The Ruark Kids » Books

Thalia’s first sentence

Liz — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 03:16:16 +0000

First uttered a few weeks ago, and now spoken with regularity, especially first thing in the morning and just before bedtime: “More book!”
Thalia likes to flip through books in her crib before we get her up for breakfast, and will often protest when we finally lift her out and force her to get dressed. Sometimes I wonder how long she’d stay in there if we let her. 10am? Noon? If she’s like this at 18 months, how are we ever going to get her out of bed when she’s 15??
On the plus side, that’s a first sentence I can really get behind.

Cat in the Hat Memory Challenge

John — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 02:20:47 +0000

Until tonight I hadn’t read Cat in the Hat to Siena in a long time, probably six months. It was interesting to see how little of it she remembered. She used to be able to complete many of the sentences if you started them for her, for instance, “I let down my net, it came down with a…” and she’d say “PLOP” while smacking the page. Every time. Tonight, I said, “I let down my net, it come down with a…” and then there was this long pregnant pause followed by her saying “bang.”

It’s so interesting to see her start to forget things. I believe she’s forgotten the trip to the beach from a year and a half ago, and I think she’s also forgotten some details of our trip to the Aquarium last year.

On the plus side, she’s very close to reading several words; she did well at spotting “cat” and “the” in the book tonight.

Hooked on synthetic phonics

John — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 19:29:09 +0000

Yesterday while playing with a sticker book (thanks to “Aunt” Amy!) that has stickers for different objects that map to initial letters of the alphabet (e.g. a picture of a lime goes with a corresponding shape in a box for the letter L), Siena grabbed a sticker of a girl, and asked, “Where does the girl go?” I said, “What letter does girl start with?” Siena replied, “girl, guh, G!” and flipped the sticker book to the page with the G box and placed the girl there. Mama’s been working hard with Siena to get her to learn the sounds the letters make, and it’s starting to pay off!

Name that book

John — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 17:05:26 +0000

Pop quiz time. Which book has the following lines? By the light of the moon, By the light of a star, They walked all night From near to far. Bonus points, which (other) book has this text: Game called on … Continue reading →

Goodnight Bears

John — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 19:15:02 +0000

Is no one else troubled about this? Goodnight Moon, by Margaret Wise Brown (pictures by Clement Hurd), the classic going-to-bed book (yada yada), opens with the presentation of various objects in the great green room. These include “a picture of the cow jumping over the moon,” and “there were three little bears sitting on chairs.” Now, the venerable Mr. Hurd depicts both of these as elaborately framed paintings. But Ms. Brown was more vague on the matter; it doesn’t say “pictures of the cow jumping over the moon and three little bears sitting on chairs” or “and there was a picture of three little bears sitting on chairs.”

To my mind’s eye, I see three bears hanging out in the green room with baby bunny. Awkward? Sure. Unclear what the bears do when the lights go off, the cats curl up, and bunny goes to sleep? Definitely. But nonetheless, a literal image of the text.

Which raises several questions, including did some text need to be cut to improve the pacing? Did Mr. Hurd put the bears into a picture in order to obviate the need for lengthy plot expositions to deal with three (possibly hungry) bears in a room with cats and rabbits? Was there an author/illustrator spat, of which this is the surviving manifestation?

The world may never know. (Actually, if I did some research perhaps the world would know, but I can’t be bothered right now.)

What Goes Through That Little Mind?

John — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 19:02:02 +0000

I’ve noticed a very interesting and endearing trend when reading bedtime books to Siena. In one case it makes me think she’s developed her own consistent, sense of humor, and in the other case, well I just don’t know what to think.

In the book Sheep in a Jeep by Nancy Shaw and Margot Apple, every time I read the line “Uh-oh, jeep won’t go,” Siena giggles. Maybe it’s how I say it, maybe it’s the artwork, maybe it’s the fact that therein lies the central, ironic flaw of the woolly travelers, revealed on page 2 and causing all of their turmoil for the remainder of the book. On second thought, it’s probably how I say it.

In the going-to-bed classic Goodnight Moon, there’s a much more tender moment when we get to the page that has the toy house only and says, “Goodnight little house.” Every time, without fail, Siena reaches out and touches that page. She doesn’t touch any of the pages leading up to that one, although she has started touching some of the later pages. But this one has, for the past few weeks, always compelled her to touch it. It’s very sweet, and definitely a hilight of the reading session.

Also, she really helps with turning pages, and she clearly understands when she has failed to turn to a new page, because she will keep trying to turn the page until she succeeds. Sometimes I won’t continue reading until she turns the page, so book time can take a while, but usually she really has the hang of it, and knows when to reach out to turn the page and keep the story moving.

I have no idea what kind of cognitive development is underway, but it seems somewhat promising, at least.