Feed Me Books Friday: So Long Summer

Good to the Last Salty Drop

Last week I shared my pick for a Labor Day book to share with your sprout, if you’re inclined to share the explanation behind the long weekend. Labor Day weekend is marked by pool-side cook-outs, warm nights around a campfire, and trips to the shore to enjoy one last day of barefoot. Unfortunately, these activities are often book-ended by snarls of traffic on the highway, so my family typically spends Labor Day at home having a casual barbeque with local friends and family. We made our escape to the seashore last week to soak in the summer sun, breathe in the salty air, and wiggle our toes in the sand. B is starting to grasp the concept of seasons, and he wished the beach a forlorn goodbye when we packed up our things, evidently aware that it would be a while before we return.


Keep a Little Summer on the Shelf

Just like we enjoy reading our souvenir books to remind us of vacations past, who doesn’t enjoy an out of season book now and then to conjure up fond memories? Grandma found it pretty funny when B picked a Santa book from her shelf to read before his nap at her house last month, but the novelty was fun – Christmas in July! My recommendation for you this week will bring that grit between your toes sensation right back to life even in the chills of December. Honestly, whether or not you go with my pick, try mixing it up with an out-of-season story now and then. A little cognitive dissonance is good for us all, and it’s a great way to talk about seasons and the passage of time with your child as you recall memories and anticipate coming excitement.


A Fleet of Feet

Lynn Reiser’s Beach Feet is my end-of-summer pick for several reasons. I love the focus on the experience of feet at the beach, I love the whimsical illustrations that invite poring over, I love the combination of simple text with more detailed and complex “footnotes,” and I love Reiser’s back-flap statement that “on beach days I exist in my feet.” The main text of the book is a long string of descriptive foot phrases such as, “claw feet, paw feet, flat feet, fin feet…” that can also read as a free verse poem (printed on a single page at the end). Most pages include several “footnotes” which explain either the descriptors used or the animals in the illustration in a sentence or two. So you not only get a fun beach frolic of a read, but some cognitive development with language and vocabulary. Regular beach visitors could almost use this as a amateur field guide to shore creatures. We prefer to enjoy the rhythm of the main text and the adventures of the feet in the pictures, pausing to peruse a footnote when B requests extra information. The final line of the book is “Good-bye, feet,” which I found especially poignant after our beach visit punctuated by B’s good-bye.


Appropriate for toddlers, preschoolers, primary grades.


What are you doing to enjoy the end of the season? What are you looking forward to in the coming one? Please share in the comments and link up a book pick if you have one!

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Feed Me Books Friday: My Pick for Labor Day

A Week Early So You Can Find It!


Yes, I know Labor Day Weekend is a week away, but I found this book some time ago and wanted to share it with any of you moms who might be interested in teaching your sprouts what Labor Day is all about. For many of us, it signifies the end of summer, but it is also a tribute to the “social and economic achievements of American workers” (Dept. of Labor website). So what does that matter to a preschooler? In B’s mind, it will be a special day because Daddy will be home from work. But we’ll also talk about the history of the day and I have no doubt he’ll appreciate the message of honoring the various workers of our country.


Trying out the World of Work

I’ve shared before how much B enjoys dressing up and role play. One of the most precious things he said recently was when we were talking about where people work. He knew Gramma works in a classroom, and his uncle works at a car mechanic, and when I asked where Daddy worked, he said “a helping place.” Daddy is the manager of his department, and the best way we have explained managing is that Daddy helps other people get their jobs done. So, Daddy works at a helping place! Love it! B likes to pretend he’s going to work like Daddy sometimes. He packs a lunch, puts on a collared shirt, and heads to his computer desk, where he “sends email” (which consists of typing in a word document).


What do we Celebrate?

Gary Paulsen paints a lovely picture in words of workers everywhere with his book, Work Song, and his wife’s pastel illustrations make the book a beauty to see as well as hear. The text is sparse, long sentences of rhyming phrases spread over several pages that tell what the work song is. Some of my favorite descriptors include, “towering buildings that were not there, hanging suddenly in the air,” and “resting short but loving long, resting for the next day’s song.” There are several trades and professions featured in the book, and while it is certainly not an encyclopedia of jobs, it does highlight the beauty in the variety of work in the world around us. This Labor Day, I will celebrate the workers who provide for the many aspects of a life I am grateful for, and I will celebrate that my first labor day as a stay at home mom who couldn’t be more appreciative of the work I do every day.


Appropriate for: toddlers, preschoolers, primary grades, everyone!


Share your Labor Day plans in the comments and/or link up with a book recommendation of your own! I’ll be sharing our “end of summer” book next Friday.

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