"It is well to remember that the entire population of the universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others." A.Holmes
Showing posts with label children's books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label children's books. Show all posts

Thursday, November 19, 2009

The Gift Of Reading & Literacy

Our daughter home-schools her 4 children. I am very blessed and thankful she is able to do so. I home-schooled our children and if given the opportunity to raise my children all over again I would most definitely home-school them!No hesitation there for me...I am so thankful my husband worked 2 jobs so I could stay home with my children. I cannot even begin to proclaim the joys of being able to teach them and be with them , and I cherish that time with them to this day. "To teach is to learn twice." Joseph Joubert, "A book is the most effective weapon against intolerance and ignorance." L.B. Johnson "Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body." Richard Steele Our daughter has given me the privilege of teaching her youngest daughter MN to read.MN's older brother and sister took to reading pretty much as easily as her Mom and I did but MN is needing a little extra here. She is still pretty young , has plenty of time to learn to read and she gets lessons from her Mom, but every Tuesday she comes over to spend the day with me as we work together to understand the mystery of letters and words, and open that big book of adventure, discovery, and wonder called 'reading'. We have alphabet cookie cutters,play-dough, her first readers, paper, pencils and stickers for rewards. I am hoping that for her to handle play-dough and find the right letter cutters, cut them out and form them tangibly into letters will help her connect the letters in her mind to letters and words on paper. She is having FUN, FUN, FUN doing this. ( so am I) " There are so many little ways to enlarge your child's world. Love of books is (one of ) the best of all."Jacqueline Kennedy She spent last night with us , and after a day of fun with Grandma, which included reading lessons, she grabbed her favorite book and her blanket and baby doll ( notice how she placed her baby in Poppa's lap) for her Poppa to read this book to her. She just loves books about babies. So Poppa read this book to her, and she had him read it to her again. She also borrowed it to take home and read again. She was so cute, she just snuggled up to Poppa and seemed to emanate pure joy as she held her favorite blanket and read with Poppa."Reading aloud with children is known to be the single most important activity for building the knowledge and skills they will eventually require for learning to read." M.J. Adams "Children are made readers on the laps of their parents."Emilie Buchwald MN loves all these books and I am so glad I have saved them. She took some of these books to bed here( we were blessed by her being able to spend the night here with us), I always give my grandchildren a little flash-light to take to bed, so MN read books by flash-light. "There is more treasure in books than in all the loot on Treasure Island." Walt Disney I do not remember ever NOT being able to read, reading comes easy to me and I know I taught myself to read. My daughter taught herself to read by the time she was 4 years old. However, our sons took a bit longer. I am glad I home-schooled them because I was able to teach them how to read in a way that worked for each of them individually. "You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture, just get people to stop reading them." Ray Bradbury When I was in high school I had too many credits for the school I transferred into from another state, so I was given elective credits for tutoring a junior high boy in reading. He had spent many of his school years in special reading classes and when I had him read to me, well, he couldn't. He could NOT read at all.How did he get so far in school with the inability to read? So I began to teach him how to read using phonics, and do you know, by the end of the quarter he could read. HE COULD READ!!!! When he read aloud to me a page of our lesson I was so happy for him. A few weeks later I got a hand-written letter from him thanking me for teaching him how to read, and he taught me the blessing and joy of teaching something I do not think anyone should be without~ the ability to read. "No skill is more crucial to the future of a child, or to a democratic and prosperous society, than literacy." L.A. Times
"The man who does not read books has no advantage over the man who can't read." Mark Twain
"It is not enough to simply teach children to read, we have to give them something worth reading. Something that will stretch their imaginations---something that will help them make sense of their own lives and encourage them to reach out toward people whose lives are quite different from their own." K. Patterson
"We read to know we are not alone." C.S. Lewis "A man is known by the books he reads." Ralph Waldo Emerson

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Stories for All Ages, Eloise Wilkin

~"Grandma rocks baby to sleep. What a good day it has been! Happy Birthday , baby!" BABY'S BIRTHDAY by Patricia Mowers..illustrated by Eloise Wilkin
The book above is illustrated by one of my favorite illustrators, Eloise Wilkin. That particular story is one I read to all my children on their birthdays for many years, and now I read to my grandchildren. I made up a tune to go with the last page ( above ) where I quietly sing " rock a baby by-o, rock a baby by", and the granddaughter spending her birthday with us, who is sleeping in our spare room right now, sang this tune often in her little baby voice. When I would hold and rock her she would request this song and snuggled in her favorite blanket, she would go to sleep.
~These are some of my favorite story books. I began collecting children's books before I was married. I love children's books and in college, where I was taking classes in education,( at the time my goal was to be a teacher) many of the books I collected were purchased from thrift stores. Our granddaughter brought out WIGGLES for me to read to her tonight. The books shown above are a few of the many books I own that are illustrated by Eloise Wilkin and they are the favorites . ~Look at the detail in the illustrations. They are not fussy or cluttered..but tender, and comforting. The stories are too. Not fussy, complicated, cluttered. "There is still among laymen a lack of comprehension of the discipline needed to pare a text to a basic line that looks simple. A picture book is as concise as poetry." Marcia Brown As I have been writing posts for my blog I have realized it is best to use as few words as possible to state my point or tell my story. When you combine wonderful photographs or illustrations and art with a good , succinct story...you have talent!
~This illustration is from PRAYERS for CHILDREN. ( 1952 )~
~Eloise Wilkin illustrated Little Golden Books from 1943 to 1961. Everyone has probably had at least one battered story book laying around the nursery that was illustrated by her. Eloise Wilkin heads the list as as the most popular artist with collectors of these books. I did not know this, I just knew I loved her illustrations and whenever I saw a book with her distinctive portrayals of family life and nature...I bought it. Usually not spending any more than a quarter. After researching her on-line I now know why I don't find good deals on such storybooks anymore! ( above picture is from BIRDS by Jane Werner Watson, illus. by Eloise Wilkin) ~My personal favorites are WE HELP DADDY, WE HELP MOMMY, and WHERE DID THE BABY GO ? I still read and re-read these books when I have no children around to read them to.They are in some way , so comforting. Apparently,they are calming to my grandchildren too. ~Here a little boy is saying his good night prayers in PRAYERS for CHILDREN. "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray Thee, Lord, thy child to keep; Thy love guard me through the night And wake me with the morning light. Amen."
~Do you have any books illustrated by Mrs. Wilkin in your home ? Are you still reading them to children, to yourself ? And hey, if you want to get rid of them...just send me an e-mail, I have room on my bookshelf for more! "Picture books , of course. present the greatest problems in finding the right artist.....the author's vision of the finished book is important, because it is part of the author's concept of what he has done." Jean Carl, children's book editor