A friend of mine is reading a new winter-themed book each day to her children, having got the idea (I think) from an Internet forum. Somehow, despite spending a fair amount of time online, I managed to miss it when she asked for ideas for stories she could use, and only realised she was doing it at all when she started posting the book for each day on her facebook page. What a brilliant thing to do! I am most definitely doing it next year, although we may well be using books we already have, since I am sure I can manage to find 24 different winter/Christmas themed books on the shelves already!
Which brings me on to the subject of the day. I felt slightly bad the last time I went to the library, as I virtually emptied the Christmas books box in one visit. However, I intend to make good use of them!
I only had C tonight, as A has gone to panto practice with her Dad. He picked two books from the box which "looked the best". The first was The Santa Trap by Jonathan Emmett. The book is about an extremely badly behaved boy called Bradley, who makes a plan to trap Santa so that he can steal all of the presents. I was waiting for the sugary sweet ending where Bradley sees the error of his ways, but this didn't happen. The ending was surprising and funny. C laughed out loud at the final line. The illustrations are fantastic, very Tim Burton for tinies.
Secondly, he chose I Really, Really Need Actual Ice Skates by Lauren Child. I first came across Charlie and Lola when I was doing my teacher training, and my lovely mother-in-law bought me I am Too Absolutely Small for School. It seemed such an original concept at the time; the language and illustrations were so fresh and unusual. It has now been copied, and copied some more, and I do admit now that I have a slight heart-sink moment now, when one of them pulls out a Charlie and Lola, simply because I have read them so many times! However, this one was new to me, and it was very enjoyable. C was able to guess what was going to come next, and the moral of the tale (that sometimes you want a toy so very badly, but it turns out not to be as good as expected) is one that is an important lesson, and one that children can really relate to.
Oh, I must put Santa Trap on my list for next year, my two would love it! Thanks :) We have Snow Is My Favourite And My Best queued up in the box - thankfully with the big gap in age and a quiet hiding away last winter, I'm not too cheesed off with C & L at the moment. K has just got into Clarice Bean, by the same author of course - she loves it and I think the style is great to read in your head, but not so much out loud.
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