Clarice Bean

Amelia is reading a book right now that I just love. It is by Lauren Child, and it is titled "Utterly Me, Clarice Bean". Child also writes a super cute series called "Charlie & Lola", we own a few, and I adore them. Today though, it is about Clarice Bean. The first thing that I noticed about this book was the non-typical layout of the pages. For example this is page 8 (below) Amelia noticed this right away, and it was one of the things that made us buy this book. I find it rare that a book with several chapters, also has different fonts, and font sizes.

Another thing that we enjoy about all of Child's books is the drawings. I was happy to see that this chapter book had a few pictures. The pages below is another good example of the non-typical layout, and some of the drawings. I enjoy the use of pictures in longer books, Amelia thinks that they are fun to look at, and often will look through a book at all the pictures, before reading it. These pictures were another deciding factor in our decision to buy this book.

Amelia is about 2/3 of the way through this book, and so far her overall opinion is positive. She giggles quite often while she is reading, and will bring the book to me to show me a funny part or funny picture. Our next post will be more about Clarice Bean.

Summer Reading

Last Saturday Amelia and I went to the bookstore, we love the bookstore. This trip we spent about 2 hours there, we looked at everything. I am sure that every single employee of that bookstore talked to us at least twice. The reason we were there was to find Amelia’s summer reading list. I don’t pre plan the list, like I did the first year. I planned what we would read and gave Amelia no input, to say the least it was a disaster. So the next summer I decided to let Amelia explore the shelves and take the lead in what we read I do give her guidelines though. This year’s guidelines were:

1) Nothing with a fairy on the cover or in the title.

2) It must have at least 12 chapters.

3) It can’t be something you have read before.

The point of our summer reading is to challenge and educate, and with these guidelines Amelia pick a pretty good list. She is ambitious this summer, our list has a total of 8 books and some of them are quite thick, you can see our list on the far right sidebar. Summer reading officially starts this coming Sunday, and we are looking forward to it.