaur in it, my toddler kept asking for the name of dinosaurs. Noticing the suffix 'saurus' of every name, she goes 'What does Saurus mean?' We were going to look up in the iphone and then recognised this to be a good time for cracking the dictionary open. She wants to stop at every illustration and find out what it is.

What is guessing?

My daughter and her friend came up with guessing game of putting something from the food basket or legos in a cube made of foam alphabets. Then they ask us to guess whats in there but as soon they tell off whats in there.
I told my daughter that needs to keep it a secret or else we wont be able to guess as we already know it.
she says "I am guessing about it"
I - "Guessing is telling without knowing"
She - "Whats that mean?"
She - "What is guessing"
I - You have to give us clues.
Until then she kept putting a tennis ball and give it off that its a ball.

She went into her play room and put something in the box. When asked for clues
She - Lunch
I - Can we eat it?
She - not now. later (We just had breakfast)?
I - Is it a fruit or a vegetable? Bread?
She - Pasta and Rice

Looks like she got the hang of providing clues and let others guess.

Hands on Crafts for Kids

Crafts for kids

How Much is the Doggie in the Window

How Much is the Doggie in the Window story by Iza Trapani

My daughter has read this story with us for about four times now. After coming to the page, where the doggie is no longer in the window, she pointed out that there is no doggie. The shopkeeper gives the boy a lollipop to assuage him. Looking at that she says, he does not want lollipop. Then I asked, what does he want,
She goes Doggie!


When you scan the page where the kid is lying on a bed, you find the baseball at the bottom of the table, but there's a baseball next to it, that is the same colour as the table and becomes invisble.

The Seed and the Giant Saguaro

The Seed and the Giant Saguaro is a cumulative tale like  This is the House that Jack Built. The brown tones reflect the desert landscape very well.
Looking at the bird feet tracks, our young reader called them footprints.
Whose?
birdie.