Children's Book Week: May 4 - 10, 2015

It is Children's Book Week, a time to encourage the joy of reading with young people plus celebrate children's books and the authors that write them.  Administered by Every Child A Reader and sponsored by The Children's Book Council, commemorative events are being held across the United States from May 4 - 10, 2015 at schools, libraries, bookstores, homes - wherever young readers and books connect!  CLICK HERE for a list of some of the official events taking place across the country plus check with your local schools and libraries to see if they are doing anything special this week.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), a divison of the U.S. Department of Education1, children who are read to at home enjoy a substantial advantage over children who are not.  Reading to kids at a young age helps build basic speech skills, cognitive thinking, imagination, and an appreciation for wanting to read for fun on their own.  The U.S. Department of Education has found a correlation between the more students read on their own time and enjoy reading for fun the higher their overall school scores will be - so getting kids interested in reading early and often is important.  We've placed an emphasis on every day reading to our children since they were toddlers and have really tried to develop their having an interest in reading in ways that demonstrate education and entertainment don't have to be mutually exclusive.  In recognition of Children's Book Week, here are a list of some of our family's favorite children's books:

Disney Fairies 

My daughter loves the Disney Fairies movies that feature the adventures of Tinker Bell and her fairy friends, but we don't want her watching these videos on television or the family's ipad all the time.  A great solution has been Papercutz's series of graphic novels the explore the magical world of Pixie Hollow.  These books provide great illustrations that provide her an appreciation for artwork and entice her interest in reading.

"Comics are a gateway drug to literacy" cartoonist Art Spiegelman once said.  Whether it is going to Free Comic Book Day or having a collection of Papercutz graphic novels on our book shelves, we've embraced comics as a way to highlight that reading is fun with our children.  We want our kids to be interested in reading not because their parents tell them to be but because they want to read.

Bedtime Math

Math can be a daunting topic for many, including myself, that can be intimidating and frustrating if you let it.  Bedtime Math provides riddles that eliminate the stigma making the subject fun and encouraging kids to associate math with solving interesting puzzles rather than a boring task they have to do for school.

Have You Seen My Dragon?

Join a small boy through his adventure in the big city looking for his friend the Dragon.  As you explore the book there are various objects that you are asked to find along the journey that help children develop their counting skills. Download this free activity kit from the book's publisher for some extra educational connections for your child.

Dr. Seuss's ABC

I read this book every day to my children for two years straight when they were preschoolers and by the time they started Kindergarten not only had they memorized their ABCs but also the script of the book which they could recite back to me verbatim from memory before even being able to read.  Now as early readers, knowing the story really has helped using the book to reinforce sight words and build their confidence in reading.  ABCs with is zany cast of characters that include a lazy lion licking a lollipop and an ostrich oiling an orange owl is a great addition to any young child's book collection.

If You Give A Mouse a Cookie 

The fun illustrations and amusing story in this book make it a quick read that helps develop an appreciation of literature with children.  My kids always love flipping through this book and when I'm stretched for time this book is easy to get a bed time story read in a short amount of time. Check out this preview:

 

These are just a few of the many children's books our family enjoys.  What are some of the ones your family enjoys or you may have loved yourself as a kid?

Horton and the Kwuggerbug - the Video Game

Seussville.com is featuring a brand new video game to celebrate the publication of Dr. Seuss's newest book: HORTON AND THE KWUGGERBUG.  While Dr. Seuss passed away in 1991, Random House is still publishing new books that are compilations of short stories that were originally published in the magazine REDBOOK between 1950 and 1955 and than were never seen again.  The newest of these books, HORTON AND THE KWUGGERBUG, was released this month featuring 4 short stories with original writings and artwork by Dr. Seuss.  One of these short stories, "Horton and the Kwuggerbug,"  which is also the title of the newest book, tells the tale of how Dr. Seuss's popular elephant character, Horton, confronts a crafty and manipulative insect known as the Kwuggerbug.  These two characters are also highlighted in a video game bearing their names that is embedded in the official Doctor Seuss website and is playable on PCs, tablets, and mobile phones.

I often find that games embedded in websites don't work well on my iPhone or iPad and really need to have their own independent apps to download for the games to work well so my kids and I tried out this Horton and the Kwuggerbug game on all three platforms to see how well it worked.  I have to give the game a lot of credit in that it worked very well on all three and there was seamless integration when accessing the website from my iPad and iPhone on Internet browsers (we used Chrome and Safari) to play the game.  Thumbs up to the development team that is managing the Seussville.com website for doing an exceptional job.

This game is designed for preschoolers with a focus on helping with color identification, counting and sorting skills.  Players must shoot over to both Horton and the Kwuggerbug equal amounts of the same colored beezlenuts through the spring loaded sling shot on the screen so they must sort out and count the appropriate number to give each character to win a level.  While this game was way too simplistic for my 5 (soon to be 6) year old twins to have much interest in and enjoy when we were monkeying around with it, I'm sure they would have loved it when they were younger.  I would recommend this game for children 2 to 4 years old who will enjoy the Dr. Seuss theme and get some benefit from the basic skills incorporated in the game that assist with dexterity (players have to aim the sling shot), problem solving (players have to sort and think out how they are going to deliver the beezlenuts to finish each level) and math (players must count out the appropriate number of beezlenuts to deliver to both Horton and the Kwuggerbug).

CLICK HERE to play HORTON AND THE KWUGGERBUG on SEUSSVILLE.COM

This website also has an overview of the catalog of Dr. Seuss's work, an interactive gallery that lets you explore Dr. Seuss' office to learn more about the author, a hall of characters to explore, and a variety of other activities and games to play with.  If you haven't made a trip to Seussville, A Geek Daddy recommends you give it a visit.

Dr. Seuss is Back with a Brand New Book of Original Stories

While we lost a national treasure when acclaimed children's book author Theodor Seuss Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss) died in 1991 at the age of 87 children and parents still treasure the 43 illustrated books for kids that he authored.  Actually you can make that 44 as Random House is releasing a brand new book of original stories from Dr. Seuss on September 9, 2014 titled HORTON AND THE KWUGGERBUG AND OTHER LOST STORIES.  Horton and the Kwuggerbug and Other Lost Stories is a compilation of short stories feature beloved characters and settings that many of us will remember from other classic Dr. Seuss children's books that were originally published in during the 1950s in the magazine Redbook and than forgotten about.  Random House recently rediscovered these magazine features that were written and illustrated by Dr. Seuss and is sharing them with the world through the publication of this new book.

Horton and the Kwuggerbug and Other Lost Stories is a compilation of four short stories that were originally published in Redbook magazine and than largely forgotten about:  "The Hoobub and the Grinch", "How Officer Pat Saved the Whole Town", "Marco Comes Late", plus "Horton and the Kwuggerbug." 

 TM & copyright © by Dr. Seuss Enterprises, L.P. 2014 from Horton and the Kwuggerbug by Dr. Seuss

Marco Comes Late is based on the imaginative child from And To Think I Saw It on Mulberry Street, which was Dr. Seuss's first children's book published in 1937.  This short story explains why Marco ends up being late for school one day.

Photo: TM & copyright © by Dr. Seuss Enterprises, L.P. 2014 from Marco Comes Late by Dr. Seuss

Mulberry Street is featured in another of the short stories collected in this new book How Officer Pat Saved the Whole Town.  This story about a vigilant police officer takes place on Mulberry Street.

The Hoobub and the Grinch is a precursor to the 1957 book Grinch Who Stole Christmas that was published after this short story had already been circulated by Redbook.  It isn't the same Grinch that we are all familiar with from the holiday story but the two grinches share some thoughts about a hatred for mindless consumerism.

Horton and the Kwuggerbug tells the tale of how Dr. Seuss's popular elephant character confronts a crafty and manipulative insect.

We've read Dr. Seuss more times than I can count to our children and it will be nice to add some new content to our children's library with some brand new stories to read at bed time now.  It is nice that these are original works from Dr. Seuss and not someone writing an "inspired by" Dr. Seuss story.  Horton and the Kwuggerbug and Other Lost Stories are obviously a must-read if you have young children in your house. The book is available through Random House's website for $15.00.

Dr. Seuss apparently had features appear regularly in Redbook between 1950 and 1955 and Random House in 2011 already published seven of these short stories in a book titled The Bippolo Seed and Other Lost Stories.  So you may want to keep your eyes out in the near future as there may be additional collections of Dr. Seuss stories rediscovered from this Redbook treasure trove and published by Random House for people to enjoy.