Thursday, August 2, 2007

A Tall Stack of Goodness

I was getting ready to blog about a list of Newbery possibilities I just read about at Fuse #8 when I saw Ethan getting ready to dig into his latest culinary quest: pancakes. I'm really happy that Ethan has taken an interest in learning to cook. He's already a decent omelet maker, and can do just about anything else egg-related at breakfast.

This week, when we were grocery shopping, Ethan requested pancake mix and announced he was ready to start learning how to make them by himself. Yesterday morning I helped him get the basics down (a.k.a. "Adding Water 101") and today Ethan took on the task himself. You can see the results of his efforts.

As I was checking my e-mail, reading some headlines, and browsing my favorite blogs while Ethan handled the breakfast crowd, I thought I might just be ready to turn the task over to him permanently.

Back to my original purpose for today's blog: Check out this list of Newbery "maybes" hand picked by my favorite children's librarian, Elizabeth Bird of the Donnell Central Children's Room of the New York Public Library system. Each of these books could be great to pass on to your reading aged kids or to read aloud with them. If you are like me, maybe you just want to read them yourself. Like the pancakes, this list of books is also a "tall stack of goodness."

4 comments:

A. Hunter said...

YUM! Can Ethan come to my house and cook breakfast? That stack is totally cute and I love Jonah's expression. He's adorable!

Catherine said...

I can't wait until my kids make me breakfast. Woohoo Ethan!

Have you ever read any Jerry Spinelli? I saw he's on that list. I started to read Stargirl. I can't remember if I finished it. It was just soooo didactic. I can't imagine how a kid would be into that. But I wonder if the Newberries are really all about kid appeal anyway when stuff like A Single Shard gets picked. That book was boring - and also didactic, now that I think about it.

Afton said...

Well, adults are the ones choosing the books, so I suppose they use criteria that kids may not care about. If not, there would be more Magic Treehouse books with Newberies. I haven't read any of the books on the list, but I have read a couple books by Laura Amy Schiltz and I love her writing style. Plus, this librarian has made some great recommendations in the past.

Jay Mann said...
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