The first reason I love it is it’s so easy to read. Most Dr. Seuss books (with the exception of the ones that are tricky on purpose like Fox in Socks) are easy to read aloud and Sneetches is written in near perfect iambic hexameter. Honestly, it should be used in introductory poetry classes to teach the concept, it’s so spot on. The second reason is, of course, the lessons implicit in nearly all the stories in this book. The Sneetches is the best known, and probably the most obvious as it’s the only one that comes out and says:

“The day they decided that Sneetches are Sneetches
And no kind of Sneetch is the best on the beaches
That day, all the Sneetches forgot about stars
And whether they had one, or not, upon thars.”

Which is so true and applicable in the world right now. But there are three other stories in the book and 2 of them also have incredibly subtle lessons embedded (it’s possible that the third does as well, as it has taken me this long to process the lesson in The Zax).

“What was I scared of”, the last story in the book is about a character who meets a pair of pants that walks on their own and is scared of them until he finds out that pants are scared of him as well. What I like about this story is that it’s scary without being too scary. A pair of pale green pants is not really that scary, so it brings the point home nicely.

The Zax is the story of a North Going Zax and a South Going Zax who bump into each other and refuse to move to either side and, eventually a highway is built around them. It wasn’t until we started reading it everyday that I picked up the lesson here: Spend your time refusing to budge and the whole world will move on with out you.

“Too Many Daves” is just a funny little exercise in rhyme and word play. It may also be a warning not to give all 23 of your children the same name. But I’m not sure that’s a universal lesson.

Magic School Bus books continue to come up if not daily, weekly. We found a couple of new (to us) easy readers at goodwill and a chapter book at the Arboretum. We checked out the newest book, in the format of the original 10 and discussing global warming, from the library. It didn’t quite live up to my expectations. It follows the lead of the cartoon and the added on series in that it only has the main 8 kids. It also seemed to try and cover a little too much. More than one page of snapshots of different locations and not that much follow through on what kids can do.

For poetry, lately, we’ve been reading Bow Wow Meow Meow by Douglas Florian (so many times that I don’t have to look up the author’s name!). The book is a set of dog and cat poems with illustrations. The poet has a real knack for playing with language and some of them are funny in ways that I’m not sure Fiona “gets” but she loves it all the same. Each time she reads it she claims a different poem as her favorite, but I think I like the “Dog Log” and “Cat Chat” that start the two species.

I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned it, but Fiona loves Animal Nursery Tales by Richard Scary. I think we have the copy from when I was a kid and she just loves it. We go back to it over and over and she knows most of the stories even without the book.

Fiona has also recently decided that Dr. Seuss is the greatest ever. This is delightful, despite the fact that I think she’s discovered him due to the fact that PBS is launching a new Cat in the Hat show and she saw the clips on their website. We have been reading Hop On Pop, Green Eggs and Ham, One Fish Two Fish, ABC’s and There’s a Wocket in my Pocket over and over (as we own those) and checked out Fox in Socks and The Foot Book from the library. We also got The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins, but she decided it was boring. We did get my new favorite, Hooray for Diffendoofer Day! which is also by Jack Prelutsky and Lane Smith. Apparently, Theodore Geisel had been working on this story at the time of his death, but had never gotten beyond a dozen or so drawings, some with couplets and a few other sketches. His editor eventually decided to ask Prelutsky and Smith to write and draw the book, and I just love. Set in a school where the teachers are different and one is “different-er than the rest” the students are faced with a standardized test to determine whether or not they will be sent to Flobbertown. I really recommend you go check it out. Or buy it, which we will probably do by November.

Finally, I’ve just started reading Birdology by Sy Montgomery which is absolutely amazing. Just read it, because I have to go do actual life things, having typed at least twice as much as I intended.

I took two tea bags and glued them back to back for a blank canvas. (I tried painting over the printing but it didn’t work very well). Then I wrote “cat” on the little flap on the outside. On the inside I drew a little picture of a cat and wrote the word again. So simple! My first thought was to write a bunch of easy sight words (cat, sat, hat, bat….) but when Fiona saw it she had her own plan and we quickly made one with each of our names and the names of several of her stuffed animals (I had to dig through the recycling to find enough teabags and it was totally worth it). Since we go through 4 or so teabags a day we should be able to have a few new books each day. I still think I’ll work on some easy words, but Fiona can read or “read” the ones we’ve made so far.

Very simple dress made for Fiona after her 4th of July dress took until the 7th and didn’t come out exactly as planed. This is basically a slightly gathered rectangle of fabric with slightly gathered rectangular straps. If I were to do it again I would have left a lot more fullness in the dress, at the library today she kept hitching it up to sit. Hopefully a longer post coming soon on her red white and blue dress, if I can get her to wear it while Liam is home with his phone so I can take a picture.

I’ve been racing through the Secret Series by Pseudonymous Bosch. The books are somewhat similar to the Lemony Snicket Series of Unfortunate Events, with the narrator predicting doom and so on, but they seem a little more developed. That might be just because they are longer, and this series feels like its for older kids. I also read and loved Interworld by Neil Gaiman and Micheal Reaves and I think the authors are correct, it would make a great tv series.

Fiona remains obsessed with dinosaur books, and checked out a set of W.I.T.C.H. books again, but we’ve also been reading Poems for the Very Young almost every day. Fiona calls it the “Pink Top Book” since the cover illustration on the copy we have is pink at the top. What’s really fun about this one is the way she “reads” it along with me. She really does know some words and phrases but the whole time I read she mumbles “amehmajehmaenmnaehmemaemehmeahehmah” along with the rhythm.

The current dino favorites are Barnum Brown: Dinosaur Hunter, a biography of the man who discovered the first T. Rex fossils in the early 20th century, and, surprise, The Magic School Bus in the Time of the Dinosaurs.

I have too many books out as well and have been having trouble concentrating on one at a time. I did really enjoy the Clementine books by Sara Pennypacker (which I’ll have to remember when Fiona hits school age) about a nine year old girl who is good at math and art and paying attention, just not to the teacher or the other things grown-ups think she should be. I also managed to read some grown-up Fiction, Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen. I’ve read both of her other books as well, and it’s just the kind of Magical Realism I like best. I’ve also started Bite Me by Christopher Moore (it took me a week to get through the introduction, but now that we’re past the Valley Girl Speak I may be able to actually read it) and Bread Alone by Judith Ryan Hendricks.

And now I have to go pretend to read the newspaper while Fiona bangs on pots and pans with wooden spoons.

“Okay, show me”

While sitting on the couch and swinging one leg:

“P-p-pangea! P-p-p-pangea! P-p-pangea!”

Brought to you, no doubt, by my 6th grade science teacher who embedded that song in my mind for all eternity.