Monday, September 22, 2008

Cookies: Bite-Size Life Lessons (2009 Monarch Award Nominee)


Cookies: Bite-Size Life Lessons by Amy Krouse Rosenthal offers great illustrations and a warm “feel-good” story that most children (and adults) would enjoy. Cookies introduces a vocabulary list of words not typically found in most children’s books. The story follows several children as they are baking chocolate chip cookies, and along the way they learn several life lessons. Cookies educates children on ideas such as cooperate, trustworthy, and fair. Along with the words are examples of each one, in language that most children can identify with. I think this book would be an excellent choice for a parent to read to their child, and for a teacher to read to the classroom. This book would serve as an effective tool to use as a teacher if negative classroom behaviors become an issue. I’ve not seen too many children’s books that focus directly on teaching life lessons, and I’m curious about Rosenthal writing another story with the same focus but for an older audience.

Friday, September 12, 2008

Rules (Rebecca Caudill 2009 Nominee)


Wow! I have never read a book that discussed the topic of autism from a child’s point of view, and now that I have read Rules by Cynthia Lord, I am extremely glad that I did. Rules explores the difficulties that autism causes from the view point of an older sibling. Catherine is a twelve year old girl and David, her younger brother, has autism. In order to help David, Catherine creates a list of rules to help him cope with autism. Growing up with David made Catherine mature quickly and learn to accept responsibility although she doesn’t always like it. One of my favorite parts of the book was Catherine meeting Jason, a fourteen year old boy with a disability that prevents him from being able to talk. In order to help Jason express himself Catherine makes communication cards to give him words. Although my siblings don’t have autism or any other disability, I grew up in a home led by only my mom, and as an oldest child I had a tremendous amount of responsibility that I didn’t always want. I really liked the way this book explained disorders in terms that weren’t scientific but very descriptive from a personal point of view. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is close to an autistic child, and anyone who is looking for a good read.