Read ME a Story: “Bear Despair” and “Waterloo & Trafalgar”

More Picture Books that Make Your Child the Storyteller
I recently posted a story on two picture books (Little Bird and The Night Riders) that encourage your child to do the storytelling. Here are two more similarly extraordinary books—Bear Despair and Waterloo & Trafalgar—that invite you and your child into the world of images and ideas. The actual forming of a spoken story is left to you and your child. These books are miraculous for several reasons, not the least of which is that in 2010, The New York Times published the piece, “Picture Books No Longer a Staple for Children” that spoke to “… a real push with parents and schools to have kids start reading big-kid books earlier.” But as a visually-oriented person myself, I believe that these wordless picture books encourage and support a different and important type of literacy—visual literacy—as they encourage imaginative storytelling from our kids.

Re-Imagine the Basics: “The South African Alphabet” and “Pomelo Explores Color”

Picture Books We Love
Just about every pre-schooler’s library contains an A-B-C book and a book about colors. “A” is for apple; here’s three things that are red; you’ve probably seen countless examples. Two new books, The South African Alphabet and Pomelo Explores Color take these mainstays and turn them on their ear. Simple? Not by a long shot. These titles approach necessary topics—the alphabet and colors—and add extra educational value to the explorations and encourage readers to think in new ways. Sure, you can buy any number of simpler books on these topics but after you see these two titles, you may not want to.

Picture Books We Love: “Little Bird” and “The Night Riders”

Two magnificent new picture books (one in release; the other soon to be released) tell their stories with pictures in a way that can coax the storyteller out of your child. As both books tell their stories almost entirely in visuals, they offer a perfect opportunity to encourage your child to narrate the stories.