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By Mom Unplugged, October 16, 2008 1:39 pm

I am on a roll with Swedish children’s books after last week’s recommendation of Astrid Lindgren’s The Children of Noisy Village and Happy Times in Noisy Village. That post reminded me of Maj Lindman’s two lovely series: Flicka, Ricka, Dicka and Snipp, Snapp, Snurr.

Don’t you love it when you wander into a thrift store and discover something wonderful? I know I do. It always brightens my day when that happens. Snipp, Snapp, Snurr, and the Reindeer and Flicka, Ricka, Dicka and the Three Kittens were that kind of happy thrift store find!

The Snipp, Snap, Snurr series (first published in the U.S. in 1957) is about three adventurous little Swedish boys in, I would estimate, the 1930′s or ’40′s. Although the books seem to be written with boys in mind, my daughters love them too.

The Flicka, Ricka, Dicka books (first U.S. publication was 1941) are about (you guessed it!) three adventurous little Swedish girls of that era. Again, although targeted toward girls, my son loves these books as much as his sisters do.

The books are short, about 24 pages each. Since each two page spread includes one page of text (in very large type) and a wonderful Maj Lindman 1950′s-style illustration on the facing page, there are really only 12 pages of text per book. There are no chapters, but these are entirely suitable for beginning chapter book readers since they are so short and fairly simple:

Each book involves an innocent adventure with a little bit of minor drama (boys lost in the snow, a missing cat, etc.) that is, of course, always happily resolved. None of it is too suspenseful or frightening which makes it appropriate for even the youngest new readers.

Also, if you don’t mind buying from Amazon, they are all part of the 4-for-3 promotion so you could get four of these wonderful Maj Lindman books for the price of three!

Our first two:

The others (those that are easily available in the U.S.):

Snipp, Snapp, Snurr -

Flicka, Ricka, Dicka -

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By Mom Unplugged, October 8, 2008 9:06 pm

When you have a child who is reading very well at an early age, it can sometimes be difficult to find books that are challenging enough for your young reader, yet innocent enough for a child who is not ready for more mature subject matter.

I have a few suggestions. If you have not yet read Parts 1 and 2 of this series, then please head on over for some other ideas.

This week, I want to mention another lesser known set of books that we just adore. These would appeal to boys as much as to girls.

I already reviewed the first book in the series a long time ago, so I feel a bit like I am cheating. But things get buried in a blog and I MUST mention this series again because I think it is so wonderful!

This week’s suggestion is the “Noisy Village” series, by Astrid Lindgren (most commonly recognized as the author of the well-known Pippi Longstocking series).

I desperately wish there were more, but the series consists of only two chapter books: The Children of Noisy Village and Happy Times in Noisy Village.

There are also two short picture books (32 pages): Christmas in Noisy Village, and Springtime in Noisy Village (which is harder to come by).

The very charming Children of Noisy Village is actually one of the first chapter books I ever read out loud to my two oldest children. We sat on the sofa in front of the fire on a boring, snowy Sunday and all three of us laughed out loud at the funny adventures of the Noisy Village children. Much to my delight, I even found a bit of more subtle humor in the book that escaped my children. These moments kept me wanting to turn the pages as much as my children did.

In case you missed my first review, the three Swedish farm houses that comprise “Noisy Village” are inhabited by a pack of mischievous children ages 9 to 11 (as well as a baby or two). The tale is very convincingly narrated in the first person by 9 year-old Lisa.

The era of the book is never specified, but according to the “About the Author” section, Astrid Lindgren’s writing was greatly influenced by her childhood on a small Swedish farm. Since she was born in 1931, that would probably place the setting of this book sometime around 1940.

None of these simple adventures are mean or malicious, but are completely innocent and charming. I was also struck by the fact that the children never talk back, or act in a disrespectful manner to each other or their parents, as I find to be the case with many books of this genre nowadays.

If you read these books out loud, make sure you have plenty of time since you might be begged to read them cover to cover in one sitting.

For silent-reading I would place them on the same level of complexity as the Fairchild Family books by Rebecca Caudill that I reviewed last time. That is, not suitable for beginners, but perhaps not quite as advanced as the The Little House series.

More details to help you determine the suitability for your child: each of the two chapter books is about 120 pages long and is divided into 14 chapters. Typeface is medium and there are quite a few sweet line drawing illustrations (by Ilon Wikland) scattered throughout the book.

The only picture book I have seen is the Christmas one. I don’t like it as much as the chapter books. There are more illustrations, and they are in bright colors. Somehow, I prefer the subdued black and white line drawings of the originals.

Also, although the story is fun in the short Christmas book, there is a scene where one of the older boys pretends to be Santa and brings in the gifts. In my mind, this brought up the whole “is Santa real” question. Fortunately however, it seemed to escape my children and we didn’t have to address that issue. The Christmas chapter in The Children of Noisy Village was different and didn’t venture into such perilous territory.

Conclusion: I can’t recommend these chapter books enough, for both girls and boys!

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By Mom Unplugged, September 17, 2008 9:58 pm

With 10 comments and 135 page views so far, it seems that people really liked the first post in my new Chapter Books Suitable for Extra-Young Readers series! Perhaps I shall have to make this a regular weekly feature at Unplug Your Kids rather than simply stop at the three posts that I had in mind. I’ll certainly run out of ideas eventually, but I do have quite a few to share.

If you are interested in this subject, then I urge you to read all the wonderful comments I received last week on Part 1. Many of you left suggestions of “nice” chapter books that you or your children have enjoyed, and I am so grateful for the helpful input! You even reminded me of a few that I had enjoyed as a child and forgotten about. Thank you!

My plan for this week was to mention another book (again, part of a great series) that I was lucky enough to discover at the thrift store:

Happy Little Family (Fairchild Family Story)by Rebecca Caudill

My children fondly refer to this series as “The Bonnie Books.” When we are reading one of these at bedtime, they shout “Let’s read about Bonnie!!!”

The books are about a family of five children and their poor but happy life in the mountains of Kentucky at an indeterminate era (early 1900′s judging by the autobiographical aspect and the fact that author Rebecca Caudill - real name: Mrs. James S. Ayars - was born in 1899).

The series is about the whole family, although it does focus mostly on 4 year-old Bonnie, the youngest of the five Fairchild children. My two oldest children are endlessly amused by the similarity between Bonnie and their own little two and half year old sister.

Happy Little Family is the first book of this series of four Fairchild family stories. The books are very reminiscent of the Little House series: horse-drawn wagons, the excitement of a pair of shoes or a trip to town, a one room school house, adventures in the woods… but no prairie since this is Kentucky.

Plus, while the Little House books do have a few suspenseful episodes that might be difficult for particularly young and sensitive types to enjoy, we have read two of the Fairchild series so far, and I cannot recall anything remotely frightening taking place in either of them.

Book 1 is Happy Little Family . It consists of various amusing, sweet, and simple adventures of the Fairchild children.

Book 2, Schoolhouse in the Woods, has a more specific theme: a Fairchild family school year in their one room school house, and most importantly - little Bonnie’s very first year of school. (By the way, the school “year” only went from August through Christmas. In January and February the weather was too snowy to make the long walk to school, in March and April it was too rainy, and May through July were busy times on the farm and the children had to stay home and help.)

By popular demand, I am on my way to order Book 3: Up And Down The River

Each of these books is around 120 pages long. Type-face is medium, and there are 5 chapters in Happy Little Family, and 7 in Schoolhouse in the Woods . This series is definitely for more advanced readers than Cynthia Rylant’s Cobble Street Cousins series that I reviewed last week, however I think it might be a small step below the Little House books.

These are also an excellent choice for a sweet read-aloud and my 6 year-old son enjoys them as much as my 8 year-old daughter.

Here are the books in order, but they needn’t be read in order:

Book 1: Happy Little Family
Book 2: Schoolhouse in the Woods
Book 3: Up And Down The River
Book 4: Schoolroom in the Parlor

If you prefer a visual, here are the covers!

Please come back next week for Part 3 of this series!

AN AFTERTHOUGHT: Rebecca Caudill also wrote one of my favorite childhood easy chapter books (I loved it so much that I kept it and it now resides on my daughter’s bookshelf!): The Best-Loved Doll. This is a shorter and much easier chapter book, more like Cobblestreet Cousins in difficulty. It deserves it’s own post one day, but I thought I should also mention it here.

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By Mom Unplugged, September 11, 2008 3:06 pm

My oldest daughter (now just turned 8) is a really good reader and has been reading at chapter book level for quite some time.

Since she started reading so well at a young age (6) and is also a somewhat sensitive child, I found it difficult at first to find books that were challenging enough, but not scary or upsetting. She was ready for upper level reading, but not for mature or even remotely suspenseful themes.

Of course everyone knows that the The Little House series is wonderful (although beware, there are a few scary episodes). Since I adored those books as a child (and I am a terminal packrat) I kept all my old Little House books and gave them to my daughter.

I also kept some other wonderful classic books from my childhood, but at the time, they were a bit beyond my daughter’s comfortable reading skill level: Heidi, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, the Anne of Green Gables series, the Emily books (my old copies are the ones my mother read and loved as a child in the 1930′s!), The Borrowers series…etc.

So once the Little House books were all read, what then? We only have one bookstore in town and as it is very small, the choices there are limited. I began looking online, and scouring the local thrift stores.

I had some great thrift store luck! My first find is the subject of today’s post:

The Cobble Street Cousins series by Cynthia Rylant

These are very easy first chapter books about nine year-old cousins Lily, who wants to be a poet, Tess, who wants to be a Broadway star, and Rosie, “who wants a little cottage with flowers by the door.” The girls share some happy, innocent adventures while spending a year sharing an attic bedroom in their Aunt Lucy’s house.

Cynthia Rylant immediately piques every young girl’s interest in the first page of each book by explaining that the cousins’ parents are all ballet dancers and are off on a world tour for a year. What young girl wouldn’t want ballet dancing parents? Your girl will most likely be hooked from then on!

The six books in the series are each only a bit over 50 pages long (except for Wedding Flowers which is a bit longer) and are quite suitable for beginning chapter book readers. The type-face is fairly large and the chapters (between 3 and 6 depending on the book) are each short enough to accommodate young attention spans.

My thrift store find was Some Good News, which is actually Book 4, but the books can really be read in any order. It was a perfect choice for my then 1st grade daughter. Since she loved it so much, I ordered the other four online and she devoured them all.

The Cobble Street books would also make pleasant read-alouds for children not quite ready to read them on their own.

Here are all six titles in order:

Book 1: In Aunt Lucy’s Kitchen
Book 2: A Little Shopping
Book 3: Special Gifts
Book 4: Some Good News
Book 5: Summer Party
Book 6: Wedding Flowers

Tip: These are currently part of Amazon’s 4-for-3 promotion, so if you like the series and want to order online, you could get 4 books for the price of 3!

Next week I’ll publish Part 2 of this post: another wonderful discovery of nice chapter books for girls.

UPDATE: Here is the link to Part 2.

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By Mom Unplugged, August 29, 2008 8:42 pm

Unplugged Project Special Edition

Now that my camera cable is back, here is our project for trees. Better late than never I suppose!

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I was fairly uninspired for the Unplugged Project theme of trees. It needed to be simple since we were in Albuquerque for the weekend, away from any supplies beyond crayons and paper. No one had ideas, then I suggested making trees out of our hand outlines. The idea was met with very little enthusiasm, but my oldest daughter and I decided to give it a go.

First we traced our hands:

Then we cut some small branches off some trees that needed a bit of pruning anyhow. We took the leaves off the branches to stick them on our handprints:

What started off as a rather dull project quickly became exciting when one of the leaves I was stripping off a branch suddenly hopped onto the countertop and began walking around!

He was amazingly similar to the leaves I was using and none of us had seen him, even up close, until he jumped off.

We all ooed and aahed and squealed with delight as our surprise visitor crawled on our hands and showed us that he knew how to fly.

After we had all had a very gentle turn with him, we carefully returned him to his tree.

Here is a photo of him in the tree to show you how well camouflaged he was (if you are having a hard time spotting him, look for the brown spot. That is him pooping - much to the delight of the children):

After that bit of unexpected excitement, we finished our projects with new enthusiasm!

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This was an Unplugged Project “special edition.” Be sure to check back on Monday morning to see what everyone comes up with for this week’s theme of insect.