The Kissing Hand

When my children were young (10, 9, 7, 5 ish), they started having to deal with a visitation schedule. The every-other-weekend was something we got used to fairly quickly, but the long stretches during the summer were hard on all of us.

When I found this book, it was a blessing and The Kissing Hand quickly became a favorite story in our family.

Chester, a young raccoon, is anxious about leaving mom and home to go to school.  His mom tries to convince him that school will be great - new books, new toys, new friends, but Chester remains unconvinced. Mother finally teaches him the secret of the kissing hand.

She opens his fingers and kisses the pad of his paw. Chester feels his mother's kiss "rush from his hand, up his arm, and into his heart." She tells him that when he needs to feel her love, he can press his hand to his cheek and feel her love. She closes his hand to keep the kiss safe and sends him on his way.

Audrey Penn has written 9 other books about Chester, and nine other stories for children. Illustrator Ruth E. Harper did a beautiful job creating warm, realistic, and welcoming illustrations that children will enjoy.

Do you know a child who is struggling with separation anxiety? Try this book. It may be a bit sugary for some, but I think most children will respond to the message.

Every once in a while, I still do the kissing hand with my adult children.

Get this story for your home library through Amazon, and while you're there, look for the other books in the series: Chester Raccoon and the Almost Perfect Sleepover, A Pocket Full of Kisses, A Kiss Good-Bye, Chester the Brave, Chester Raccoon and the Acorn Full of Memories, Chester Raccoon and the Big Bad Bully, A Bedtime Kiss for Chester Raccoon, A Kissing Hand for Chester Raccoon, and A Color Game for Chester Raccoon.

• Storyline Online read aloud of The Kissing Hand.
• YouTube read aloud

Snow Sisters!

Snow Sisters! is a 2018 addition to the world of children's literature. Written by Kerri Kokias and illustrated by Teagan White, Snow Sisters! lets us peek in on  two sisters enjoying a snowy day, each in the way they prefer.

Right off the bat, it's clear that these girls are complete opposites. One is clearly neat and tidy, while the other is...not.

One sister heads out to play in the snow - throwing snowballs, building a fort, hiding to track animals, sledding - while the other enjoys inside activities - reading while wrapped in a cozy blanket and drinking hot cocoa, baking cookies, making paper snowflakes, having a tea party, and watching animals from the windowsill.

Then they switch places and children can enjoy seeing how differently they do the very same things their sister did in previous pages.

The last couple of pages find them enjoying the rest of the afternoon together inside their blanket fort.

The sparse text leaves plenty of time for observing and discussing what is happening in the illustrations (gouache & watercolor), and sibling relationships.

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

One of my all-time favorites!  My 5th grade teacher read this to us after lunch, a chapter a day, and I hung on every word.  Today, reading it my own students, I am just as entertained by the adventures of Claudia and Jamie Kincaid, just as fascinated by the highly intelligent, acerbic Mrs. Frankweiler, and my students are just as scandalized as my classmates and I were by the picture of Claudia and Jamie bathing in the fountain in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

E.L. Konigsburg is a master storyteller.  Go ahead and click the link and read her profile - normally I don't use Wikipedia, but it seems to have the most info about this interesting writer.  She has a way of creating characters who are real to the children who read them.  She crafts this tale as a letter to her attorney, Saxonberg, to explain the changes she is requesting in her will.

Claudia Kincaid is a 12-year old girl who is sick and tired of being ordinary, tired of having to do "everything" at home.  She decides to run away from home to teach her parents a lesson in Claudia Appreciation.

Her plan is amazingly well thought out and illustrates Claudia's intelligence quite clearly.  She chooses her younger brother Jamie to be her companion for some interesting reasons.  Jamie agrees under the misconception that they will be running away in the traditional sense - wandering outdoors with their knapsacks on their backs, building campfires and sleeping under the stars.  Boy, is he in for a surprise.  Claudia has planned for them to run away to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.  Unfortunately for Jamie, he didn't think to ask where they were going until AFTER they left home :)

The children have an ingenious plan that allows them to stash their belongings and sleep in the Met, a strategy that would never work in today's world, which makes it all the more interesting to today's students.  While there, they have the opportunity to view the museum's newest acquisition, a sculpture of an angel, which is an auction purchase that came from the art collection of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.  The sculptor's identity is unknown but some experts believe it to be the work of the great Michaelangelo.  Claudia is entranced by the beautiful sculpture and sets out to discover if Michaelangelo is indeed the sculptor.

As she and Jamie investigate the mystery of Angel, they hit dead end after dead end and find themselves low on cash.  Disheartened, Claudia agrees that they must go home.  As they prepare to buy their bus tickets home, Claudia suddenly decides they must pay a visit to the reclusive Mrs. Frankweiler, convinced that she is their last shot at finding the answer.

Mrs. Frankweiler is a crafty old gal and figures out that they are the runaways she has been reading about in the newspaper.  She wants information, they want information - hmmm.  She manages to get the information she needs from Jamie without much effort, but still offers them some hope at getting the information they came for.  She sets them loose in her file room, and this brings us to the name of the book.  The kids have to figure out her filing system in order to find out if Michaelangelo is the sculptor - and they have a time limit. 

Claudia is a clever girl and figures it out.  Mrs. Frankweiler agrees to leave the proof to them in her will IF they promise not to ever tell anyone else. 

I won't be a spoiler and tell you the fun reveal at the end of the story, but let me encourage you to read From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, with or without a youngster.  The characters are well-developed, the plot is intriguing and engaging, and the setting provides lots of opportunities to talk about the good old days.

Welcome!

I love to read. It's in my DNA. I have fond memories of my mother curled up on the couch, reading. My father loved reading Dr. Seuss to us, he absolutely loved the nonsense words Dr. Seuss used and when I read my dad's stories, I see that influence.  My mom and grandma exchanged bags full of books and magazines every time we visited one another.  My granddad read every Louis L'moure novel ever published. 

I passed that passion for reading to my children.  I am the mother of 4 grown children and I read to them from the day they were born.  They are all voracious readers and visitors to our home often comment on our love of reading.  My top two favorite visitor moments: my cousin Shad walked into our living room and looked at the 5 of us spread out on our sectional sofa, reading.  He watched us for a moment, glanced at the television, back at us, and blurted out, "What are you doing?!? The tv is RIGHT THERE!"  My other favorite moment was when our friend, Justin, entered our home and witnessed the exact same scene.  He stood there in disbelief, then quipped, "You know, you could die from this much reading."

To earn enough money to pay for my book habit, I teach elementary school, which, of course, necessitates the purchase of even more books.  One of my greatest challenges and joys each school year is having a student enter my class as a reluctant reader and leave 9 months later with an insatiable appetite for books.

I have several young nieces and nephews who benefit from my addiction in the form of Aunt Carrie's Book of the Month Club (gotta love Amazon Prime ;). 

This blog is an outgrowth of my desire to share my love of books.  As a parent and a teacher,  I am often asked for book recommendations - by age, gender, grade level, genre, reading level, reading resistance level - you name it, I've been asked to create a list of books for a child with that characteristic.  Giving recommendations to my family, friends, and students, and receiving their recommendations, is pure pleasure for me.

I hope you'll visit often to see what treasures I've come across.