It’s Monday – What Are You Reading? 10/16/23

It’s Monday, and we’ve been reading!

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – if you have children and have access to a public library, use it! It will save you a fortune. Picture books are expensive! And while some books will be read again and again and again, others will be read once and quickly forgotten. Save your money and use your local library!

This week we read two picture books that fell in that latter category – they were read once and never requested again. Each books retails for $20+, so I was relieved to have not spent a single penny on them!

ELBOW GREASE VS MOTOZILLA

This was not good. Even my monster truck-obsessed kiddo didn’t want a second read of this clunker. It doesn’t just hit you over the head with its message, it beats you all over with it. TEAM WORK MAKES THE DREAM WORK! The basic story isn’t bad – no one monster truck can defeat the mighty Motozilla, but when the monster trucks work together, their combined abilities allow them to succeed. But everything is told in such a flat, preachy, matter-of-fact way. “Elbow Grease did this, and then he did that, and then the other thing happened. The end.” This is an example of why I’m generally suspicious of celebrity-penned picture books – because they’re often so painfully bland. And when a kid who has posters of Gravedigger and El Toro Loco and Earth Shaker all over his walls isn’t interested in your monster truck story, you know you’ve done something wrong.

HAMSTERS DON’T FIGHT FIRES

A hamster dreams of being a firefighter, but he’s too small. Or is he?

There’s nothing wrong with this story, it’s just not anything we haven’t seen before – don’t give up on your dreams, no matter how outlandish they seem! It might have been a refreshing twist to have the hamster not be able to become a firefighter (because…you know…they’re an itty bitty hamster in a non hamster-sized world), and have to work through their disappointment in a healthy and honest way. Disappointment is a reality of life, and dreams don’t always come true the way we hope they will – it’s a tough lesson to learn, but an important one. Not everyone can become everything, no matter how much they want it, and that’s the way life is. But just because one dream fizzles doesn’t mean you can’t pivot and try something else! There’s no limit on the number of dreams we can dream, and as they say, when one door closes, open a window.

And maybe I’m thinking too hard about a book called Hamsters Don’t Fight Fires.

Pokemon Super Extra Deluxe Essential Handbook

My kiddo has discovered the world of Pokemon, and to say he’s obsessed is to put it lightly. He loves to organize and categorize and sort, so Pokemon, with its hundreds of adorable critters from different regions and of different types, is right up his alley. We’ve been reading a few entries every night as part of our bedtime routine. Those Pokemon names are real tongue-twisters! But as I’ve been telling families for years, if you want your children to be strong readers, take advantage of their interests and find books on subjects that excite them. We’re all more likely to read books about topics that engage and interest us! Even if, as a parent, it means having to learn about Squirtle, Rowlet and Litten… 😉

What have you been reading recently?

Check out all the bloggers sharing their reading over at Unleashing Readers!