what we're reading this week

Here's my kids (the two in the middle) hanging out with some good buddies of theirs that we see regularly.

Here we are at the end of the week, and I realized I haven't posted about our reading selections for this week yet. Would seem a little silly to miss a week the 2nd week I started doing it!

This week we're on a general "new year" theme (though we haven't really introduced the concept of the year changing with our kids, we're approaching it more on a seasonal shift type of thing). I'm having a little difficulty reading all these books about the dead of winter when it's 60 degrees outside. What happened to January? But reading books that cover more of a general flow of the year seem to be fitting the need a little better for us right now thanks to our new weather pattern.

"Antler, Bear, Canoe: A Northwoods Alphabet Year", by Betsy Bowen. Very cool book about the change of seasons per month in the author's native Minnesota, with a little alphabet and calendar work tossed in. The illustrations are gorgeous wood block prints -- I hear she has a "northwoods counting book" too, which I'll have to see if our Library has.

"Ice Bear and Little Fox", by Jonathan London, paintings by Daniel San Souci. With this author and illustrator, this book was bound to be a big hit around here! A year in the life of an adolescent Polar Bear and an Arctic Fox. London does a great job of telling the story of the relationship of the animals to each other as well as to their environment, without anthropomorphizing it at all, it's quite true to life, including how predatory animals eat, yet not in a gruesome or scary way. Wonderful book! And beautiful, true-to-life illustrations.

"Bear Snores On" by Karma Wilson and Jane Chapman. Ok, so it's a little cutesy. But we like it anyway. A whimsical story about animal friends dropping in to hold a party in an unsuspecting bear's hibernation cave -- while the bear is sleeping. Bear wakes up to join the party eventually, but the anticipation of that moment builds nicely throughout the book. The verses are bouncy and fun, and the illustrations are just realistic enough to make it seem not overly corny. I wouldn't put it on a "must read" list like I might the other two, but we liked it enough to buy it.