One spin around the web for every week of the school year
by Jennifer Binford
This week: Turning over a new (fly)leaf
Add it to the long list of indignities your second child will blame you for: hand-me-down books. By the time our now-kindergartener came along, the bookshelf in the kids’ room was groaning under the weight of books bought for and enjoyed by her older brother. So we didn’t exactly bolt out to BookPeople or the library for a whole new round of junior lit, know what I mean?
But maybe we should have. A lot of great children’s books arrived on the scene between 2001 and 2004: Just Another Morning, The Day the Babies Crawled Away, and Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! are just a few.
Sure, classics are classics, and there’s no reason to think that younger sibs won’t enjoy Green Eggs and Ham as much as your first one did (or as much as you did, for that matter). But sometimes you’re interested in what’s new or what’s caught the attention of book editors and other parents.
Of course, not every best-selling book is one you’d necessarily find appropriate for your kiddo. (L.A. Candy, by reality celeb Lauren Conrad? Probably not a future Caldecott winner. Just a guess.) For more guidance on finding the good stuff, try The New York Times Parent’s Guide to the Best Books for Children: 3rd Edition. It’s a few years old now, but it’s still a tremendous resource—well-organized and quite thumb-through-able. You can find it here on Amazon, and several library branches have a copy.
So blow the dust off the bookshelves. Donate some old favorites and make a little space for some new classics.
See you next link!
