It’s Children’s Book Week – Celebrate with Good Books for Mother’s Day

Source: bookweekonline.com via B. on Pinterest

This week is National Children’s Book Week and schools and libraries across the country will be having special events to celebrate.  You can take the opportunity to celebrate with you grandchildren and children too.  Here is some  history about the Children’s Book Week.

It originated in 1913 in the belief that children's books and literacy are life-changers.  Franklin K. Matthiews, the librarian of the Boy Scouts of America, began touring the country to promote higher standards in children's books. He proposed creating a Children's Book Week, which would be supported by all interested groups: publishers, booksellers, and librarians. He found important allies among these groups and this event became popular and has grown ever since even with changing responsibility several times.

Since this is Children’s Book Week and next Sunday is Mother’s Day, I thought I’d feature some books about Mother’s Day to honor both celebrations.  Whether you are a grandparent who lives nearby or at a distance, it is easy to make this a joint celebration.  Amazon.com will be happy to help but I’ll get to this later.

Here are some ideas for celebrating Children’s Book Week

·       Dress up as you favorite book characters.  I know it’s not Halloween but kids love costumes.

·       Write poems together and use felt or construction paper to make a family book of poems.

·       Check to see if your local library has an event – if not, visit the library together anyway

·       Recommend age appropriate books to the children in your life

·       Rent a movie based on a book that your child read

Children’s book good for celebrating Mother’s Day:

Where is Baby’s Mommy by Karen Katz

My grandson loved these lift and flap books by Karen Katz.  He learned words and enjoyed the hide and seek aspect of the books. This one questions - Is Mommy behind the chair? Is Mommy behind the plant? The book provides a delightful interactive book experience for the youngest children.

Just Me and My Mom by Mercer Mayer
My kids loved Mercer Mayer's Little Critter books and I must say I did too.  They always featured humor that an adult enjoyed too. In this one the Little Critter enjoys a special day in the city with his mother. Little Critter gets in trouble and his mother is patient when Critter loses the train tickets, picks up a dinosaur egg in the natural history museum, and misbehaves at lunch. He falls asleep on the train going home, exhausted from the outing with his mother.  The day had its ups and downs but it was an overall success and Mom is glad they did it.

The Berenstain Bears: We Love Our Mom! Jan and Mike Berenstain
This is a brand new Berenstain Bears book that Jan has written with her son Mike.  So grandparents they probably don’t already have this one. This book features Brother and Sister trying to decide on what’s the best Mother’s Day gift they can give to their mother.  Children love to have these picture books read to them – even once they can read themselves.  The Berenstain Bears were always favorite bedtime reading at our house and I am happy that there are still new ones being published.

My Mother is So Smart by Tomie dePaola
Every child should have some beautifully illustrated special books on their bookshelf.  Tomie DePaola is one of my favorites to fill this bill.  His illustrations are beautiful and capture the imagination of children and adults alike.  In this book, a tribute to his own mother, a little boy's mom is so smart she can make the perfect Halloween costume, drive a truck, dress like a movie star, dance the polka, make popsicles, teach the whole neighborhood to sing and even stand on her head.  This book is charming and celebrates Moms  - a perfect match for Mother’s Day.

All of these books are available at Amazon.com  Click below for more information on your favorites.