Grade 1 is when children enter the “real” school i.e. elementary school. This is when things start getting serious and games, toys, naps and other “baby” stuff related to kindergarten are things of the past.
On page 1, the authors introduce Ms. Best (Mrs. Good was the teacher in “Let’s Get Ready for Kindergarten“) who tells the reader this wonderful message,
“You are unique, which means not like anyone else…”
One of a set of 2 books recently released by Cedar Valley Publishing, “Let’s Get Ready for Kindergarten” begins with an introduction by Mrs Good, the class teacher, who welcomes the students to a class for “children of all ages and stages of learning development”.
She encourages the reader to:
Unlike other pre-K books, I like this book for the 2 lists of:
a) early childhood skills that parents and teachers should introduce to the child and
b) tips for parents and caregivers on how to bring out the best in their child.
My toddler and I had a lot of fun reading this book as he:
…and we ended the book there as he lost interest after that! Nevertheless, for a book meant for kids aged 2-6, I’d say it did a good job sustaining his attention for as far as 16 pages…
I like having Mrs. Good’s face at the bottom of each page, with a tip to guide parents/child for each activity. I’d imagine he would have more fun with it as he gets older as I plan to teach him to memorize his home telephone number and other essential info included in this book.
A step-by-step guide for writing out each letter of the alphabet is at the back of the book to help the preschooler. I also like the calendar feature, which invites the reader to pencil in the days of his/her birthday month.
A diverse group of kids, known as the “Cedar Valley kids”, appear on every page – I’m guessing that the authors have a VCD series in the works. Kids who start with these 2 books will know Amy, Ricardo, Tatiana, Omar, Bo, Rafferty and Peek-a-Blue the hippo when they see them again…
My pet peeve with the book is the Comic Sans Serif font used. This font may look fun but I get really irritated when I need to read anything in this font. I wonder if the authors will consider another type of fun font for the next editions?
If you’d like a copy of “Let’s Get Ready for Kindergarten”, you can get it here:
Let’s Get Ready for Kindergarten by Linda Desimowich and Stacey Kannenberg
ISBN: 1-933476-00-1
This book was from a budget buy and my sister and I are still undecided as to who bought it. In any case, I was immediately drawn by the stripy dust jacket and catchy title.
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
Surprised, Bruno asks a lot of questions about the move but neither his father nor his mother gives him satisfactory answers.
He only knows that they are moving to a new house in a new city because his father, a Commandant in the German army, has been promoted.
Other than his father, nobody else in his family i.e. his mother or his elder sister seems excited about the move that Bruno suspects everything isn’t as perfect as his mother tries to imply.
The only person who tries to cheer him up is Maria, his servant, who encourages him to try to make the best out of it.
As he suspects, the new house is nothing like the old one. What’s more, he doesn’t have any neighbours, which means he has nobody to play!
Although Bruno has childish squabbles with his friends back in the city, he begins to think that a few friends are better than no friends at all…
What’s worse, the only other “child” around i.e. his sister has now set her attention on the young and handsome Lieutenant Kotler, one of his father’s favourite officers.
Looking out the window, Bruno notices that the new house overlooks a fence and there seemed to be a lot of people and CHILDREN on the other side!
He brings it up to his mother once or twice but is immediately warned not to bother about them. He’s also forbidden to play anywhere near the fence.
Bruno’s mother hires a private tutor to attend to the children’s lessons and hopefully, keep him busy.
Nevertheless, Bruno meets two Jews – a manservant, who’s actually a doctor and Schmuel, a little boy he befriended when he disobeyed his parents and scouted the area on his own…
Bruno’s friendship with Schmuel is complex – he secretly brings him food and even offers him some when the latter has some tasks in the house. However, when Lt. Kotler demands to know if Bruno had given him the food, his fear makes him betray his friend by denying it.
Guilty about this betrayal, Bruno promises the distressed Schmuel that he would help him find his father, who had suddenly disappeared one morning…
John Boyne’s first book written for children, I found out that:
“Unlike the months of planning Boyne had for his other books, he said that he wrote the entire first draft of Boy in two and a half days, barely sleeping until he got to the end.”
Thank God the lightbulb lit up for John Boyne and he burned that midnight oil to pen this story down! A truly amazing read…
Other books on the Holocaust:
THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS by JOHN BOYNE
Paperback: 224 pages
Publisher: OUP DUMP LIST (May 31, 2007)
ISBN-10: 0198326769
ISBN-13: 978-0198326762
