The Learning Umbrella

I’ve made progress on my Children’s Literature category for my 8×8 in 2008 challenge.  I read The Invention of Hugo Cabret by myself, and it turned out I had it in the wrong category.  This book that looks very thick and intimidating from the outside is actually a fast-paced children’s novel with pages of text interspersed with pages of pictures that move the story along without words.  It’s an interesting and different concept for a book, and I think it would appeal to many reluctant readers.  In it, the talented son of a clockmaker tries to continue his father’s work on an automaton after he is left alone living in a train station.  He encounters an old man who seems to know something about this automaton, and he has to race to finish and solve the mystery of what the connection is before he is discovered and taken away to an orphanage.  I found the answer to the mystery fairly anticlimactic, but otherwise I liked the book a great deal.

We also finished The Children of Green Knowe.  I read this one aloud to Carbon, and he simply loved it.  It is full of careful descriptions and charming ideas, and it has inspired many sweet games and discussions from my little boy.  There is a whole series of these books, recently republished after a stint in out-of-print land.  In the first volume, a lonely young boy goes to spend the Christmas holiday with his great grandmother in her family’s castle, and he discovers a house “haunted” (in a good way) by the spirits of a trio of children and where many things seem to be able to come to life on their own.  The writing is wonderful, full of original phrases and striking descriptions.

The Day the Babies Crawled Away is a rhyming book illustrated in sillouettes, about a young boy’s efforts to save babies that crawl off on their own.  The kids thought it was very funny, while I would only rate it so-so.

The Paper Bag Princess has been on many “must read” lists I’ve seen, but we didn’t like it.  It’s female-empowerment angle was lost on my kids, who just thought it was horrible that she would encourage the dragon to burn down so many forests. 

The Gruffalo  is another book that gets a mixed review from us.  Boldly illustrated, it’s the story of a mouse that makes up a monster to scare away animals that would like to eat him, only to then encounter (and outwit) the monster he created.  I didn’t like it, mainly because the outwiting seemed really stupid (the monster would never have fallen for that!), but Carbon liked it a lot and has sat with the book carefully “re-reading it” to himself several times.

The Missing Mitten Mystery is a good book for winter.  Kids can always use stories that show how to retrace your steps and look for what you lost (because they lose their things so often).  Spoiler: the mitten turns up as the heart of a snowman, and that was neat because we had just read How Raggedy Ann Got Her Candy Heart.

Grandmother Winter is another great winter season book.  Grandmother Winter quilts a feather blanket, and then shakes the white down onto the world as snow.

Flannel Kisses is another seasonally appropriate book, and I love the illustrations that show a simple family home and life.