Discovering a Treasure

Antique shops! They evoke in us a sense of curiosity and exploration. It's like climbing into a time machine, spinning through a time warp, and being transported into part of the past.

Shopping for antiques is like hunting for gold or going on a treasure hunt. We all hope to find a treasure that will serve as a conversation piece within our own talking walls or a nugget of nostalgia from our past.

So my younger girls and I went on a trip back-in-time and lifted layers of dust to unveil:

• The Pillbury Dough Boy---remember him? You can read his Obituary here.


• An old coca-cola machine
  
• Old pressing irons
  
• An Aunt Jemima syrup bottle---void of syrup, of course

Trust me, if you are over forty, a trip to the antique shop will date you. I promise.

And so I knew there was a treasure just waiting for me at the bookstore when children's author Dotti Enderle announced the release of her new book Grandpa for Sale.

I really wanted to plan a trip to the Houston area for one of her book signing gigs but I finally couldn't help myself and bought the book as is. And I was correct...it is a treasure.

What's a grandpa worth to a child? What is he worth to your child. What was he worth to you as a child? Is he, in fact, priceless?

Lizzie has to find this out for herself when Mrs. Larchmont and her fluffy pink poodle Gizelle come breezing into Grandpa's antique shop and offers a small fortune to buy---not the Louie settee which Grandpa sleeps upon but---no other than Grandpa himself. Is sacrificing Grandpa worth the treehouse of her dreams? What about having the greatest ice cream shop in the neighborhood! What about ... Lizzie's imagination flies as Grandpa snores on the Louie settee and Mrs. Larchmont keeps upping her price for the priceless treasure she has stumbled upon. Will Lizzie realize how priceless Grandpa is and that she already has the greatest treasure of all in the palm of her hand?

The illustrations by T. Kyle Gentry are a huge bonus in this book; they are as rich as Lizzie's imagination and as priceless as Grandpa. On each page Gentry took special care to use full-color on the objects Lizzie cherishes the most in her discernment process.

This book is a rich find for less than the price of two movie tickets. And you get to bring it home with you and view it everyday. Your children will have front row seats.

My girls have asked for me to read it everyday this past week and I do so gladly. The text isn’t exhausting at all. The children laugh…and I smile. I find them looking at the pictures for long minutes on end. It's like looking through an antique shop...can't touch anything but it sure is a feast for the eyes and one can always dream, dream, dream.

Their imaginations have soared along with Lizzie's: a new bedroom set, owning your own amusement park! The dreams are as endless as Grandma's armoire. Then they remember PawPaw sitting in his wheelchair in a nursing home and they think of Opa's morning coffee visits, and they know that you simply can't put a pricetag on the arms that give hugs, the hands that give love pats, the toothless grins that give puckered air kisses, and the Grandpas who love you more than life itself.

Jim Trelease Would Be Proud

I know I am. My friend Lissa gives an insightful, well-educated, very readable opinion concerning the palaver between Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings and Jon Stewart. Here is a quote:

"Secretary Spellings is working from within a framework that says good reading skills are the first step to becoming educated. I'm coming from the opposite direction: what comes first is not reading, but being read to. I really wanted to jump up and call out to her: Couldn't you just try it? Try reading the children excellent literature? Lots and lots of it? Put the tests away for a year and just see what happens when you read to them a great deal of fine prose and poetry?"

Read the rest and see the video here: "Can We Educate Every American Child?"

Let's Get Cooking with Literature

Food! We all love it. Our kids love it.

Combine it with books and you've got a sure fire grill of tempting morsels inviting your child to the library table.

And summer is the perfect time to have a picnic complete with baskets of food and books.

At Literature Alive! eloop there is a new file called Let's Get Cooking with Literature. The members there contributed a full 12-month shopping list of books for you to take to your library and load into your shopping cart.

It's a delicious treat the whole family can enjoy. So print it, put it in your child's library folder or in your housekeeping/cooking binder, but, most of all, enjoy it.

Happy Reading and Eating!

The Best-Kept Secret in American Education

Jim Trelease, the American guru on the art of reading aloud, tells us on page xiii of his indispensable The Read-Aloud Handbook:

“Extensive research has proven that reading aloud to a child is the single most important factor in raising a reader. These inexpensive fifteen minutes a day are the best-kept secret in American education.” (emphasis my own)

Fifteen minutes a day! Can getting an education really be that simple? Can a mere fifteen minutes a day be that powerful?

I thought about this quote. A lot.

And I thought about it some more.

And I read what Jim Trelease had to say about this secret fifteen minutes of read-aloud time that can promote readers and, thus, lifelong learners, and the precious fifteen minutes of time each day shared effortlessly between a parent and child.

And I couldn’t fail to realize the intimate connection between this "inexpensive fifteen minutes a day" and the time it takes to read a children's picture book.

Whether you are five or fifty, in school or a boardroom, parenting babies or grandbabies; I invite you to take fifteen minutes of your day to explore some picture books with me. If not because I say so, then because C.S. Lewis and Jim Trelease say so.

C.S. Lewis:

“No book is really worth reading at age ten which is not equally worth reading
at the age of fifty”

and

“...a children’s story which is only enjoyed by children is a bad children’s story.”

Jim Trelease:

"A good story is a good story. Beautiful and stirring pictures can move fifteen-year-olds as well as five-year-olds. A picture book(s) should be someplace on the reading list of every class at every level." (Pages
90-92 of A Read-Aloud Handbook)