The BK Club

You know what?  I am a very lucky person.  I get to work with kids all day long!  I tell my friends all the time that I have the best job in the world!  Kids are amazing and they are always teaching me new things.  I recently read an article that talked about all the things that adults can learn from kids.  Simple everyday things that we seem to forget as we grow older.  Here are a few from the list…
-To see everybody as being special
-To be carefree
-To live life fully
-To express yourself freely
-To give from the heart
-To use more of your imagination
-To believe in yourself
-To dream big!
-To not worry about tomorrow
Seems like the ideas are pretty basic…seems like I should listen to them.  Thanks kids!  You always make me smile and you rock!  (Click here for a fun “smiley” coloring page.)

Now that the weather is getting nicer more bikes are on the roads.  May is National Bike Month and all this week the League of American Bicyclists is encouraging riders to bike to work (or school).  Not only is biking healthy for our bodies but it is also healthy for our planet as it reduces the amount of pollution from cars we don’t use when we bike instead!  The League has a great handout to help you get started on biking, including which bike to use, equipment you’ll need and how to follow the rules of the road.   Download a copy here.  Of course The Children’s Room owns some fabulous books about biking and bicycles.  Try Ride right to read about bicycle safety.  For a look at what you can do on a bike, including the science behind bike riding try Go fly a bike! by Bill Haduch.  Or, take this fantasy for a spin!  Read about a mysterious old fashioned bike which transports its rider through time, in The time bike by Jane Langton.  And who doesn’t remember what it was like to learn to ride for the first time.  You can relive this time, or learn about learning to ride with the picture book A big boy now.  The League also has section on their website on teaching kids to ride a bike with helpful tips.  Whatever you choose to do, enjoy the ride but be safe!

Two short chapter books that have just arrived in the Children’s Room feature tweens who are facing difficult situations.  In Box of Shocks, by Chris McMahen, Oliver’s parents worry about him constantly.  They always drive him to school, and think that he is going to fall down the basement stairs, and he is getting really tired of it.  He decides to create a Box of Shocks, in which he puts small items that symbolize each time he has done something slightly dangerous that his parents don’t know about.  This eventually contains a piece of Halloween candy from the spookiest house in the neighborhood, a splinter of wood from a fence where the dog Spike McChomp lives, and a bolt from a high bridge which Oliver crosses.  He is very proud of this box, and hides it behind a panel in his closet.  Then, while he is visiting relatives, his parents move to a different house nearby.  The new family that moves into the house is quite unusual, and while trying to rescue his box, Oliver discovers that the young boy living there is facing a more dangerous and unhappy life than Oliver ever imagined.  The Map of Me stars a brave twelve-year-old girl named Margie whose mother leaves suddenly.  Margie and her younger sister come home to find a note on the refridgerator which says “I HAVE TO GO.”  They try to reach their father, but he is busy selling tires at work, so Margie climbs into his car with her sister, and decides to drive off in search of Momma.  The adventures they have, and the emotional conclusion are worthwhile reading for children and parents.  These two books confront issues of flight and abandonment that are not frequently seen in children’s books.  Oliver and Margie share the qualities of courage and determination.

A very happy Mother’s Day to all of the moms!  Three new picture books show the love between a mother and her little one, while introducing different animals of the world.  Stay Close to Mama, by Toni Buzzeo, features an adventurous giraffe. Twiga, which is the word for giraffe in Swahili, is constantly inviting trouble, whether it is from stinging ants on the thorny tree, an alligator in the water, or a cheetah lurking up above.  His mother always rescues him: “Twiga snuggles up against her tall, warm side.  He’s here to stay.”  In Dophin Baby! by Nicola Davies, beautiful paintings by Brita Granstrom show a mother dolphin and her son: “When Mom swims, Dolphin knows that he must follow.  Swimming and following are things baby dolphins are born knowing…”  There is additional information on each page about these wonderful sea mammals.  Seababy : A Little Otter Returns Home, by Ellen Levine, also has lovely pictures of the otters floating on their backs in the ocean.  In this story, the baby otter gets separated from his mother, and rescued by a group of people.  They gave him a temporary home and more:  “Every day he ate antd slept and played in the water.  Then, one day, he met his new mom.  She sniffed him.  He sniffed her.  And he was happy.”  Then when the little otter had grown, he was released back into the ocean.  In the back of this book is a note about the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California when rescues stranded sea otters.  Please enjoy these new animal stories celebrating motherhood.

I’m sad to say that we lost one of our Children’s Literature icons this week.  Maurice Sendak died on Tuesday, May 8th after suffering a stroke.  Maurice is famous for writing and illustrating such books as Where the Wild Things Are, In the Night Kitchen, and Chicken Soup with Rice to name a few.  The New York Times ran a fantastic article about his life.  Click here to find it.  Maurice Sendak was a staple in the lives of a lot of children born after 1960.  His stories opened up our imaginations (and sometimes gave us nightmares) through his unique use of words and one-of-a-kind illustrations.  Do you have a favorite Maurice Sendak book?  If so, please click on the comment link below and let us know.  Also, click here for a video telling of his most famous book, Where the Wild Things Are.  We’ll miss you, Maurice!