Indie Fiction Kids - Rob the Robot Arr Marks the Spot

I love free books. I recently won a copy of Rob the Robot Arr Marks the Spot during 1889 Labs #1889party. After thumbing through the book, I wasn't sure that it was my kind of story, so I decided that my husband would be in charge of reading this one to our daughter.

This plan blew up in my face rather quickly. A few nights after getting the book, my husband went out with some friends, and Ava wanted to read the robot book. No biggie, Rob the Robot was the bedtime story.

There were a few reasons I figured that this book would bore me, here is a quick list: robots, space travel, pirates, skulls and crossbones, and treasure maps. I sat down with Ava and allowed myself an internal sigh, I would rather have read Fancy Nancy or Little Critter, but I would endure a hunt for treasure because she liked the book.

Boy, was I wrong about this book. It was excellent. I already knew that the pictures were incredible from my cursory glance, and after reading it a I noticed more positive qualities. As far as illustrations go, this book can brag bright colors, attention to details, and my favorite, informative illustrations adding details to the story like all good illustrations should.

As far as the actual story went, I was also pleasantly surprised. The basic story line is of four robot friends traveling through outer space when they find a bottle floating along the way. In the bottle, of course, is a treasure map with a big X. Obviously, X marks the spot of the treasure.

The story, while intense at times and bordering on scary (for a two-year-old), never actually scared my daughter, which as a parent, made me happy. While on their adventure, the robots hear sounds coming from a cave that they believe are a monster. The monster soon turns out to be a giant robot pirate. Yes, a friendly, giant robot pirate. The robots, including the pirate, continue to work together to find the X that marks the spot.

Rob the Robot has another bragging right: educational content. The parent and educator inside of me squeals with delight every time I read this book because of the learning potential. Maps, compasses, counting backward, vocabulary with quick, relevant explanation, and my favorite, the use of the word jig, which led my husband to show our daughter what 'dancing a jig' meant.

Rob the Robot is colorful, fun, has some learning focuses, and is well written with no glaring grammatical errors or typos. My only irritation with the book was the number of sentences that ended with exclamation points. I felt that the over use detracted from those lines that were really meant to be read with emphasis. That being said, I look forward to reading this with my children for a long time, I just wish there were more Rob the Robot titles to keep us busy.

The Monster at the End of this Book

I recently talked to a friend and she mentioned this book to me.  I'm usually not a fan of books based on television shows, because they typically aren't very good.  I think the reason for this is that the authors of the books try too hard to format the book the same way that the show is formatted.  This doesn't always work in my opinion.  I don't think children are looking for the same thing in a book as they are in a television show, I know I'm not.  I believe that they just grow to love certain characters and the author's focus should be on the quality of the writing and story NOT the number of books they will sell or how fast they can pump out new books.

That being said, I adore this book.  I remember reading it as a child and loving it.  I think I was even scared the first few times that it was read to me.  In the book Grover isn't on Sesame Street, he is in a book.  He hears a rumor that there is a monster at the end of the book that you are reading, and urges you not to turn any pages. Of course you, the reader, don't listen.  Grover tries many things, including building a wall out of bricks and tying pages together to get the reader not to turn any more pages.

Finally you are at the page before the last page.  Grover resorts to begging you not to turn the page.  When you turn the page, guess who you find.  Grover.  Lovable, fuzzy Grover was the monster at the end of the book the whole time.  Grover now chides you for being scared while he was obviously not worried at all.  You will have a blast reading this with your child because on each page Grover's hair-brained schemes go wrong leaving children and parents laughing.

This is a classic story loved by many children (and adults).  I know I have a copy of it somewhere, but I'm sure that I'll end up buying another copy because I'm certain that Ava will love it as much as I did.  I'm pretty confident that Alyssa will enjoy the story as well and tap the pages urging me to read more and show her the pictures.  This book would work well for sequencing parts of a story.  You could even copy pages, cut them out and make a story line (like a timeline) using the pictures to see how much your child remembers about the story.

This book was followed up, years later, by "Another Monster at the End of this Book," starring Grover and Elmo. I'm not as sure about this story; I know I've read it at least once or twice in board book format, but its been years.  Perhaps I'll hit Barnes and Noble this weekend and get them both.  

Ava's Reaction to The Little Engine That Could

This is one of those classics that we all just love, or at least I do.  A few weeks ago, I was telling my mother how much my daughter loved to have books read to her and that she can start to supply words into the story after having them read to her just once.  Of course I was beaming, as I am now, but dear little Ava wouldn't play along.  She just acted silly and made me look like a liar.  But this is something that she really does.

My mother asked if we had The Little Engine That Could.  No, we didn't.  How could that be?  I love that book.

On Saturday the whole family went to Barnes and Noble after a volunteer outing.  Ava picked out two new Little Critter books, I went on a hunt for The Little Engine That Could, and Beau went to find Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now.  We all found the books we were looking for.  Of course, there were four different Little Engine books to choose from.  One of the books had the original words and NEW art.  I did not buy this book.  I'm traditional, I wanted traditional.

The book is just as wonderful as I remembered, but as I sat down to read it to Ava, I was sure she was bored.  The text is long, and repeats, but not in a sing-songy fun way.  She started flipping through Marvin K. while I was reading, but I kept going because I wanted to hear the end this beloved childhood classic.  I finished and put the book on the dresser and went about the rest of my day.

Sunday after church, Ava was sitting on her bed looking at books.  She picked up The Little Engine, opened to a random page and said, "No, I won't help you."  She remembered the story!  The trains that pass the little engine won't stop and help the toys and dolls over the mountain.  She even said this line in a deep, mean voice.  Two things happened inside of me at that moment, my heart absolutely melted and I felt a surge of triumph.  I had assumed that she liked Daddy's book better, and while she remembered that story as well, she liked the one I picked out, too.

Of course both of these books were over shadowed by the Little Critter books which have become her favorite.

Olivia...and the Missing Toy - For the Nookcolor

I resisted the urge to buy this Olivia book for my daughter...but finally, she won.  She loves Olivia.  I was concerned that this was yet another one of Nickelodeon's books based on the television show, but quickly realized that it is, in fact, an Olivia book by the original author, Ian Falconer.  Phew, what a relief.

Let me start with the book itself, and then move into the format for the Nookcolor, which I am really excited about.  The book is done well, as all of the Olivia books are.

In the beginning of the story, Olivia has a soccer game and asks her mother to make her a new uniform for the game because she doesn't like her green uniform (this actually comes up in the show as well).  While she is waiting for her mother to finish the uniform, she gets bored and plays with her toys.  When her mother finally finishes the uniform, Olivia realizes that her best toy is lost.

While obsessing over her lost toy, Olivia accuses both of her brothers of taking her toy, asking them, "WHAT DID YOU DO WITH MY TOY?"  I really like that in the book, Olivia refers to both of her brothers as "brothers."  This is not the case in the show, and I can't vouch for all of the books, but in the show, she refers to the baby as her brother, and Ian as her little bother.  I really dislike this.  Children are good enough at being mean spirited toward one another, I don't think they need help learning ways to hurt each other.

Olivia gets carried away with her imagination, and starts to hear scary noises and pictures herself carrying candles around looking for what is making this horrible noise.  The pictures in the book become dark and shadowed and Olivia soon finds the source of this noise.  Perry, the dog, has taken Olivia's best toy and chewed it into pieces.

Olivia runs to her parents with the pieces of her favorite toy in tow.  As she shows them what has happened, her mother tries to comfort her, and her father (staying true to daddies everywhere) tries to fix it for her, offering to take her to buy the best toy in the world.

I adore the illustration on the next page, Olivia displays her gratitude by saying, "Oh, thank you, Daddy.  I love you more than anyone."  Olivia's mother has a grim, annoyed look on her face as Daddy soaks up the love, and she is still standing there feeding the baby while the baby gets food all over the place.  This picture says it all.

Olivia decides that even though she is going to get that new toy, its best to fix her old toy since it is her "best toy."  She sews him back up before bed, and then picks out bedtime stories that do not involve dogs.  However, on the last page, Olivia has decided to forgive Perry and the picture shows Olivia in bed asleep with her toy and Perry on either side of her.

This book on the Nookcolor is excellent.  You can either have the story read to you, or you can read it yourself.  I almost didn't click "Read to me," but my daughter insisted.  Wow, was I impressed!  The audio included music for dramatic effect and the narrator's voice at first grated on my nerves, but after listening for a few minutes, I enjoyed the storytelling time.  My daughter was so engrossed that she forgot that she was supposed to turn pages, and I had to either remind her or do it for her.

I must say, I was impressed with this book all around.  I didn't particularly like spending the money on it, I thought it was over priced, but the dramatic effect of the music and reading was worth a few extra bucks.  I'm sure I will be purchasing more Olivia books in the future.

Cow's Can't Fly...or can they?

This particular book ended up in my collection from an old text book series from when I was a teacher.  I passed it over many times when reading with my daughter simply because it was from a text book series.  Boy what a mistake that was.  My daughter and I LOVE reading this story by David Miligrim.  She absolutely loves that this story is silly and she loves to supply the words to the rhymes.

Cows Can't Fly is a story written in rhyme.  My absolute favorite part of the story is on the third page.  The boy has just drawn some cows that fly.  He realizes that cows cannot fly, but he doesn't care.  When he shows his father the picture the author writes, "Why, that's absurd," my father said.  "Why don't you draw some birds instead?" I'm not sure what makes me love this line so much, although I suppose its the use of the word absurd.  I can just picture my daughter using this word after a few more reads and grasping the meaning of the word.  "Mommy, Daddy's being absurd."  I can't wait!

The pictures in this book are really cute, however, I think the cows look more like large dogs in parts of the book.  This doesn't seem to confuse my daughter though.  She knows that they are cows, and on a recent trip to Disney, she repeatedly pointed out the cows on the side of the road, often calling them silly cows.  I imagine she was thinking about this book and picturing the cows flying.  

Overall, this is a great story for kids and fairly entertaining for parents.  Even without "teaching" by the parent, this book begins to teach rhyming and creativity.  It can also be used to teach sequencing and the difference between fiction and reality.  Yes, some of the things in this book could happen, but no, cows cannot actually fly.  This book is definitely going to stay in the book collection for a long time!

Itsy Bitsy Spider by Kate Toms

I love classic stories and rhymes turned into story books.  This is no exception.  Kate Toms takes the Itsy Bitsy Spider and tells the classic rhyme on the first page almost word for word how I remember it from my childhood. No big deviations from the story.  The rest of this sturdy board book tells what happened next.  The itsy bitsy spider goes on an impromptu adventure and runs into some tame danger that is intended to bring some minor suspense to the story, but nothing to scare your child.

This book is great for teaching rhyming and sequencing.  My daughter loves to sit with me or my husband and have us read her this book and supply the words to the rhymes when we pause.  The illustrations in the book are also very cute, keeping the spider looking very cartoonish for those of us who dislike bugs greatly.  The pictures on each page look as though they have been made out of fabric sewn together, however, they were most likely digitally created.

The only problem that I have with this book is truly my problem.  I can't keep the rhythm up on all of the pages, and struggle through the rest of the book once I've "lost" it!  My husband is better at keeping the rhythm and getting it back after losing it.  This book definitely gets a thumbs up and will stay in the book collection for a long time.

Minnie's Valentine

I recently asked my husband what book I should review next.  My two year old daughter quickly responded with her favorite Nook book, Mickey Mouse.  So here we are, talking about Minnie's Valentine.  Honestly, this isn't a very good book.  I'm not a huge fan of children's books that are made from television shows.  They tend to lack any real literary quality.  Mickey Mouse is not the exception to the rule.  I think there are committees at the various television companies who sit down and ask, "How can we drive parents to purchase more of our products?"  Oh, yeah, they'll buy books, its better than letting children watch too much television.  WRONG!  It is only marginally better than television.  However, Minnie's Valentine is not the best example of this, I leave that to Dora or Olivia (the ones based strictly based on the television show, not the original Olivia books).

In the beginning of Minnie's Valentine, Mickey claims to have heard the doorbell ring, but the text and picture never indicate any kind of noise.  Usually there is something to show that the doorbell has rung.  Mickey then opens the door and says hello to Miss M, who is quite obviously Minnie Mouse in disguise, which is fine.  The part that bothers me is that Miss M never actually talks.  Mickey does all of the talking throughout the book.  There is no real dialogue, the author tries to tell you everything that is happening through Mickey's voice only.  Since Miss M is trying to help Mickey think of something to give Minnie for Valentine's Day, I don't think this tactic works very well.

Mickey decides to make Minnie a hat for Valentine's Day.  Wonderful.  He needs yarn...so he gets a sheep for the wool, and clippers to get the wool off.  Next he needs to know which tool to use to spin the wool.  Really?  He's clipping his own sheep and spinning the wool?  After spinning the wool, he needs to dye it.  For this, Mickey uses jars of what can only be described as paint, with a paint brush.  My daughter loves this part of the book because Pluto gets "paint" on his nose.  After this ordeal, Mickey is ready to knit the hat.  When completed, Miss M leaves and Mickey is left with a perfect looking hat.  Minnie comes in and opens her present and loves the hat.

When I bought this book I was hoping for some wonderful literary elements, or some rhyming, alliteration, something redeeming.  What I got was some pretty pictures for my daughter to look through while laughing at the silly puppy.