THE DAY THE CRAYONS QUIT BOOK REVIEW

THE DAY THE CRAYONS QUIT BOOK REVIEW Award-winning writer/director of film and TV Drew Daywalt, and New York Times bestseller Oliver Jeffers, deliver an entertaining children's story that is playful, and packed with fun. This delightful story will have children laughing, reading, and sharing their own thoughts, while giving crayons a whole new meaning.

The colorful, stunning illustrations come to life as each colorful crayon gives their complaint, while protesting about their color. Orange and Yellow are not speaking to each other for their own reasons, Beige doesn't want to compete with Brown,Blue is tired of coloring lots of water, and it seems that only Green has no complaints. What complaint does Black have, and will Orange and Yellow learn to compromise? A colorful solution must be met as all the complaints pile up, so that the crayons never think about calling it quits again. Poor Duncan just wants to color, and he wants his crayons to be happy. Does Duncan solve all the crayon problems, and get an A+ for coloring? There are several Dear Duncan letters to solve as children giggle their way to the end. Fascinating, inviting, and entertaining throughout. Highly recommended for teachers,parents, and child-care providers! Source: Amazon.com

Press Here by Herve Tullet (Review)

Press Here by Herve Tullet (Review) On the opening page of PRESS HERE, the reader sees a simple yellow dot on a clean white background and the simple words that invite the reader to "Press here and turn the page." I challenge anyone not to be tempted to "press here". Once you do "press here" and turn the page the journey has begun.

Each page invites the reader, to press, rub, shake, tilt, or blow on the page. Each time, readers are rewarded with some kind of action on the subsequent page. Rubbing the yellow dot may make it change color. Shaking it moves all of the dots around. And blowing on the page just might send all of the dots flying. Every time I share this book with someone, I get the same response - smiles, chuckles, and enthusiastic interaction with the book. There are books and then there are books. PRESS HERE is fun, simple, and brilliantly executed. In some ways, I like to describe this as an iPad app for people without an iPad. It should be noted that the book is designed in a way that also allows for heavy use. With a book that encourages interactions, it is critical that it can stand up to lots of handling. The pages of PRESS HERE are thicker and coated which will support frequently use. If you are looking for gifts for young children in your life, or just like collecting unique books, I would seriously recommend this one. I am already making up a list of who will get a copy. Source: Amazon.com

Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site Review

CHILDREN'S PICTURE BOOKS - Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site We love this book in our house. Currently, it is the very favorite among my three year old daughter's bedtime books. It features a good amount of predictability in the text built in- which is nice for preschoolers who like to chime in "Shhh...Goodnight, Crane Truck, goodnight." etc etc. My daughter can pretty much recite the whole book, something she takes great delight in. The drawings are also charming, especially details that are not in the text - the crane truck holds a teddy bear, for example. I would gladly give this book 5 stars.

Except. Here's my only problem with this book: it's not just for boys. I feel pretty strongly about this- hence the use of multiple exclamation marks in the title of my review. I mentioned above I have a daughter. She's three. She loves construction vehicles, adores watching them work in real life, and likes to read about them too. No one ever told her that construction is just for boys. Nor do I believe that anyone *should* tell her this! And so my husband and I were both quite disappointed that every single one of the construction vehicles in this book - a crane truck, a dump truck, a cement mixer, an excavator, and a bulldozer - is gendered as male. There seems no logical reason for this, other than it is widely believed that only boys like construction stuff and that the audience for this book is therefore only boys and boys can only relate to boy characters. Seems to me there is a failure at all these steps - some girls (and some boys!) like construction trucks, the audience for this book is not limited therefore to boys, and moreover, boys can relate to girl characters just as easily as anyone else, if they are allowed and encouraged to do so. I believe that including gendered girl characters in amongst the construction vehicles in this book would have done so much- for both girl and boy "readers" - it would teach that boys and girls can be rough and tough and work hard. Surely that's a lesson most of us can get behind? If we, as a society, continue to want more equality for men and women in all arenas, we have to teach both boys and girls that they can be equal (different, yes, but that they deserve equal treatment and to be interested in whatever it is they want to be interested in despite cultural connotations of boy and girl things). I suppose if you don't agree with that, this criticism won't be a problem for you. As for our family, we continue to read the book. But after reading it the first time and discovering the lack of female characters, I sat down with our daughter and asked her which of the vehicles were boys and which were girls. She decided that the excavator and the bulldozer are girls, the others boys. So now we switch the genders for those vehicles as we read along. But honestly? There are a lot of pronouns in the text and so it takes a fair amount of work. Which, frankly, is annoying and reminds me each time I read it how unfair it is that we have to do so. My daughter won't be taking away the message from this book that construction vehicles and books about them are just for boys. But only a fair amount a work from her parents prevents this message. Source: Amazon.com

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