Go, Dog. Go!

My grandmother's copy of Go, Dog. Go! is just about as tattered as the copy of  The Best Nest.  Also a new release from Random House Digital, Go, Dog. Go! by P.D. Eastman is a silly story that teaches colors, opposites, and the differing meaning of the various prepositions. 

Often full of nonsense (e.g. "A green dog on a yellow tree.") the story is full of language fit for beginning readers and opportunities for parents to use the text as a learning tool (asking for shapes and colors or the location of the preposition depending on the child's age).

Interspersed in the story, there is an ongoing silly conversation where one dog asks the other, "Do you like my hat?"  This was always my favorite part as a child because the hats get more and more elaborate as the dog tries to find one that will really impress the other.  Your children are sure to laugh, and in reading this book with children, I've found that this silly exchange gives children the break they need from concentrating on the opposites, etc. and keeps them interesting in pressing forward in their reading. 

The only negative element that Go, Dog. Go! contains is a matter of grammar.  There are several places where there are periods following phrases. (E.g. "Three dogs at a party on a boat at night."  This is not a sentence because it does not contain a subject-verb combination.)  While this is often an acceptable technique in fiction-writing, I am surprised that P.D. Eastman used this in a children's book, especially a beginning reader.  Parents may wish to use this as an opportunity to teach their children about what grammatical elements make a sentence and have their children identify every misplaced period.

There is also a character from one of P.D. Eastman's other popular works hidden within the illustrations of Go, Dog. Go!.  Can you find it?

The Best Nest

Some of my favorite books as a kid were written by Dr. Seuss and his friends.  P.D. Eastman, author of The Best Nest, was one of Dr. Seuss' friends during WWII when they made informational war cartoons together for the soldiers. Several of P.D. Eastman's books are long forgotten, now, but they are some of the cutest books around.  The Best Nest was the book I brought my grandmother to read to me the most as a child.  Random House has recently released The Best Nest and Go, Dog. Go! in Kindle Edition.  (Check back Wednesday for the review of Go, Dog. Go!)   However, The Best Nest can also be purchased in hardcover edition.

In The Best Nest, Mrs. Bird decides that she hates her old house; she's simply tired of it! She and Mr. Bird fly off to find another, only to run into multiple problems.  The last problem leaves Mr. and Mrs. Bird separated, and Mr. Bird is afraid that he will never see his wife again.  But never fear! Mrs. Bird has learned something very important, and she will be back to share the lesson--and a surprise--with her husband.


The Best Nest contains a strong message about contentment and what really makes a home the best.  Children who read this book will love the humorous pictures that trace Mr. and Mrs. Bird's hunt and discovery.  The language is simple and will stimulate beginning readers to read alone, although smaller children will enjoy it as a lap-read.

What did you find that you could be more content about after reading The Best Nest?

Moon Over Manifest

The movement of the train rocked me like a lullaby.  I closed my eyes to the dusty countryside and imagined the sign I knew only from stories.  The one just outside of town with big blue letters: MANIFEST: A TOWN WITH A RICH PAST AND A BRIGHT FUTURE.
...The conductor came into the car. "Manifest, next stop."
...Being a paying customer this time, with a full-fledged ticket, I didn't have to jump off, and I knew that the preacher would be waiting for me.  But as anyone worth his salt knows, it's best to get a look at a place before it gets a look at you...
At the last car, I waited, listen the way I'd been taught--wait till the clack of the train wheels slows to the rhythm of your heartbeat...The ground came quick and hard, but I landed and rolled as the tain lumbered on without a thank-you or goodbye.
As I stood and brushed myself off, there was the sign not five feet in front of me.  It was so weathered there was hardly a chip of blue paint to be found. And it looked to have been shot up so bad most of the words were gone.  All that was left read MANIFEST: A TOWN WITH A PAST.
(Moon Over Manifest 1, 3-4) 
 
Abilene Tucker doesn't really know who she is or where she's going.  Her father, Gideon Tucker, has decided that jumping trains is no place for a young lady and sent her to life with Shady Howard, the pastor of a small town Gideon lived in as a teen.

Once she's in Manifest, Abilene meets many strange people with interesting characteristics.  At first she thinks that she's going to be fine in this new place because every town is made of "universals"-- types of people who you'll always meet in a large group.

But the town of Manifest and it's townspeople aren't one bit universal.  There's some strange things in this town.  There's Hattie Mae--the newspaper lady--and her weekly "whos, whats, whys, whens, and wheres."  There's Sister Redempta, the nun who teaches the town's school and acts as the town midwife.  There's Lettie and Ruthanne, two girls who are friendly to Abilene and accompany her on her adventures to discover who "the Rattler" is and whether he still wants revenge. There's Ivan DeVore, the postmaster, Mr. Cooper, the barber, Velma T, the chemistry teacher, and Mr. Underhill, the undertaker.  But that's just the beginning...

There's also Miss Sadie, the Hungarian Woman, whom everyone calls a diviner, and her intriguing stories about Jinx and Ned and times past.  Her stories begin to pull the present together into a clearer picture, and over time, just might answer some of Abilene's questions concerning her origins. 

Released on October 12, 2010 by Delacorte Press (a division of Random House), Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool is the 2011 winner of the well-known Newberry Award.  The book is excellently written, with alternating chapters between the Manifest of 1918 and the Manifest of 1936.  Interspersed between the chapters are excerpts from Hattie Mae's newspaper column which add a bit of authenticity to the story.

The biggest literary flaw with this book is its pace. As an adult, I enjoyed the pace of the book, but the first couple of chapters might be hard for a child to get into. Other than that, I found its literary quality to be worth the Newberry title.  Vanderpool includes some great expressions that made me laugh and think all at once. 

Pros about Moon Over Manifest:
--The author does an excellent job of switching between narratives throughout the book, never making the reader feel that the transition is "out of place."
--There are several pieces of the conclusion that come as a surprise to the reader, but none of the surprises stray from the plot.
--The author included a post-script about what was historical and what was fiction.  She based the story loosely on her family's history.
--The author's tale can appeal to many teen and adult readers as well.
--The storyline contains several layers of suspense and challenges readers to look beyond the words on the page into the character's personalities, struggles, hopes, and fears just like readers have to look beyond a person's outer appearance to appreciate them.
--The characters have depth.

Despite all of these wonderful literary elements that make this book scholastic, there are several elements that have a tendency to make it not "safe" or family friendly.  While all parents may not agree with my conclusion, I still wish to provide those who do with my reasons.  If Moon Over Manifest was made into a movie, it would have to be rated PG-13 because of spiritual, alcohol, and violence content. 

Cons about Moon Over Manifest:
--Miss Sadie is a diviner.  In the beginning of the books, she "talks to the spirits" and says that she is going to "build a bridge between the living and the dead."  However, by the end of the book, readers learn that Miss Sadie is only a diviner because no one would talk to a poor Hungarian woman that they perceived to be a diviner.  They came to her as if she was such, and she went along with it to have her place in society; she "puts on a show and dresses the part."  Abilene realizes that the "divining" that she gives them is "really the truth she observes and knows about them... And mostly she watches, she waits, and she loves... She bears the story of Manifest." However, as the divining has no explanation for the majority of the text, parents may wish to remove this from their child's reading list or discuss what divining is and how that fits in with their own religious beliefs. 
--Shady Howard, the fill-in pastor in the town, is just that--a bit shady.  He owns a bar.  The church meets in the bar, but no alcohol is served on Sundays.  Abilene lives in the room above the bar--no place for a child.  Shady is also involved in making Moonshine during Prohibition--sometimes this is presented as wrong since it's against the law and sometimes it is presented as okay because it helps the town's economy.  The town's sheriff requires that Shady give him two bottles of moonshine a week if Shady wants him to not tell the government about his illegal activity. 
--There is a murder in the 1918 section of the book, for which one of the main characters (who is a child) is supposedly responsible.  Truth does come out, and the real murderer is punished, but younger children may find this distressing.

Despite the fact that I could give Moon Over Manifest a five out of five stars for literary quality, I'm giving Moon Over Manifest a three out of five stars because of some of the questionable content for the age group. This is not a book that I plan on handing over to the children in my life because of the PG13 content. However, whether you as a parent choose to have your children read Moon Over Manifest as summer reading, discuss it as a family read-aloud, or be aware of it's contents when your child reads it for school sometime, I hope that this review helps you and your children make wise choices that are safe but scholastic.

Put Me in the Zoo

Put Me in the Zoo is a classic "I Can Read It By Myself" book, orginally published in 1960 by Random House.  On March 16, 2011, it was released in Kindle Edition.  Written and illustrated by Robert Lopshire, the book has a lovable Dr. Seuss style; read this book to your pre-school children or give it to your beginning readers and watch them smile as the main character brags about the reasons he should be put in the zoo.  He can put his spots on trees and then back on himself.  He can put the spot on the wall and then make them tall.  He can even make his spots change different colors on his body!  This cute children's story has a unique ending that children will not expect with all of the talk of the zoo. The illustrations are simple but brightly colored and keep children turning the page.  While is not the best "I Can Read" book that I've read (who can beat Dr. Seuss or P.D. Eastman?), Put Me in the Zoo is definitely a book that your young child will want to read more than once.

The Phantom Tollbooth

Milo is a typical school-aged boy who can't see the point in "learning to solve useless problems, or subtracting turnips from turnips, or knowing where Ethiopia is or how to spell February." He didn't see the point, that is, until he received a surprise box labeled "ONE GENUINE TURNPIKE TOLLBOOTH." After he decides to take his toy car through the booth, strange yet wonderful things begin to happen.

The Phantom Tollbooth  by Norton Juster was originally published in 1961. Back in January, the children's classic was released in Kindle edition. Children will love the story of Milo and his visit to Dictionopolis, the city where all of the words in the world are homegrown. In that mysterious land, he meets the Whether Man, travels through The Doldrums, and makes friends with a watchdog named Tock (whose body is a huge alarm clock). In the Word Market, Milo receives a greeting from the "Emperor of Phrases, Sentences, and Miscellaneous Figures of Speech" and gets put in jail for jumbling all the words together. In jail, they meet a Which, who sends to rescue the twin Princesses, Rhyme and Reason, from the Mountains of Ignorance.

This book is full of surprises at every turn. First there's the tallest, shortest, fattest, thinnest man. Then there's the Isle of Conclusions, a place you can easily jump to. The book personifies such abstract concepts as statistics, like the half a child that Milo meets who represents the fact that the average family has 2.58 children. And what about the boy that grows down rather than up simply because he chooses to take an unique Point of View?

Some parents may wish to be aware that Demons are mentioned several times in the book, but the Demons turn out to be loathsome creatures that are only pretending to be bad in order to cover up how small and helpless they are against people who don't agree with them. From them, children see how little it pays off to be insincere, afraid, or ignorant and how easily Wisdom conquers Foolishness.

Among the lessons learned from this book include the fact that "people who don't pay attention often get stuck in the doldrums," "time is our most valuable possession," and "you must pick your words very carefully and be sure to say just what you intend to say."

The Phantom Tollbooth is a hilarious satire that can be enjoyed by readers of all ages, including parents. While making them laugh, the book will teach your children rules of grammar and syntax and context as well as statistics and angles and infinity through a crazy tale of one boy's mission to bring Wisdom to the fictitious world beyond the Phantom Tollbooth. After all, "so many things are possible if you just don't know that they are impossible."