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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Big Fun, Little Guy

Playing with the Big Guys

My son, like many 4-year-olds, vacillates between feeling he can take on the world and being afraid to enter his own dark bedroom alone. My husband (shout-out to a super dad!) tries to include B in many of his activities. It accomplishes two things: first, Daddy gets projects done and spends quality time with B at the same time; second, B gains a real sense of pride at being able to do grown-up things. He loves to work on projects around the house or yard with Daddy (and thanks to Papa he has kid-friendly versions of all the requisite tools). He accompanies Daddy to the driving range to practice his golf swing. He’s even tagged along for a couple of casual lunches with Daddy’s colleagues. Unfortunately, sometimes B’s sense of big-boy entitlement goes a little too far, and he has to be reminded that Mommy and Daddy make the rules, and not all activities are appropriate for kids.

It’s a book! It’s a toy! It’s a souvenir! It’s a lesson!

I’ve shared my affinity for books as souvenirs before, and as anyone whose read my last two posts knows, I just returned from some family vacation time. Most of our time was spent blissfully unscheduled, relaxing at the resort pools and recreation areas, but we did fit in an aquarium visit. B’s souvenir from the aquarium trip was a fun book by William Boniface, The Adventures of Max the Minnow. First of all, the book caught B’s eye (and proved entertaining on the car ride home) because of the googly eyeballs protruding from the cover. A rigid clear ball encases each greed-irised “eyeball” which glide and jiggle and are weighted such that no matter which way you turn this board book, the pupils continue to “look” at you! Now, while Minnows weren’t exactly the feature creature at the aquarium, I think a book about fish is enough of a connection to jog our memories and discuss our vacation excursion.


Braun vs. Brains

The story of Max the Minnow is told in rhythmic couplets – iambic septameter to be exact. Unnecessary terminology, I know, that’s the Lit. major in me coming out. What that means to the reader is that every other syllable is accented in slightly shorter lines than Shakespeare wrote most of his works. It makes the text very bouncy and light. The illustrations are bright and cartoonish, and holes through to the back of the book allow a different creature to show off the googly eyes on each page. Max begins the story frustrated that little guys (remember he’s a minnow) must hide and watch the big fish at play. Inspired by watching blowfish puff up, he sets out to try to become bigger by eating malts, pizza, and noodles, but discovers his new pudgy size makes him the target of some clownfish teasing. His last stop is Sharky’s Diner, where his new plump physique makes him a target for the shark chef. He’s sure hope is lost when he discovers his size has slowed him down, but remembers in the nick of time that “brains mean more than bulk” and finds a space just large enough for him (but not the shark) to escape. When children experience frustration because they’re not allowed to do grown-up things or because they’re not physically big enough to do certain activities, this story is a great way to start a discussion about all the special qualities they do possess or privileges they have.

Appropriate for: toddlers, preschoolers, primary grades

What special activities make your child feel grown-up? Hope you’ll share in the comments and/or add your own link to share a recommended book!

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Make a Splash with Ocean Books, Crafts, and Activities

Waves of Reading Fun

Have you signed up for the summer reading program at your local library? This year’s theme (at most public libraries) is Make a Splash – READ! We got signed up last week and we’ve been enjoying all the activities our local branch has to offer. We attend children’s story hour on a regular basis, but it’s exciting to see so many new families making the library a part of their summer vacation. Our library staff is really playing to the theme.


Sparkly Fish Decoration


This week’s story hour craft was a cute and easy fish to hang in your window or on your patio. Materials include: 2 CDs or DVDs (out of style or a little scratched are just fine), craft foam in the color of your choice, glue, thread or floss, and optional googly eyes or stickers.

• You’ll cut two triangular fins, fishy lips, a tail, and a center fin shaped like an eight from the craft foam.
• Glue the edges of the triangular fins, tail, and lips just inside the edge of the label side of the first CD.
• Glue second CD on top, label sides together.
• Push center fin through holes of CDs. Punch a small hole in top fin and thread hanger through.
•  Add eyes to CD with stick-ons or markers.

I don’t have the templates as all pieces were precut for us, but if it gives you fits, contact me and I’ll trace the pieces from B’s.

Vacation-Inspiring Learning Activity


Another fun feature this week was a presentation on tide pool life. The kids listened to a short presentation on the animals that inhabit different types of seashells while they passed around examples. Then they got to practice their matching, detective, and map skills as they looked for creatures matching their handout in gridded tide pool model boxes around the room. B was not really ready for the grid skills (the octopus is in B7), but we treated it like a game of Eye Spy: he looked at the pictures on the handout, pointed them out in the boxes, and I recorded. After looking at all the seashells and listening to the conch, I’m longing for the beach!

Oceans: Fiction and Non Fiction

We couldn’t enjoy these activities without taking home some ocean-themed books, and I decided the combination of the fish craft and the shell demonstration was a good bridge to the concepts of fiction and non-fiction. Preschool is the age to differentiate the cognitive concepts of fantasy and reality, and all it takes is an explicit mention of which stories are true and which are imaginary. We brought home Life in an Ocean, by Carol Lindeen, and Over in the Ocean, by Marianne Berkes. Life in an Ocean introduces several sea creatures with simple text and photo illustrations. It also includes a short glossary and additional ocean facts at the back. Over in the Ocean is a variation on the traditional Over in the Meadow poem, and you can count sea creatures and enjoy the rhythm and rhyme.

Appropriate for: Toddlers, Preschoolers

Linking up With:

Read Aloud Thursday

Feed Me Books Friday

Meme’s the Word (on Saturday)

Wishing Janna at The Adventure of Motherhood an enjoyable, well-deserved break as she takes July off from Feed Me Books Friday. Each week will be “guest-hosted” by some FMBF regulars, including ME! I’m excited to be part of one of my favorite memes. Hope you’ll come back here July 23 and link up!

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