The word "parent" is not just a noun. It's also a verb.
This book is a fantastic leap into the mind of a young child burdened with her older sibling’s doom-and-gloom predictions for the future. Upset, they go to grandma who assuages their fears and shows them that beyond all the predictions of bad things lies the possibilities of good things.
Another book in the bedtime-for-little-kids genre! Another good book I should add. A very patient and imaginative mother (why is it always a mom?) [Editor’s Note: Because books about fathers are rarely published.] goads her fiercely independent daughter to bed. The scene is familiar to anyone who has tried to coax an unwilling child of their own to bed.
In delicate drawings and without providing a single word, Sookocheff manages to give the book an interesting central figure; unfortunately, it’s not the central figure the book set out to have. This is a case where the supporting cat, steals the show.
On one particular night, a little firefly, struggling to learn to fly, happens to land on his hand. She has tried and tried to fly but has been unable to accomplish this goal. Seeing the little firefly in his hand, the boy confuses her for a star, and we soon realize that the story is in fact about this special little firefly.
Arlo the lion is exhausted, but just can’t fall asleep. As he struggles to sleep, he meets Owl, who shows him a beautiful song that she sings when she has trouble sleeping. Can that help Arlo? Does the song help him relax and prepare himself for bed?
By the end of the year, the kids realize that Ms. Gupta had been right. They made some great friends in class. But what about the next year? Ms. Gupta to the rescue again!
Primarily a lesson in friendship and patience, Will You Be My Friend? highlights the beauty and essential nature of simple play. Too often children are scheduled within an inch of their existence and play is abandoned in search of “more meaningful” activities. McBratney highlights how much simple play can accomplish in simple, unencumbered moments.
Seeing a pumpkin for the first time, the local kids eagerly carve and light their first jack-o-lantern. But when everyone adjourns to the community hall for the Halloween dance, the pumpkin is left alone outside.
He doesn’t know why he’s a quilt. His parents are both sheets, and so are all of his friends. (His great-grandmother was a lace curtain, but that doesn’t really help cheer him up.) He feels sad and left out when his friends are zooming around and he can’t keep up.
I want you to stop for a moment and imagine being a parent telling your eight-year-old that you’re about to send him on a journey that will take him to another country, mostly by foot, across hundreds of miles, across all sorts of terrains, in all sorts of weather, facing untold dangers, in search of a better life. Now imagine that you’re the eight-year-old.