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By Mom Unplugged, September 19, 2007 6:41 pm

This one is truly silly fun. Don’t buy it if you are looking for something profound. Don’t buy it if you want something educational. Do buy it if you want you kids to have a good silly laugh! Or simply check it out of the library of course.

We were kindly given the hardcover version of this book as a hand-me-down this summer, and it has been a huge hit.

Zachary Zebra and Orfo the Orangutan love underwear. They wear underwear of all different colors, prints and styles…sometimes all at once. Gloomy Bismark the Buffalo doesn’t like underwear,and not many other animals like him (even the flies stay away). Zachary helps Bismark laugh for the first time by daring him to say the word underwear ten times without laughing. You can guess the rest I am sure.

What child under the age of seven can resist laughing at jokes about bodily functions or underwear? Well, thankfully there is no bodily function humor here, but the underwear joke is a big hit with my two oldest kids. The illustrations are marvelous too!

I guarantee that the six and under set will find this one hilarious. The paperback is eligible for the 4-for-3 promotion at Amazon.

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By Mom Unplugged, August 31, 2007 8:02 am

One of the wonderful things about living in the Southwestern US is that there is a whole unique genre of regional literature, including children’s literature. There are not many other parts of the United States that come to mind with such a strong regional literary presence.

After finding my review of their book Baby Animals of the Southwest, publisher Rising Moon (Northland Publishing) asked me if I would be interested in reading and reviewing other books. I am very interested in Southwestern and multicultural children’s literature and I loved the idea of helping support a local publisher (Northland was based in Flagstaff, Arizona, not far from me).

Unfortunately, I heard on the news last night that Northland has just been purchased by a large East Coast publisher and has already closed its doors (which explains the lack of response when I requested some high resolution images of the book to add to this post).

Just when I was feeling like a “cool blogger” for having been asked to write a book review, “my publisher” goes out of business! Maybe I should have written my review sooner?? Oh well. They were kind enough to send me the book, and it is a great book, so I will write the review anyhow!

I was interested in Southwestern bedtime stories, so they kindly sent me Bedtime in the Southwest, by Mona Hodgson, illustrated by Renee Graef.

The southwestern animals in this story resist bedtime in ways that all parents will recognize (bouncing on the bed, ignoring Mama, begging for juice, etc,)… but at the end, the animals demonstrate the proper way to go to bed “scoot into bed and snuggle in tight, and offer big hugs and then say goodnight.”

The text is very simple so that it will appeal to younger children. The illustrations are humorous and very cute and depict such animals as prong-horned antelope, skunks, hummingbirds, and coyotes for example.

I gave this book the test of all my children (ages 7, 5, and 19 months). They all enjoyed it, but my 19 month-old actually made me read it twice more. She loved the story and for some reason, she found the skunk page absolutely fascinating!

If you are looking for an unusual, quality children’s bedtime story with cute art, give Bedtime in the Southwest a try. This might be a really fun one to read to a reluctant sleeper too!

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By Mom Unplugged, August 2, 2007 9:48 pm

What exhausted parent hasn’t had a sinking heart when their wide-awake little darling’s bedtime request is a story whose length rivals that of War and Peace! Who hasn’t skipped a few words here and there, or had a few pages “accidently” stick together? If you recognize this scenario, then this is the bedtime book for you.

Classic fairy tales and stories are amusingly trimmed to the bare minimum and end somehow with a “sleep” theme. The extremely short stories are embedded within a familiar narrative of a tired Dad trying to get his child to sleep. You can either read this whole book, or if you really want to keep it brief, just pick out one or two of the individual stories.

The kids really get the humor here, and grownups laugh too. By the way, the illustrations are just as entertaining as the text. Thanks again to my friend Wishy for another stellar book recommendation!

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By Mom Unplugged, May 12, 2007 10:07 pm

Maybe I just don’t know my Maurice Sendak quite as well as I should, but I had never heard of this one when I found it in the “Friends Of The Library” used book bin for ten cents!

The subtitle of this 1962 book is “A Book of Months” because you will find a poem about chicken soup with rice for each of the twelve months of the year. The poems are funny and catchy. The illustrations are amusing, albeit not very colorful (mainly black and white with a few touches of blue and yellow) as is typical for many children’s books of the same era.

Of course repetitive readings of this book will help teach children the months of the year, but the real charm is in the amusing poems all about chicken and rice soup! My kids love it. What a great ten cent find!

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By Mom Unplugged, April 19, 2007 10:01 pm

I found this little book at a garage sale for 10 cents. Even if you are not that lucky and have to pay full price for it, it is well worth it!

This is a book of poems all about penguins, that are both very amusing and educational. This is not high literature, but these poems are so clever, that even I enjoy reading them! Kids will learn a lot about penguins as they laugh.

To give you an idea, the titles of the poems are the following:

• A Hatchling’s Song
• Mother Penguin’s Vacation
• My Father’s Feet
• Regurgitate (my kids’ favorite)
• I Am Looking For My Mother
• Penguins’ First Swim
• Predator Riddles
• Diary of a Very Short Winter Day
• Belly Sliding
• Be My Penguin
• Antarctic Anthem

If you have a penguin-lover in your family, then you MUST get this book! Also, check out this very cool live wild penguin webcam from Antarctica that I found recently!

Gentoo Penguins, Base O’Higgins, Antarctica

Isn’t the Internet amazing? It looks pretty cold there, doesn’t it!