Pretend Play Breakthrough!

And we have a winner for the first ever thing Boo has pretended to be.  I was treated to the following conversation last night as I dried him off after bath time:

Boo (holding tongue): Bootungisback.
Sam: What?
Boo: Boo's tongue is black.
Sam: Um.  Looks pink to me.
Boo: Boo's eyes are orange.
Sam: Oh! Is Boo a gruffalo?
Boo: Yes!
Sam:  Silly Mommy, I thought Boo was a boy.
Boo.  No-oo.  Boo is not a boy.  Boo is a gruffalo.
Sam: So that must mean you have purple prickles all over your back?
Boo:  Yes!
Sam: So, is Mommy a gruffalo too?
Boo: Yes!  Mommy is a gruffalo too.
Sam: What about Daddy?
Boo: Yes!
Sam: A whole gruffalo family?
Boo: Yes!
Sam: Excellent.

This delay in posting brought to you by...life.

Sorry for missing my regularly scheduled Monday review.  I've gotten behind recently due to unexpected relative visits, migraines, minor work catastrophes, and some ramping up of Boo's therapy schedule which is forcing me catch up on work during my normal writing hours (i.e. that sliver of time between Boo's bedtime and my own).  This week looks calmer, so I'll hopefully be rebuilding (and expanding) my (apparently woefully inadequate) buffer of posts.

Tune in tomorrow when we'll hopefully review The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler.

Perfect Picture Books By Post: A Picture Book Swap

C'mon.  You know you wanna....

Want to receive a brand new picture book in the mail?  Want to share your love of a particular book with someone likely to appreciate it?  Then Playing by the Book's Perfect Picture Books By Post is the swap for you!

You don't need to be a blogger or even a parent to play.  You just need to be willing to send a copy of a favourite picture book to someone else and to receive one in return.  Come on.  Join the fun.  The more the merrier.

Head on over to Zoe's blog and read her Perfect Picture Books By Post FAQ to find out how to sign up.  Deadline for sign-up is October 22nd, with books needing to be in the mail by November 5th.

BBAW: Future Treasure - Experiences and Goals

The final prompt for Book Blogger Appreciation Week 2010:

Friday—Future Treasures
We’ve been visiting each other and getting to know each other better…now is your chance to share what you enjoyed about BBAW and also what your blogging goals are for the next year!

Having decided to participate in BBAW at literally the last minute, my experience may vary from others who A) knew it was coming, B) participated last year, and C) have a clue.

I’d intended to just lurk this year, but due to a surprisingly complimentary post by the fabulous Brimful Curiosities, I figured I might as well go for it and join in.  For the statisticians among you, here’s a hint: don’t accidently disable your site meter gadget on the day before a blog way bigger and better than yours sends a bunch of fabulous readers your way.  I’m staring at a three-day hole in my stats instead of a nice, gratifying peak. Sigh.

I really enjoyed finding other book bloggers and experiencing blogs I hadn’t heard about before.  I haven’t yet had time to visit very many of them, but I’ll do so slowly over the next little while, hopefully finding new favourites and making new blogging buddies.  I expect my blogroll to expand quite a bit.

The interview swap was one of the highlights for me.  I interviewed Jen at Teach Mentor Texts (who also interviewed me) and was blown away by her philosophy and insights.  I’m hopeful that when Boo gets to school, he’ll have teachers just like her.  Teach Mentor Texts was one of three blogs short-listed for Best Kidlit Book Blog this year (along with Playing by the Book and the eventual winner, There’s a Book).  All three of them are amazing, so if you’re a kidlit fan and you live in some sort of alternate universe where you’ve heard of me but not them, get yourself over to their blogs ASAP.

My goals for the upcoming year are:

• Continue reviewing children’s books at least 3 times a week. – that’s 156 by this time next year!  Better haul Boo off to the library tomorrow…
• Expand my familiarity and interaction with other book bloggers and also with bloggers from the autism community.
• Participate in more events; for example, it looks like Zoe at Playing by the Book is planning a new swap…
• Host at least one giveaway.

I must admit to being bit disappointed that so few blogs focusing on children’s lit participated in BBAW this year.  I’m hopeful that more will hear about it and choose to play in 2011.

Thanks so much to the organizers and volunteers who ran BBAW 2010.  It must have been an incredible amount of work, but from my perspective it was fantastic!

BBAW: Interview Swap with Teach Mentor Texts

For Book Blogger Appreciation Week, I had the pleasure of being paired up with Jen from Teach Mentor Texts, a blog dedicated to expanding children's literacy skills naturalistically with great books rather than worksheets and reading logs.  As someone who loathed those old colour-coded workbooks in elementary school and completed each one as quickly as possible just to get it over with, all I can say is Woo Hoo!

You can find Jen's interview of me here.  And here are the questions she was kind enough to answer for me:

I must admit I've never heard the term "mentor text" before.  What makes a great mentor text different from the average book?

You know how you can pick up an average picture book and it may have cute pictures or rhymes and then you pick up a stellar picture book and it pulls you into the story and you're either laughing out loud or teary-eyed?  Those awesome picture books that tell a great story with just the right words and illustrations/artwork to match are perfect for mentor texts.  The idea is that teachers, and parents, can use the books as examples of quality writing for kids.  My philosophy of teaching focuses on using authentic texts - real books instead of worksheets -so kids can read a story, love a story, and then take time to focus on what the author did well and use that as an example for their own writing. 

Now that I think about it, those "average" not so great books could even be mentor texts if you use them as a comparison.  You could talk to kids about the difference between an amazing, unforgettable story to a so-so book. 

AND, mentor texts don't have to be picture books.  Chapter books/novels and poems can be mentor texts, too.  There is a teacher/author named Jeff Anderson (http://www.writeguy.net/) who takes just one sentence or one paragraph from a longer text and talks to kids about that one sentence and uses that as an example for their own writing.

As someone who is very interested in using books to address specific developmental needs, I'm intrigued by your reading "strategies to practice", like Activating Background Knowledge and Making Connections.  Can you elaborate on what you're looking for or referring to with some of these?

I'll never forget when Peanut (my now 3-year-old) asked one of our family members (I won't say who!) to read him a book.  They were snuggled on our couch...and then the reading began...but there was no emotion in his voice, no pausing at all, no looking at or discussing the pictures...he just read it straight through in a monotone voice.  Now, Peanut didn't seem to notice all that much of a difference, he didn't say anything or complain but I recognized immediately the difference between reading a book to a child and reading WITH a child. 

This family member didn't at all model for Peanut what a good reader does when he or she is reading.  A good reader doesn't simply read the words and get through the book, a good reader thinks about the book and interacts with the book.  It is so hard for kids to realize what a good reader does when he or she reads a book.  A good reader applies - mostly seamlessly - reading strategies.  You can read more about what each reading strategy is if you look at My Labels (http://www.teachmentortexts.com/p/my-labels.html) I try to explain all the terms you'll see pop up in my reviews.  The most common reading strategies are: Activating Background Knowledge, Making Connections, Asking Questions, Making Predictions, Visualizing, and Making Inferences.  If you stop and look at the pictures and ask questions or even just make statements about the text or pictures yourself you are helping your child develop those strategies and modeling them for him or her. 

What are your kids' favourite books right now?

You cannot imagine how many Thomas the Tank Engine books I/we have read lately!!!!  My husband and I are getting a little tired of Thomas but Peanut loves him!  We go to the library and he wants to go directly to the Thomas section and he knows exactly where it is.  He'll check out a huge stack and beg us to read through the whole pile every night before bed.  I'm glad he loves Thomas and loves to read so I'll happily read to him...but I also check out some books I want to read and sneak some of those in, too! 

What are you currently reading for yourself?  What's on your nightstand?  Are you enjoying it?

I am currently reading Tricks by Ellen Hopkins...it's hard to say that I'm enjoying it because it is such a traumatic book!  It's superbly written, I love Ellen Hopkins because of how raw and real her stories are, but I went to bed last night just feeling icky because of what the characters are going through.  I guess it's  a testament to her writing that I'm able to connect with and feel bad for the characters. 

Have you found any mentor book blogs you think should be more widely read?  Ones that display the qualities you spoke about in the first question?  Besides your own, of course. ;)

I actually just found Playing By the Book through Book Blogger Appreciation week and I love her!  I'm sure people know about this blog, but it's new to me and I think it's great!  http://www.playingbythebook.net/

XXXXX

A big thank you to Jen for answering all my questions (at the last minute!) and for having such a great blog.  I'm thrilled to have been paired with her.

Happy Book Blogger Appreciation Week

I'd been intending to watch but not participate in Book Blogger Appreciation Week (BBAW) as I'm new enough no one's heard of me yet and I'm not yet familiar enough with the book blogosphere to really do it justice.  However, Brimful Curiosities was kind enough to take note of our humble infant blog, so I figure I should bite the bullet and jump in the deep end...not to abhorantly mix up my metaphors or anything.

Monday's topic for BBAW is First Treasure. The first posting option is to share a great new book blog you've discovered.  Since the newest book blog I've discovered thus far is, well, this one, I'll go with the second option of sharing the very first book blog I discovered.

Enter Jen Robinson's Book Page.  Jen started her book blog way back in December 2005 with a premise  (among others) that more adults should read children's books and share their thoughts about them with other adults.  She's recently added Baby Bookworm to her family, and now also blogs about their bookish experiences together.  I look forward to reading more of their page-turning adventures and recommendations.  Go check them out!

Jen is also the moderator of Children's Book Reviews, a wiki collecting reviews from member bloggers (many of whom are better at remembering to update the wiki than I am).  If you're a kid's book review blogger, consider requesting access through the site to join the group.

If you haven't already, also mosey over to the BBAW site and check out the list of participants.  There's bound to be at least a couple you'll be thrilled to add to your regular reading list.  I know I plan to do so.

Not as unique as we thought...

I'm happy to report I've now discovered proof that Boo and I are not the only book reviewers to put an autism spin on the books we read.  If you're here for the Autism Spectrum Bonus, you should also check out Spectrum Mom at Autism Reads.

A big thank you to Leisa Hammett for pointing Spectrum Mom out to me!

In search of decent phrasing...

I’m searching for phrasing to cover concepts in the autism spectrum which are often described as “high functioning” or “verbal” or “responsive” (et cetera) that is more inclusive and less offensive. The concept of high and low functioning is nebulous at best, given that it’s only one aspect of a complex set that define how autistic people think and dream and interact with the world. And tying high functioning to the ability or desire to verbalize doesn’t make too much sense to me, either. I’ve currently settled on “more typically interactive” to get across kids that will understand and/or participate (verbally or otherwise) in conversations like the one described in my Bear Snores On Review, but I’d value other opinions on better options.

Please feel free to comment with your views.