I Recommend: Cowboy and Octopus

I haven't done an I Recommend post in a long time (in which I recommend a picture book my family has enjoyed). As you know, I'm the mother of many small children, so I read more than my fair share of picture books. With joy and pleasure, I might add. I love this genre!

And I adore this zany collection of tales by Jon Scieszka. If you like Scieszka's humor (who wouldn't?) you will love Cowboy and Octopus. It's totally weird and hilarious. We borrowed it from the library and kept it out as long as we could. My son would carry it around the house reciting bits and pieces from it.

And we'd all laugh. The entire family. Over and over again.

We now own a copy, so we can live in the Land of Mirth. Permanently.

Have you read any Jon Scieszka books? Which is your favorite?

I Recommend: Belinda and the Glass Slipper

We made a fun library-book-discovery this week.

BELINDA AND THE GLASS SLIPPER is a delightful twist on the Cinderella story.

I've read it at least once a day since we brought it home. Even my son stopped to listen when I was reading it aloud to the younger girls and he laughed in all the right places.

My favorite part is this one:  

Lola smiled sweetly at Belinda and said, "I really want this part, and I always get what I want. Plus, I have perfect, tiny feet -- just right for Cinderella."

"Belinda had perfect feet, too, but they happened to be huge.

As a fellow large-footed person, I was rooting right away for Belinda!

This is one book that when my kids say, "Read it again!" I say, "Okay!" without any hesitation.


Any book recommendations for me? What are you reading?  

I Recommend: Swing Otto Swing

Swing Otto Swing is the epitomy of Ready-to-Read books. David Milgrim uses the spirit and simplicity of classic See Spot Run early readers and mixes it with his own brand of humor. I literally fell in love with this book. Otto is adorable, and the concept is marvelous: Two friend monkey try to teach robot Otto to swing from vines with less-than-perfect results.

All my kids love it, too. Even my twenty-month-old cracks up. The words are easy enough for my six-year-old to read it to his younger sisters, so this book is getting a lot of mileage at our house. A lot of mileage.

I need to get my robot claws on some of the other Otto books. I guess there's a series!

I Recommend: The Baby in the Hat

The Baby in the Hat by Allen Ahlberg is one of those picture books you and your kids (if you have them) will fall in love with.

Set in colonial England, it follows the adventures of a young boy who one day does an extraordinary thing: he catches a baby falling out of a window -- in his hat.

The baby's mother gives him half a crown for his good deed, which changes his fortunes forever.

There's a delightful twist at the end, too.

And did I mention the wonderful illustrations?

My children sat wide-eyed while I read this book. They loved the pirate-fighting scene. My son learned what cabin boys were and details about the English navy. My daughters delighted in the romance. They loved guessing the twist at the end right before it happened.

Beautiful story! We borrowed this one from our library. I'll probably keep renewing it until the system won't let me anymore, and then order my own copy. Er, I mean, a copy for my children....

I Recommend: Goose

From time to time, I stumble upon a book about adoption that I'm not expecting to be about adoption.

GOOSE by Molly Bang is a wonderful example.

I picked it out randomly at our library. It sat for a few days before we got around to reading it. When I did read it, though, I was touched by its simple, poignant story.

A goose egg rolls into a woodchuck hole. The egg hatches and the gosling is raised by the woodchuck family.

I thought at first this would be a retelling of the Ugly Duckling story. But it isn't. The woodchuck family adores the gosling. They raise her well. They teach her everything they know: how to swim, how to build.

Goose is happy for a long time, but not complete. When she reaches maturity, she deals with a depression she can't explain. Because of this, she sets out on her own, wandering aimlessly through the dark night. Accidentally slipping off a cliff, she's sure her life is over. But during the long drop down, Goose learns to fly.

This is a beautiful coming of age story. It's in the epiphany of her darkest moment that she discovers a talent that distinguishes her from the rest of her family. She is able to fly home to the woodchucks with a sense of completeness.

I don't know how this story will apply to a human adoption story. I'm thinking, of course, of my daughter Olivia. I don't know what the future will hold, what her personal struggles will be. I wonder if someday she'll find a talent that was given her by nature and not by nurture, one she'll share with her birth family (though she may never know for sure), something that delights her soul and makes her spread her wings.

There's also a lesson in here for me: that there's a time to let go, to let a child find their wings. Not yet, though. But I know that day will come.

I'd be remiss at this point if I didn't talk about some great news our good friends in China just received.

I was with my dear friend Megan the day she first saw her daughter Rose. Rose was an orphan who'd been sent to the orphanage as a baby. A British woman took her as an infant and raised her for several years. But when this woman's visa expired and the government forced her to leave China, she had no choice but to send Rose back to the orphanage.

Rose only spoke English (with a British accent!). The orphanage director asked if any English-speakers in our community would be willing to provide foster care for her. My friend Megan and her husband Mark offered to help. I remember seeing Rose for the first time in the four-year-old room, sitting at the table, playing with playdough. Megan and I were both stunned by how beautiful she was. Poor sweet thing! She must have been so confused being back at the orphanage surrounded by people who didn't speak her language!

To make a long story short, over the course of the last four years Megan and Mark thought they were going to lose Rose twice. The Chinese Adoption Administration matched her paperwork with two different families at two different times. My friends had to fight to keep Rose in their home. But just this last week, they received their official referral for Rose's adoption. After four years, they will be able to officially adopt their daughter.

Of course, this mirrors our family's experience in many ways. Two years ago, around this time of year, we received our referral for our then six-year-old daughter Olivia. It had been a wait of six and a half years to receive that paperwork. I remember that insane feeling of disbelief and joy and overwhelming thankfulness ... I know my dear friend Megan is feeling that now!

Congratulations, Mark, Megan, Rose, & Grace! We are so happy for you!

And I'm so thankful for adoption, I don't even mind being the woodchuck in the equation.

I Recommend: Fanny

The books I highlight in my I Recommend posts are usually picture books. Why? Because my kids are at the age where they're reading a lot of picture books. (Correction: I'm reading a lot of picture books to them.)

And it's wonderful. I stumble upon gems sometimes, books I would actually walk into a bookstore and pay my husband's hard-earned money for. These are the books that I Recommend.

Fanny, as a girl and as a book, is delightful. I think I fell in love with her as a character just as much as I fell in love with author Holly Hobbie's illustrations and the story itself.

I guess I can relate to Fanny's dilemma. And I'm sure my kids can too. See, Fanny wants a Connie doll. Connies are high fashion celebrity dolls with big hair and even bigger lips. But Fanny's mother won't budge. She is not getting a Connie for Fanny. Ever.

So, Fanny does what any creative, ingenious, talented, motivated child would do ... and makes her own Connie doll out of bits and pieces. But when she's done, it's not a Connie doll. Her name is Annabelle instead. And instantly, Fanny falls in love.

But when the peer pressure starts and Fanny's best friends won't accept Annabelle into their Connie doll circle, Fanny stuffs Annabelle in a drawer, ashamed. After awhile, though, she does what any creative, ingenious, talented, motivated child would do ... and doesn't listen to her friends. She made Annabelle, she loves her, and she refuses to be ashamed of her.

If you haven't read Fanny, I'd check for her at your local library. You won't be disappointed and your daughters will love you for introducing them to her.