{"id":2445,"date":"2011-12-21T11:25:39","date_gmt":"2011-12-21T17:25:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/?p=2445"},"modified":"2011-12-21T09:19:37","modified_gmt":"2011-12-21T15:19:37","slug":"2445","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/2011\/12\/2445\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Ideas for Your Offspring"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tuesday, 20 December 2011<\/strong><\/p>\n

My kids love books. Owen likes to look at picture pictures, and he loves to sit next to me and read chapter books. This year, he and I have read upwards of twenty books together, including Black Beauty<\/em><\/a>, Stuart Little<\/em><\/a>, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane<\/em><\/a>, Socks<\/em><\/a>, and the entire Henry Huggins<\/em> series<\/a>. Isla also enjoys paging through books, and she often brings them to us and asks us to read them to her.<\/p>\n

Needless to say, books are a great gift idea for our kids, and I hope they are for your kids, too.<\/p>\n

The question is: what do you buy for kids who already own hundreds of books?<\/p>\n

Here are some ideas…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>All My Friends are Dead<\/a><\/em>, by Avery Monsen and Joey John. This is a great book to show kids the ultimate comedy of life. Of course, dinosaur books are great, but let’s be honest: they’re all dead. This book shows the kinship that dinosaurs share with the dodo, neglected house plants, and old people.<\/p>\n

Have you ever read a Laura Numeroff book<\/a>? We own her book If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, and it’s a fun book, but it is almost certainly the only book of Numeroff’s that we will ever own. The reason is, all of her other books are exactly the same. It seems she came up with an idea and, well, that’s the only idea she ever plans to come up with. I don’t understand this – if I ever was paid to create art in any form, I would at least try to reinvent myself at every turn. Anyway, I’m off topic here. The point is, if you’re sick of Numeroff’s one-trick pony show, get your kids:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Mary Roznick’s If You Give a Kid a Cookie, Will He Shut the Fuck Up<\/em><\/a>?<\/em> The answer, of course, is no. But the book will still be a treasure your little ones will enjoy over and over again.<\/p>\n

Another option for those tech-savvy tikes who have known nothing but the 21st century is…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Ann Droyd’s (come on, that’s gotta<\/em> be a psudonym) Goodnight iPad<\/em><\/a>. The original book, Goodnight, Moon<\/em>, is such a bizarre, non-poetic headtrip, that it’s practically begging to be parodied. I’m glad to see that Ms. Droyd has done it justice. Of course, there’s also Goodnight Bush<\/em><\/a>, certainly funnier for adults, but too time-sensitive for kids like mine who will never know the pure bliss that was Bush’s last day in office.<\/p>\n

And if your children are not quite as bright as mine (i.e., grasping the concept of fractals in utero), then you might need to help them along with…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Introductory Calculus<\/em><\/a>, by Orni Inouye. This is, by the way, the first book in my blog post that I’m serious about purchasing for a child. I’ve never actually held this book in my hands, but from what I can tell, it looks about as close to “fun for all ages” as a book can be.<\/p>\n

And while I’m on the books-I-seriously-think-kids-should-own kick, here’s a book I perused while standing in line at Barnes and Noble the other day…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Star Trek Book of Opposites<\/em><\/a>, by David Borgenicht. It features opposties such as “One” (showing Uhuru holding a single tribble) and “Many” (with Kirk bombarded by the fuzzy creatures). A must have if you want your child to have any chance at living long and prospering.<\/p>\n

Penultimately, if your kids are old enough to have other kids over for play-dates or slumber parties (or whatever you call them these days), you may want to get them:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Christie McIlor’s The Three Martini Playdate<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

Finally…<\/p>\n

If you want more real <\/em>book ideas for kids, check out my friend’s blog post HERE<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tuesday, 20 December 2011 My kids love books. Owen likes to look at picture pictures, and he loves to sit next to me and read chapter books. This year, he and I have read upwards of twenty books together, including Black Beauty, Stuart Little, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, Socks, and the entire Henry […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2445"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2445\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2456,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2445\/revisions\/2456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}