Thursday, September 26, 2013

Book Review: Books for Fall


With the start of the cooler weather, we decided to change out some of the books that had been in our book basket (i.e. books that are in high rotation versus those on the shelf --though The Bean and Sprout have access to all of them) and put new books on a bit of a "fall" theme.

Little Scholastic's Welcome Fall
A quick little touch-and-feel book.  Sprout is really into these right now.  Each page features a simple picture about something that you can do or that happens in the fall.  The last page reads "It's fall!  And you're safe and sung in Daddy's arms."  which can easily be changed to "Mommy's arms."

Zoe's Windy Day 
by Barbara Reid
The Bean LOVED this books when he was younger, and still seems to really enjoy looking at the pages.  The illustrations are made of Plasticine and have a lot of lovely detail.  The text is very simple, only a few words on each page, and the whole book reads like a short poem rather than a story.  There is a lot of room for discussion around the illustrations though.

Let it Fall
by Maryann Cocca-Leffler
A cute rhyming book about various fall activities.  (Also, it features a baby-wearing dad!)

Leaves 
by David Ezra Stein
A short story about a bear's first winter.  He shows concern about the leaves falling, then, growing sleepy, accepts it, and happily wakes up in the spring and welcomes the leaves back.

The Leaves on the Trees
by Thom Wiley
illustrated by Andrew Day
In addition to loving children's books I am quite well-versed in children's songs (no pun intended).  This book can be sung to the tune of London Bridge is Falling Down and goes through different trees and what their leaves look like when they start to change.  As someone who is not so good at identifying leaves, I found this book to be a great resource!  I could also see using it as a reference for fall leave collecting with kiddos just slightly older than The Bean (4-7 or so).

Leaves Fall Down, Learning about Autumn Leaves
by Lisa Bullard 
illustrated by Nadine Takvorian
Definitely a "teacher book" this book talks about how leaves need sunlight to make their food, but how with the decreased sunlight in the fall how they can't do that anymore, so they start to change colour and fall.  It talks about leaves decomposing and how this can help fertilize soil.  It would probably be the most interesting to a kid who asks "why" a lot. ;)

What seasonal books are you reading these days?

3 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing! I put some of them on her birthday-list for November :-)

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  2. Thanks for the great reading ideas! I just commented but somehow Blogger is always eating my comments. Boo. Anyway, I'm inspired by your seasonal rotation, because our shelves are quite willy-nilly.

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    1. Both comments worked (though I accidentally deleted the first one and there's no way to undo it). We have it set up that we have to approve comments before they're visible, so you might not see it right away when you leave one.

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