Exciting News

I have happy news for our family.  Rhiannon Lee (Annalee or Anna to old time readers, Rhia nowadays) and I have published a children’s poetry book!

It all started when Rhia showed me her mushroom doodles in her journal last year.  I fell in love with them and told her they should be in a children’s book.  She suggested that I could write poems for a book and they could be the illustrations (many, many years ago I was a poet) and we decided to collaborate.

So she gave me her drawings to scan, and every so often I would sit and work on mushroom poems (and nature poems, and related poems…).

I added a glossary to the back, since some of the poems had bigger words like biome and mycology, and space for kids to add their own poems, drawings and spore prints at the end.

We were in no hurry.  It was just a fun joint project.  Then she got the opportunity to move to West Virginia for three months, and she started working extra hard to earn extra money for all of her expenses.  That lit a fire under me to get the book finished and out into the world to help her out.

The book was published last week and is available on Amazon (affiliate link) if you’d like to take a peek .  If you’re interested, you can order it through Amazon or Barnes and Noble.  It would also help us out enormously if you asked your local library to carry it!

Half of the profits will go to Rhia as she embarks on this new adventure.  My half will go to support my nonprofit children’s nature magazine, Wild Kids Magazine, which costs a fair bit to host since it sees so much monthly traffic that we regularly get overage charges to our web hosting.  I offer the magazine for free to do good in the world (just like Magical Childhood), but it would be great if it didn’t cost so much to do good some months!  😉

I’m also working on putting up a free print of one of the illustrated poems for folks to print out.  Look for that soon.

Wish us luck, and wish us extra luck as Rhia heads off next week on this exciting new chapter in her life.

        

    

 

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Don’t Let the Pigeon Make Some Crafts!

Do you have Mo Willems fans in your family?  We are huge fans of all of his books, but especially the pigeon books.

I found this adorable craft today via the Learning with Literature group Pinterest board.

With lots of other adorable pigeon ideas at the lovely blog it’s from, Diary of a First Grade Teacher.

And she led to me This and That at the Library, which had the printable to make the toilet tube pigeons.

The Learning with Literature board also had this adorable balloon craft from Shauna Lynn, along with a ton of sweet birthday ideas.

  

Even with their own cardboard bus!

So I went looking for some more pigeon fun and found this darling handprint paint craft at Mommy and Me Book Club.

And this idea for making hand puppets to retell the story, off of Pinterest (no link, just an image).

And another bus from another birthday party over at Two Little Birds and a Bug.

Then I found a Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive The Bus Printable over at Plants and Pillars.

Learning with Miss Jenny has two wonderful crafts, a popsicle stick puppet activity and a craft where kids can make their own pigeon and recommend what the next book should be called.

And then Coffee Cups and Crayons has this adorable playdough pigeon kit!

The Best Children’s Books has this tutorial for kids to draw their own pigeons.

And Libraryland has this neat printable pigeon writing activity.

 (Best answer ever, Jordan!)

And the official Pigeon Presents has all sorts of other fun, from online activities to monthly coloring pages to an 8 page teacher’s guide and more (the Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! 10th Birthday Celebration Activity Kit is especially fun!).

I know what we’re doing next week!

Have fun!

 

 

Read Stellaluna Online with Your Kids Today

Pizza Hut’s Book It! program is celebrating National Young Readers Week by putting interactive books online all week.  Today’s book is Stellaluna.  Click here to go read it with your little one!

A free iPad app is also available in the iTunes store – search for BI! Book Week.

20 Children’s Books That Are a Joy to Read Aloud

There are a million reasons why we read to our children.  The best books contain wonderful art, engaging stories, rich vocabulary and something that just makes kids (and their grown ups) feel good.  They also are the kind of book you don’t mind reading again and again to your kiddos. 

Here’s 20 books that we return to over and over because they do that for us.  🙂 

(Note: I haven’t separated these into age levels because I really think great books transcend age and families often read together.  The majority are picture books.  I’ll post a list of recommended chapter books for older kids soon.)

1. A Fairy Went A-Marketing (a must own, as far as I’m concerned!)
2. Miss Rumphius
3. Kiss the Cow
4. There’s a Nightmare in My Closet
5. Mama, Do You Love Me?
6. Please Baby Please
   
7. Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
8. Hop on Pop (my favorite for helping reading “click” for kids)
9. More! More! More! Said the Baby
10. Anything (Pooh or poetry) by A.A. Milne
11. The Napping House
    
12. Jamberry
    
13. There’s a Frog in the Bog
14. Anything by Sandra Boynton (but especially “But Not the Hippopotamus”)
    
15. Where the Wild Things Are
16. Chicka Chicka Boom Boom
17. Stand Tall, Molly Lou Melon
18. Silly Sally
19. Big Momma Makes the World
20. Do’s and Don’ts (and others by Todd Parr)

This is just a drop in the bucket in terms of our favorites, and mostly off the top of my head.  I’m sure I’ll think of 20 more that should have been on the list as soon as I hit post!

Want to share your favorite read-alouds?  Please add them in the comments!

What Are Your Favorite Picture Books?

One of my favorite parts of motherhood is getting to enjoy picture books with my children.  I’ve been collecting good ones since before I had kids, and have far too many now but just can’t stop.

Here are some of my all-time favorites.

Do’s and Don’ts, by Todd Parr (totally silly and colorful fun!)

Miss Rumphius, by Barbara Cooney (this book sums up my biggest goal in life)

There’s a Nightmare in My Closet, by Mercer Mayer

But Not the Hippopotamus, by Sandra Boynton (and just about anything else by Boynton!)

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, by Judith Viorst

More, More, More! Said the Baby, by Vera B. Williams

Kiss the Cow, by Phyllis Root

Please, Baby, Please, by Spike and Tonya Lee

Big Momma Makes the World, by Phyllis Root

The Napping House, by Audrey Wood

Weird Parents, also by Audrey Wood

I could go on, but there’s a start!

What are favorites at your house?

Earn Free Books for Kids!

Here’s an easy way to do something good today. Click! You’ll help buy some books for kids.  🙂

 

 

Happy Thursday!

Wild Things!

Are you a fan of Where the Wild Things Are?  If so, be sure to check out this fun lesson plan to accompany the book, complete with blank mini-books for kids to make up their own wild thing stories and a blank wild thing to print out and decorate to make puppets!  

Why stop there, though?  Let the kids dress up as wild things and perhaps even go on a monster parade.  My little ones used to love to do this.  Maybe it’s time to introduce the little ones here to the fun….    🙂