If you follow the blog of The Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond, you are probably familiar with her lazy, lovable basset hound Charlie.  He makes frequent appearances on her blog.  Charlie the Ranch Dog is an illustrated children’s book about a day in the life of Charlie the basset written by Ree herself.  The story is written from Charlie’s perspective and introduces himself and his best dog friend Suzy.  In Charlie’s mind he is a hard working dog and they wouldn’t know what to do at the ranch without him.  Well, Charlie may think a little highly of himself but what are basset’s really for?  This one is sure to bring a smile to your face.

I happen to follow The Pioneer Woman and remember when she was releasing this book.  When I came across it at the library I was excited to check it out with the boys.  We all really enjoyed this one.  This book is full of humor. There were times when I had to explain the humor to the boys but they loved the story.  The illustrations are fabulous and really cute and helped the boys understand the story.  I think this is one we just might have to add to our own book collection at home.  We highly recommend this one.

Today’s story involves a musical cat who loves his shoes.  Pete the Cat: Rocking in My School Shoes by Eric Litwin is a journey through Pete’s day at school and the different places and things he does.  Pete visits the library, the lunchroom and the playground and is always “I’m rocking (reading, eating, etc.) in my school shoes.”  Pete makes the ordinary things that go on at school for children fun and interesting.

This is the second book Eric has written about Pete the Cat.  The first was Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes.  We have not read that one but all the reviews on both of these books look excellent.  You can find a musical download of the story song at this site.  You can also find some YouTube videos for Pete the Cat entertainment.  This is a fun book with bright illustrations.  My boys loved the story and ‘reading’ along with me when the lines repeated themselves.  This is a great books that all kids are going to love.

Do you know Pete the Cat?

This week’s Friday Fun is centered around what we have way too many of…Hotwheels.  With three boys we have a lot of them and this past christmas we even ventured into the Hotwheel tracks.  The one good thing about the little cars are that they are small and you can put tons of them in a bin and store them.  You do tend to find them everywhere and sometimes you find them with your feet before your eyes.  :)

We have enjoyed reading the book Honk Honk! Beep Beep! by Daniel Kirk several times this past week or two.  It is a rhyming story about the toys in a little boys room getting up early in the morning and making a journey across the room to see the morning sunrise out the window.  Several times in the rhyme Honk Honk! Beep Beep! is repeated.  I let the boys say it after they caught on.  They have even picked up the book themselves and ‘read’ it on their own.  It has bright, fun illustrations and is great for a little one who loves cars.

We went off of the theme of the book to create our own track for our cars.  This is another inspired project from Pinterest.  Can’t get enough ideas from there.  :)  I decided against putting it on my furniture but the boys didn’t know any different anyway.  I happened to have a roll of masking tape in the house.  I am not real sure why we have it, but it made the cost of the fun free.  We threw in some signs and trees from our GeoTrax collection and we should have a few days of fun with this track.

I have mentioned a couple times that when we put the boys to bed each night after we read the Bible the younger two (who share a room) go to bed and I sit with Elijah and read a couple chapters out of a chapter book with him.  He really enjoys this and gets mad on nights that I have to do something else.  We usually read through a book in about 5 days or so.  Chapter books seemed a lot longer with I was young and reading them on my own.  :)

Recently we have read a couple of Boxcar Children books by Gertrude Chandler Warner.  I loved these books when I was young and had quite a collection.  Elijah has enjoyed the mystery genre and is excited to get through each one to figure out what happens.  We picked up a couple different ones at the library to read.  They don’t have all of them and we picked them based on things in the title that he liked, but they don’t really have to be read in order.  I wanted to read the first one first but I had to put it on hold at the library in order to get it so I did have to explain a little to Elijah about the characters when we started but he didn’t care.  We are going to start #1 tomorrow night.  These are great reads for both boys and girls and can be enjoyed as a read aloud or alone for a young reader.

Another series we have really enjoyed recently is the Imagination Station Series by a few different authors including Marianne Hering and Paul McCusker.  I first heard about these books last summer when Moneysavingmom was reading them to her children.  She spoke highly of them so Elijah and I checked them out.  Of course the library only has 1 and 3 in their system.  So Elijah got #2 for Christmas (he still asks me how Santa Clause knew he liked those books) and we recently bought #4 at a local discount Christian bookstore.  The books are about two young cousins who travel back in time in Mr. Whitaker’s Imagination Station.  While they are not accurate history books they do contain historical figures and depict actual ideas from the time.  We finished #4 tonight and so far we have talked about the Vikings in Greenland, a gladiator battle in Rome, the Mongols in ancient China, and knights in England.  These would also be enjoyed by both boys and girls.

We highly recommend either of these series.  They are both fun and pretty easy for younger guys to understand.  What chapter books would you recommend?

Monkey See, Monkey Draw is written and uniquely illustrated by Alex Beard.  It is the story of a troop of monkeys who live in an old baobab tree at the foot of the Mbuno Hills in Africa.  The monkeys love to play and have fun.  Their favorite game is monkey in the middle (keep away) with the last baobab nut from their ancient tree.  One day while playing elephant in the middle the nut finds its way into a dark cave that the monkeys have been too afraid to ever enter.  The elephant encourages them to be brave and carrying the monkeys they all go in to find the nut.  What they discover are walls of wonderful paintings that are designed around hand and footprints.  The monkeys get excited when elephant shows them how to use mud to make their own paintings with hand prints.  They initially start out wanting to make it a competition but they soon learn that they can have fun with painting and leaving the competition to monkey in the middle.

I read this one with my three year old, Josiah, one night when he decided he wanted to read while the other two were busy coloring.  He said he liked the book and he liked them going in the dark.  I have seen him sit and look at the book several times on his own.  The illustrations are very unique.  Each monkey in the book is made with thumbprints of the author/illustrator and his son.  The book could be used with children to encourage them to create their own animals out of handprints, footprints and thumbprints.  It is a cute story that inspires bravery and creativity.  There is even a game you can order that goes with the book here.  This is a fun book and we think children of several different ages can enjoy this one.

Today’s book plays off the “cats think they are the boss” idea.  Meow said the Cow is written and illustrated by Emma Dodd.  The farm is a pretty loud place with all the different animal’s sounds.  The cat decides that he needs some quiet, especially from roosters morning wake up calls.  Cat places a spell on the animals that causes each animal to take on the sound of another animal.  They become disturbed and actually end up being louder than they were before because of the confusion.  Cows don’t say meow, roosters don’t say squeak, and sheep don’t woof.  It isn’t long before the animals figure out cat is behind this bit of mischief and gang up on him.  With a flick of his tail cat reverses the mess he has made and everyone is back to normal except for cat who is now the morning wake up call.  Cock-a-doodle-doo!

This is a fun story and great for reading out loud.  My boys enjoy making animal sounds so they liked repeating after me.  It was also a great learning tool for them to tell me what sound the animals were suppose to make rather than what they were saying.  There is the  idea of the cat being able to do magic which isn’t really my thing but it isn’t a huge emphasis and didn’t bother my kids or cause questions.  This is a quick fun read for farm animal loving kids.  We would recommend this book as a read it again mama.

Room Enough for Daisy by Debby Waldman and Rita Feutl is a story I think most parents can relate too.  Daisy is frustrated that her room is too small and with just three weeks until her birthday party she needs a bigger room for all of her old and new things.  Daisy thinks that maybe her parents should trade rooms with her.  Her wise mother brings additional things into Daisy’s room each week leading up to Daisy’s party and patiently lets Daisy learn the lesson on her own that less is more.  Daisy sees that she doesn’t really need to hold on to everything.  It is good to give away what we don’t use anymore and throw away things that are broken.  With fewer things Daisy finds the “perfect bedroom.”

We enjoyed this book and it’s bright fun illustrations.  I think this is a lesson that not only children can gain from but also adults.  We love our stuff and like to hold onto it instead of letting go and giving ourselves a more peaceful home.  As my boys get older they accumulate so much more and sometimes it is hard for them to let go of things they think they need but never play with.  While we don’t have the extreme of Daisy, where when we reach across the room and touch things in every direction, we do have times where we have to par down and let go of things that have no value to us anymore.  This story has great timing for us because I am getting ready to prepare items for a semi-annual children’s consignment sale in our area and I can use this story with my boys.  Less truly can be more.

I learned that if you want a Valentine’s Day children’s book from the library, two weeks in advance is too late.  Every children’s Valentine’s book was checked out and had multiple holds on them already.  So I picked up a small chapter book to read with Elijah and another book that talked about Valentine’s day and it’s history.  The book about Valentine’s day was not something my kids would want to read and it wasn’t something I could really use so I won’t review it but I will talk about the chapter book.  I did laugh while looking at the information book because even though it was published in 2002 there was a picture in the book probably from the 70′s or 80′s of a child about 2-3 years old that was holding a paper heart Valentine they were “cutting” out and a huge pair of metal scissors (probably 5 inch blades).  The caption said “You are never too young to give or get a valentine!”  Maybe not, but you can be too young to handle adult scissors.  :)

So Elijah and I read a chapter book this week at bedtime called Willimena Rules! 23 Ways to Mess Up Valentine’s Day by Valerie Wilson Wesley (#5 of the series).  It is the story of an african american girl Willamena (Willie), who is in 3rd grade.  Willie worries about Valentine’s day every year.  She is sure that every year she won’t receive any valentine cards and will be humiliated in front of her class.  She is so worried that when her big sister Tina suggests she send herself a card just in case she doesn’t receive any, she goes a little overboard.  Willie had several extra cards and ends up sending herself 23 cards.  With only 25 students in her class, who all sent Willie a card, it is evident that something suspicious is going on.  Willamena has to admit what she did and ends up being embarrassed, but a new boy who is also having a rough day after the party gives Willie a special card he made for her and they both end the day feeling much better.

The story was a fun read for me and Elijah.  He liked looking at the illustrations.  I liked being able to talk to him about being nice to new people and to people when they have embarrassed themselves. It was a very easy read and Elijah has constantly talked about Valentine’s day since we read it.

Since my kids are not in school yet we haven’t really ventured into the Valentine world but we made a few valentine’s for a few special family members and a couple of friends.  We used some paper, crayons, foam sheets, and a heart punch and went to work.

We happened to finish a roll of toilet paper right before we started this (well I did since I use the majority around here with 4 boys and myself).  So we shaped it into a heart and used it as a heart stamp.  I saw this on the internet recently but I am not sure where.  I didn’t pin it on pinterest so I can’t find it now but you can see the red hearts on the yellow paper above.  They turned out better than if we had drawn them ourselves.  We also made a special valentine for daddy using something I did pin on pinterest called handprint valentines.  They are super cute.

I didn’t take very many photos because some of the individuals who will be receiving these valentines might be reading but we had a fun time cutting (with children’s scissors), coloring, glueing, and painting.  Do you make special valentines with your kids?

Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Bunny by Steve Smallman is the story of four little bunnies named Lenny, Benny, Barney and Itty Bitty Betty.  The four bunnies have run out of carrots and are hungry.  They send Lenny, Benny and finally Barney to the garden to gather carrots but each one returns home scared and empty handed.  Betty finally gets them to tell her what happens when they arrive in the garden and begin pulling carrots.  A Big Bad Bully Bunny is making fun of them and stealing their carrots.  Betty decides they will all go to the garden together and tackle this issue.  Sure enough when they have gathered a very large bundle of carrots the Big Bad Bully Bunny shows himself to the other bunnies.  But this time Betty stands up to him and throws him off guard.  The four of them together stand up to the bully and finally walk away with the carrots they have been seeking all day long.

Bullying has become a really big deal recently and this story is a great way to introduce small children to bullying.  Small children can see that the bully bunny is not being nice and doing the right thing.  It is an opportunity to discuss the issue on a level that they can understand.  The illustrations are really bright and playful and make the story light, even with the deep topic.  My boys really liked the book and I loved being able to talk about treating others the way we want to be treated.  We would recommend this one to others.  Warning: the bully bunny does threaten the other bunnies by calling them stupid, ugly, and fat.  We don’t like our boys to use those word’s toward anyone but we definitely don’t like them saying stupid so they were all over me when I said the word in the book so if you are uncomfortable with name calling, this book might not be for your family.

I picked up Otis and the Tornado by Loren Long at the library not really knowing what to expect.  We live in Springfield, MO just an hour from Joplin and even though we have moved here since the tornado hit back in May, my husbands family has always lived here.  Because it was so close to home we watched it on the news and discussed tornados a lot with our oldest son.  He was so interested and asked lots of questions.  We have even driven through the area and seen the devastation left behind.  Elijah now loves to ask to watch the news.  For some reason the tornado caused interest for him in the news even at 5 years old.  I thought it would be interesting to read a children’s book that involved a tornado.

Otis is an antique tractor who lives on a farm.  He plays with the farm animals.  Well, all of them except the bull.  The bull stays in his pen all alone.  When others try to get near him he snorts and blows hot air and even rams at them.  One day a storm comes up and Otis senses this isn’t just any storm.  The farmers quickly take shelter in the underground cellar, but have no time to save the animals.  Otis takes on the task of getting all the animals out of the barn and to safety at the lowest part of the farm.  Once safe they hear terrible cries from the bull.  Otis, with some hard work, makes the daring rescue of the bull and gets him to safety just as the tornado rips through the farm.  The farm is a mess but everyone is safe.  The experience changes the bull’s heart toward the others and in the end they all have a new friend.

Otis is a brave little tractor and he takes a great risk, even for someone who had never shown kindness to him before.  This is a great lesson for not just kids, but adults alike that sometimes if we step out and help someone we consider an enemy the results can be rewarding.  I wondered if this story would be scary in any way but it was not.  Even though the title speaks of the tornado the story is more about getting courage to help someone else.  The boys liked the story and it gave some wonderful opportunities for discussion of friends and weather.  The illustrations are unique.  Most of the illustration is done in neutral colors with small amounts of color thrown in.   We would recommend this book as a read it again mama.