Welcome to 2025 PICTURE BOOK CLUB – WEEK SEVEN
How to participate in Picture Book Club …
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Get the suggested books from your library or bookstore (local or online). See PICTURE BOOK CLUB BOOK LIST for the complete list of books for each week.
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Before reading each of the weekly books to your child, READ FIRST “What Adults Can Learn from This Story.”
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Read one or both books to your child as many times through the week as your child wants to hear them and you have time to read.
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Consider doing whatever activities you think are appropriate for the age and maturity of your child from “Make This Story Come Alive for Your Child.”
WE WELCOME FEEDBACK ABOUT YOUR PARTICIPATION. YOU CAN LEAVE A COMMENT BY USING THE “WHAT DO YOU THINK?” BUTTON AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST.
KNUFFLE BUNNY by Mo Willems
(about the importance of communication )
Trixie, is so young she doesn’t even talk yet. But, she babbles a lot and mom and dad respond a lot. When Trixie’s Knuffle Bunny was missing it was difficult to communicate with Trixie because her parents didn’t completely understand babble language. Nonetheless they kept trying as best they could and that led to a happy ending.
What Adults Can Learn from This Story
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Babies not only communicate, they make decisions about themselves, those taking care of them, and the world around them – important decisions about trusting others to take care of them.
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Both words and actions are equally important in comminicating with children. Adults need to pay attention to how they use both.
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For babies, adults need to think and talk for them by letting their actions and the babies’ actions speak to each other. Adult actions need to say they understand the baby’s wiggles and jiggles and babbles and cries.
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Why is communication so important? Because messages are important – both messages of words and messages of actions. Messages stick with people in so many unexpected ways and crop up when they least expect it. For example, older children who have trouble in school are sometimes reacting to an old message from an adult. Maybe they were criticized for not understanding things as well or as quickly as the adult expected them to or wished they would. That message is now buried deep inside their mind and continually tells them they will never be good in school. Now, no matter how much older and “smarter” they become, they think they are not good at learning so they do not even try to learn hard things.
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Children need to know their needs are important. They need to be encouraged to decide people care about them and will help them get their needs met. Once that decision is made, it can crop up in children’s minds and hearts every time they are worried or afraid and help get them through difficulties.
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As a parent, grandparent, teacher, or someone who cares for children, you can help them make that decision to trust others to be there for them by listening to both their words and their actions and responding as though you understand. Let them know you hear them, even when you can’t (and shouldn’t) give them everything they want. Listening and caring what they think and feel does not always mean saying “yes.” You can listen and care and still need to say “no.”
Make this Story Come Alive for Your Child
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Find as many ways as possible to say or act out the following messages with your child:
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What you need is important.
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You are loved and I am willing to care for you.
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Play make-believe with your child about taking care of children. Create situations in which a child needs something. You play the child part but do not use words to ask for what you need. Let your child figure out how to help you. Then reverse roles so your child can see what it feels like to have you figure out what he needs or at least try to figure it out. Afterwards, talk about what it was like to pretend without using real words. Try communicating what a person needs in a different situation like playing school (teacher and student) or being at the playground (adult and child or two children playing together).
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Have your child draw a picture about someone who is trying to show what he needs and another person is trying to figure out what that is. Have him draw one that uses words and one that does not.
Rick the Rock of Room 214 by Julie Falatko
(about grass being greener on the other side of the fence)
Rick lives in a classroom on a shelf. He is a rock, a real rock. His neighbors on the shelf are an acorn, some moss, and a piece of bark. Rick has never left his shelf since being brought in from the outside to live in Room 214. After the teacher showed the students pictures of all the interesting things rocks outside get to do, Rick wanted to be outside too. His shelf neighbors warned him not to go, but he tumbled his way outside anyway. He was excited to meet some other rocks until he learned they did nothing but sit all day. After a while Rick was lonesome. Lucky for him, a student scooped him up one day and returned him to his shelf. Now being back with his friendly neighbors seemed adventuresome enough for Rick.
What Adults Can Learn from This Story
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Sometimes children are drawn to anything exciting and adventuresome without understanding what comes with all that excitement – unknowns, loneliness, fears. Many things in life have both a positive and a negative side to them. Children need to realize that and think about all aspects of what they want to do.
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During the preschool years, children are beginning to form friendships, but they don’t really know much about what friendship is like. They spend a lot of time figuring out how they fit in with other kids. Who they want to have as a friend, what makes someone like them as a friend, what things they do that help them keep or lose friends. Some of those questions are answered by trial and error. Children act a certain way and learn the consequences. Then they will have to decide whether those consequences are OK with them or whether they need to change their behavior to get a different result. It is important for adults to not rescue their children from the consequences of their behavior – assuming no safety issues or harming of other people and things are involved).
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One thing children decide as they grow up is how important friendships will be to them. Will it be a priority for them or are they willing to sacrifice friendships for getting something else they want? It may may take some time for them to figure that out. Being lonesome and missing friends doesn’t always set in right away, but it can be a powerful emotion when it does. It is important that children have a chance to change course when it does and to make up for anything they may have done to hurt someone else as they were learning this lesson.
Make This Story Come Alive for Your Child
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Select a place in your house where you can celebrate a “Nature Week.” Go for a nature walk and gather nature items to put in the Nature Week place. Spend some time through the week using the library and/or the internet to learn more about the items. Be sure to show off the items to others coming and going from the house. Perhaps at the end of the week let your child make a presentation to family and friends.
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Act out the Rick the Rock story using real nature items.
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Ask your child if he has ever felt lonesome. If that seems like a new thing to him. Explain what lonesomeness is like and talk about some things a person can do when they feel lonely.
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Ask your child who he considers some of his best friends to be. Ask him why he likes to have them as friends.
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Share with your child who your friends are and what you like about having them as friends. Share stories about any ups and downs that may have happened with your friendships and how you dealt with them so you could stay friends.
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Ask your child if he thinks Rick the Rock should have listened to his friends and not gone outside on his adventure. Why or why not? Ask him if he remembers anytime when he made a choice about something (lunch food, what to wear, who to play with, etc.) that he regretted. Would he do something differently if he had to make that choice again? Why or why not?
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Share with your child times you remember making a choice you regretted later and what you would do differently now.
Picture Book Parenting 
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