August 2006

Puget Sound Parent Recommends:
Imagine This... Pretend That

By Wenda Reed

Funny Face

Babies and toddlers just starting out in life and children with any form of autism have trouble identifying and naming feelings and connecting them with facial expressions. This fun little book ties all the major feelings together with a simple story of a boy, a dog, a ball and some bears. Little ones can easily read the expressions on the bullet-headed little boy’s face and can practice their own funny faces in the mirror in the back of the board book. Funny Face by Nicola Smee is published by Bloomsbury Publishing (2006, $8.95; ages 1-4).

How to Be

If you want to be a bear, you catch fish with your hands, hibernate, growl and be brave.

If you want to be a monkey, there are dozens of things you can do, including some that successfully annoy your big sister. A boy and girl also act like a turtle, snake, spider and dog, and then combine the best of the animal characteristics in “How to be a Person.” The book could be a starting point for lots more acting out for your kids. How to Be is written and illustrated by Lisa Brown (HarperCollins, $15.99; ages 1-6).

Totem Tale: A Tall Story from Alaska

The woodcarver creates a totem pole and walks away. What if one moonlit night the totem animals come to life? What would they do in the woods? When morning comes, how would they all get back onto the pole in the right order – especially when everyone wants to be at the top? After reading this book, children may like to make up stories for other totem poles they see. Alaska writer Deb Vanasse is a teacher in a Yup’ik Eskimo village in Fairbanks. Washington illustrator Eric Brooks makes the animals wooden and yet alive in his wonderful illustrations (Sasquatch Books, 2006, $10.95; ages 4-9).

The Day the Dinosaurs Died

Nothing captures kids’ imaginations like dinosaurs, and they’re always trying to figure out what happened to them (and why they weren’t on the ark). Seattle paleontologist Dr. Charlotte Lewis Brown takes one of the most popular scenarios – the destruction of the Earth by a giant asteroid – and places individual dinosaurs in the scenes of destruction so that kids can imagine how it played out. The Day the Dinosaurs Died, illustrated by Phil Wilson, is an “I Can Read” book (HarperCollins, 2006, $15.99; ages 4-8).

©2006
Northwest Parent Media
All rights reserved

Web design by Intentional Publishing & Design