We recently got back from a vacation where we kayaked down a very quiet and peaceful river early in the morning. We saw a skunk on the shore and we also saw several duck families along the way. This book reminded me of that peaceful morning…the cool water, the vegetation in the water with fish slipping in and out of the weeds. This book is almost like a lullaby…calm and peaceful.
Both of my kids LOVED the Magic Tree House series which we call “the Jack and Annie books” in our house. If you have not discovered this awesome series it involves Jack and Annie who are brother and sister and they have a magic tree house near their house that takes them on adventures to different time periods. What I love about these books is that Jack and Annie’s adventures always begin with a book they have in their tree house and that with each adventure the reader learns a little piece of history. Our kids love the stories and the suspense and are learning all at the same time. LOVE it!
The Magic Tree House series has two books that focus on the Olympics. One is Hour of the Olympics which is about Jack and Annie’s adventures in Ancient Greece during the first Olympics. The second is Ancient Greece and the Olympics which is a non-fiction companion book to Hour of the Olympics.
These books are so fantastically well written and so much fun. I will warn you though, once your kiddo gets started on the Jack and Annie series it’s going to be a while before they read much of anything else. 🙂 There are a lot of these books and they are all fantastic and kids just eat them up.
A little mouse is looking forward to all the fun things that come with fall…Halloween costumes, jumping in the leaves and pumpkin patches. His mom reminds him of all of the things that he needs to enjoy about summer first…walking barefoot in the grass, lemonade, fireflies and and trips to the beach.
This is a great book if your children have read the Little House series or if you’d like to introduce them to the Little House series, but they just aren’t ready for the big books quite yet. There are several books in this illustrated version of the series that are adapted from Laura’s longer chapter books. They are illustrated in full color and the font is larger than in the chapter books. My youngest and I read all of the chapter books together and he loves this book as well. It’s also kind of a fun and easy way to revisit the chapter books we read.
A little girl explores her world on a summer day leading into night. She catches butterflies, drinks lemonade, has a picnic in the park and listens to an owl hooting outside her window. This is exactly the type of book I would have chosen for my boys when they were young. Why? Not only is it a cute book with lovely illustrations, but it rhymes, which is an important element in stories for children who are pre-readers.
Summer days, so warm and bright,
Paint my room in morning light.
As cat naps in a patch of sun,
My summer day has just begun.
With temperatures past 100 degrees in some parts of the country this week, I know many of your children will know exactly how the children in this book feel. Strider, the family dog, lays panting on the lawn. Pete is reading a book about the Arctic and Sara is coloring, but her crayon is turning soft with the heat. Their younger brother can only sit on the swing…it’s too hot to actually swing. But then Mom makes lemonade and they break out the hose which cools them all off. What they weren’t expecting though was a cool off from Mother Nature when a big loud summer storm comes rolling through.
It is very cold outside and Rosie and her mom have to scrape the frost off the window of their car, but memories of the warm summer days spent at the lake picking raspberries, chasing dragonflies, rowing in the rowboat and collecting rocks helps her get through that cold miserable day.
I am loving all of these summery books I have been reviewing this week! They make me want to head to the beach ASAP. This is another book that celebrates all things wonderful about summer…sleeping in late, tire swings, lemonade and trips to the beach. Also, this is a great book for reading out loud, but it’s also an easy reader for those little readers who are beginning to read on their own.
Nathan wants to be a lifeguard, but when he dives into their small swimming hole to save a young tiger cub he ends up splashing all of the water out of the pool. Now the animals have nowhere to swim and they have officially declared summer over. But wait! All of that water had to go somewhere! Two penguins find that it’s made a little stream and is flowing into a river which leads to a beautiful lagoon that all of the animals can enjoy. It turns out that Nathan actually saved summer.
A family is coming to spend the summer at their cabin which means the bears who have been living there need to pack up and move out in a hurry. As the people move in, the bears move out, but the bears don’t go far…wherever the people are the bears are right around the corner. Occasionally there’s a cake missing or some mysterious footprints, otherwise, the people never catch on that the bears are enjoying their summer right alongside the people in the lake cottage.
This is one of those books that doesn’t have a lot of words, but there are a lot of pictures which much to explore and discuss. Your kids will especially enjoy this book if your family has a lake house or lake cottage. Maybe you have some bears right around the corner, too. 🙂
