If You Give an English Major a Children's Book...: There Are Cats In This Book

Unforseen Side Effects of an Expensive Education

Once upon a time, not so very long ago, I had the opportunity to spend 6 years of my life pursuing advanced degrees in English. This is an opportunity for which I am grateful--and for which I am still making monthly payments. Upon the completion of said degrees, I chose to make a career shift. Now I stay home with my children. Despite the inherent challenges, I love it. However, early on I encountered an unexpected problem: while reading books to my young daughter I had to repeatedly suppress the urge to make edits to the texts with a Sharpie. I am grateful for my daughter's love of books, but after being nearly driven to distraction several times by the repeated reading of books I couldn't stand, I started making lists. I noted various authors and titles that I could read over and over without being overcome with the urge to poke out my eyes. Now, with this blog, I endeavor to share these eye-poke-less (in my opinion) books with my other Mom and Dad friends. Hopefully this will help to make story time more enjoyable for everyone. Perhaps it will even save you from finding yourself spinning a web of white lies in order to cover up the fact that you hid that one book you couldn't stand to read even one more time under the couch...

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

There Are Cats In This Book

By Viviane Schwarz

This interactive book is lots of fun for kids and parents--maybe not the best idea for grabby babies as there are lots of flips and flaps that could easily be torn off by eager chubby fingers--but very engaging for the slightly older child. The story starts on the front cover and doesn't end until you actually close the book. Each page has fun things to do with Moonpie, Tiny, and Andre, and I think the text is hilarious (I do have an odd sense of humor, though, so let me know what YOU think!). My favorite part is "mmm I feel fluffy!" You can even get knitting patterns for the characters: http://www.walker.co.uk/UserFiles/file/There%20are%20cats/catknitting%20small.pdf

The only problem with this book is that it is so much fun it will produce more laughs than yawns. Maybe it is more of a "good morning" book than a "good night" one.