Welcome to 2025 PICTURE BOOK CLUB – WEEK NINE
How to participate in Picture Book Club …
-
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.
-
Before reading each of the weekly books to your child, READ FIRST “What Adults Can Learn from This Story.”
-
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.
-
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.
THE FIRST WEEK OF SCHOOL by Drew Beckmeyer
(a mystery during the first week of school)
On Monday one desk sits empty. Wednesday a student arrives. His name is Nobody, and like his name, he is mysterious. He seems out of this world. All week the kids go through their activities – Show and Tell, Storytime, Quiet Time, and outdoor PE. And all the while wacky, weird things were happening overnight each day. What was going on?
What Adults Can Learn from This Story
-
The human brain is wired to want to figure things out. To see patterns and what causes things to happen. Mysteries are good for children’s brain development.
-
Mysteries require attention to detail (also a skill needed for learning mathematics) and perseverance both of which make for successful adults.
-
Mysteries encourage children to be curious and important skill for all learning, especially in the science realm.
-
Mysteries are solved by figuring out what caused what. It is important for children to learn about cause and effect. It is the basis for self-discipline. It helps children understand why there are rules and why rules have consequences.
-
Consequences are not punishments. They are results caused by the child’s behavior. Thus, it makes sense that anger is not necessary to deliver consequences. They are most effective when delivered in a matter-of-fact way. The fact is the child made a decision knowing what the consequences would be. Now it is just an unavoidable fact that the child must deal with the consequences.
-
Children can better understand that their behavior causes consequences if the consequences are obviously connected to the behavior causing them: No TV is allowed in the evening if a child chooses to do something other than homework after school. Adults can express regret that the child made the wrong choices (I’m sorry you chose to play outside instead of doing your homework.”) and even empathize with the child about how difficult the consequences are to put up with (“I can imagine how hard it is to have to skip your favorite program because you need to do your homework.”)
-
It is hard for children to understand the connection between their behavior and consequences if the consequences are disconnected from the behavior causing them. For example, no movie on the weekend, if a child has failed to do homework before dinner during the week is disconnect because so much time has elapsed from the behavior to the consequence and not going to the movie does not facilitate getting the homework done. That ship has already sailed.
-
Consequences should be explained to children in a very direct and understandable way when a rule is first put in place – before it is broken.
-
Consequences should be explained to children in a very direct and understandable way when a rule is first put in place – before any consequences are needed. Include the fact that they are in charge of whether the consequences will be needed.
-
Reasonable consequences are likely to correct behavior. Children figure out that they don’t like the consequences, so they think twice about doing whatever caused the consequences.
Make this Story Come Alive for Your Child
-
Create a mystery for your child to solve. Hide something and go on a hunt for it. Leave clues along the way.
-
Ask your child what he thinks was going on in story about the new student. What happened to Nobody? Encourage her to think of more than one answer. If she has lots of answers, have her write them down or if she is very young, you can write them down for her. End your discussion by explaining that it is fun to figure these things out, but “Nobody” is a pretend character and could not really be at school.
-
Have your child tell the story about Nobody to others at dinnertime and let everybody share a thought about what was happening. Have him explain to everyone that even though it is fun to figure these things out, “Nobody” is a pretend character and could not really be at school.
-
Explain to your child that mysteries about what causes what. Explain that rules and consequences are also about one thing causing another. Behavior causes consequences. Ask your child if he can think of a reasonable consequence for not following a clean-your-room house rule. Explain the consequence should not be too hard or too wishy washy and should be directly connected to the clean-the-room rule. For example, not being able to play outside for a week would be a too-hard consequence that isn’t connected directly to cleaning a bedroom. On the other hand, not being able to play outside until the room is cleaned does connect because it means the playtime is being traded in for cleaning instead but only long enough to get the room cleaned. Help him understand why his ideas for consequences are just right or not.
NURSE CLEMENTINE by Simon James
(about make-believe)
Clementine Brown wants to play nurse more than anything. Knowing this, her parents gave her a nurse’s outfit and a first-aid kit for her birthday. They also played along and agreed to be her patients and follow her instructions. As far as Clementine was concerned, she was a real nurse. “You can call me Nurse Clementine from now on!” She took care of every person, animal, and thing she could find. Her only disappointment was when she ran out of patients. “Nurses need someone to take care of.” Then, there was “a real emergency” that called her to duty. Her brother Tommy’s accident required Clementine to do her best bandaging ever and to firmly insist that Tommy keep her giant bandage on for a “full week.” Luckily for Nurse Clementine, Tommy, being her best patient of all, was delighted with his very special bandage and was more than willing to keep it on for as long as possible.
What Adults Can Learn from This Story
-
What can be the best present ever? That one thing children ask for over and over again – not just at the moment they see a commercial on TV, but at many other times over the days and weeks leading up to a gift-giving event. It can give a very special message: “I’m listening to you. What you say you need is important.”
-
If gift requests are not reasonable for a family it’s best to tell children that as soon as the request is made, so they don’t build up hopes that can’t come true. But in many cases, that one thing that is talked about is something simple – or could be simple if thought about it simply. For example, if a young child is saying they need a hideout, it doesn’t necessarily have to be an elaborate constructed item for the backyard. It could be something made from cardboard for a corner in the family room or basement playroom. As long as children can play with it the way they want to, it doesn’t necessarily have to be made of the most fancy, expensive materials.
-
That one special thing children want could be something so unlike most other gifts that it is easy to disregard it and think it isn’t a serious request (for example, office supplies, an abundance of a favorite food, special time with a special person). Those are things that are especially fun for children. They often become the best gift of all.
-
More and more adults do their gift shopping well ahead of time – long before the children might really settle into that one favorite thing. Hold back some of the gift budget for one last purchase in the last few days when they have figured out that one item that means the most to them.
-
Pretend play stretches children’s imaginations. Active imagination in children is something to be happy about. Just like adults must exercise muscles to be able to run a race, children need to exercise the imagination part of their brains to become creative, artistic people – something that children need in order to be successful in life.
-
Pretend play allows children to make decisions about how they should act. Will they be powerful? Will they be a follower? What will they do when they’re disappointed? When they are excited? Pretend play allows children to try out different ways to get and keep friends. To try out adult jobs they want to explore and know more about.
-
Pretend play is at a peak during preschool years. Although some parents look forward to children outgrowing that stage, the job of the child during these years is not to “grow out” of the stage, but rather to learn to enjoy it and understand it as not real while hanging on to the fun of it. This means that even as children become better and better pretenders, they need to also learn to tell the difference between what is real and what is pretend. Even when a person has a wonderful imagination, that person can and needs to know what things are real and what things are pretend.
-
There’s nothing better than having adults become part of pretend play. But adults can let children know when they are pretending and when they are not. For example, “I would love to play pretend with you.” “I’m done pretending now.” “We’re not playing pretend right now, so all the chairs here are for real people.”
-
Encouraging pretend play and still keeping it real is pushed to the limit in almost every household when the monster under the bed appears. This is a great time for adults to teach what is pretend and what is real. Chasing the monsters out of the bedroom, spraying magic potions, or casting a spell make monsters seem real – just as children fear. It says children need to be protected from a real monster. Why else slay the monster? On the other hand, firmly saying that monsters are only pretend and can’t really be in the house or under a bed helps children understand there is a difference between pretend and real. It clearly says that monsters are only pretend, not real, and therefore do not need to be slayed, poisoned, or thrown out the window.
-
What children feel about monsters is real, and they need to know adults believe they are afraid. The monster under the bed is about fear, so the way to be helpful to children is to work on the fear instead of working on getting rid of the monster in some pretend sort of way. Read more about what can help children overcome or outsmart the fear of a monster at Fear is Not All Bad.
-
Watching children’s pretend play today can give adults a clue as to what the children’s future work may be – at least one part of their future work. All those dress up clothes and all that pretend play, who knows what it can lead to.
-
The world of work has changed amazingly over the last 30 years. Future workers may have as many as half a dozen different careers in their lifetime. So, that famous question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” is not really the best question nowadays. Even if children’s early answer ends up being their first job, it will not likely be their only job. Children need to start early to think of careers in terms of many possibilities, not just one. Start asking children, “What are three things you want to do when you grow up?” It will encourage them to think they have lots of things they can do in the future. How exciting is that?
Make this Story Come Alive for Your Child
-
Invite your child to play make-believe. Use a timer to put a time limit on the playtime. When you start the timer, tell your child, “We’re going to pretend now until the timer goes off.” When the timer goes off, tell your child you are done pretending. “Now we are just real people who had fun pretending.” This will help your child understand that pretend is pretend and real is real.
-
Collect some dress up clothes that represent jobs your child has expressed an interest in. Try making them yourself or buying them at a thrift store. If making them yourself remember they don’t have to be perfectly sewn. They can be draped on and held together with safety pins, if need be. Collect some that you could use to play make-believe with your child.
-
Plan a gift-giving event with your child – it could be for him (if a date is coming up soon) or a relative, neighbor, or friend. Pick a theme (favorite sports team, rainbows, soft, etc.) – something that fits the person the party is for. Use the theme to decorate the house (cuddly stuffed animals in every room for “soft”), to plan the menu (hot dogs for a sports team), and to set the table (use all the rainbow colors for rainbow). Connect the gift to the theme as well.
-
If buying a gift for an older child who doesn’t ask (or pester) often for a desired gift, check in with his best friend about what he or she thinks your child might like – swear the friend to secrecy. Even if the friend doesn’t live up to the secrecy, your child will be appreciative that you went to such lengths to please him.
-
Watch the “unbirthday” party scene in Disney’s Alice and Wonderland film. An “unbirthday” party is one that is just for the fun of it. Give your child a party-in-a-box with all the things needed to help host an “unbirthday” party – invitations, favors, the supplies for activities, etc.
-
Together with your child ask a person you know well to tell you about a gift received as a child they was loved and is still remembered. Ask your child the same question.
Picture Book Parenting 
You must be logged in to post a comment.