MommaReads

Carlos heads out into the rainforest with his umbrella made of leaves to see some animals. Once he gets there he can’t see anything, so he leaves his umbrella on the ground and begins to climb a tree for a better view. One by one animals of all shapes and sizes end up in Carlos’ umbrella. Children can use the pictures on the sides to predict who just might end up in the umbrella next as well as being able to see what Carlos is doing while his umbrella on the ground is filling up. One of my Sunday school students must be studying the rainforest at school because he was telling me ALL about this book today and since we are in the middle of our Jan Brett author study I knew exactly which book he was talking about. 🙂

Every morning the Tomten (ornery elfish creature) comes and steals an egg from Henny. When Henny notices her friend Goosey-Goosey just had a bunch of goslings, Henny decides she wants some babies too, but that can’t happen if the Tomten keeps stealing her eggs. So Henny’s friend, Hedgie, comes up with a plan to trick the Tomten and save Hedgie’s eggs, but even Hedgie ends up being surprised in the end. This is another great example of how Jan Brett uses her illustrations to let children see what’s going on in different parts of the story. You can read this again and again and find something new each time.

A little girl loses a mitten to a hedgehog who gets his nose stuck in it so that it looks like he is wearing a hat. The mother hen sees him and laughingly asks him what is on his head. He tells her it’s his beautiful new hat. The gander, the barn cat, the dog, the pig and the horse all laugh at the hedgehog, too, but secretly wish they all had something cool to wear. By the end they all look like a winter fashion show gone terribly wrong. Your kids will love the illustrations, especially the ones on the side of each page that give them a little hint as to what is coming up next in the story. I think this is the first Jan Brett book I ever read and it is probably one of her most famous.

This story is a fun twist on Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Aloo-ki loses her dog sled team on an ice floe and as she is trying to search for them she stumbles across the biggest igloo she has ever seen. It happens to be the igloo of three polars bears who just left to give their breakfast time to cool. The illustrations on the side give the child insight as to what is happening in other parts of the story and also helps the child make predictions…a great reading strategy that every child needs in their “reading toolbox.”

We are taking a one day break from Jan Brett because so many of our friends across the country are having a snow day today. This seemed like the perfect book. Bear is headed up the mountain. Badger asks him why he is going up the mountain and he just replies “Because it’s the perfect day for it.” All of Bear’s friends think they know why he is going up the mountain. To get some honeycomb? To snowball someone? Looking for treasure? Your children will have a blast trying to figure out what bear is going to do once he gets to the top. (Hint: The cover of the book kind of gives it away.) 🙂

As our children become more familiar with the world, they are able to make connections in books to the things they know around them. This is a great book for practicing those connections because even though this story takes place in Africa and its star characters are three dassies and an eagle, it won’t take your child long to figure out that this story sounds a lot like another story they know that has three little pigs and a big bad wolf.

This is a cute and fun tale of a clever little girl outwitting a bunch of trolls as she tries to hike over the mountain with her dog. This is one of Jan Brett’s books that you can read again and again and again and each time you read it your child will find something new in the illustrations…so much fun!!!!

Berlioz and his friends are due to play their instruments in the village square for a ball, but his bass has a weird buzzing sound in it and then their wagon gets stuck in a hole and the mule who is pulling it won’t budge. Various animals stop and try to help, but no one seems to be able to get that mule to go. Berlioz and his friends get their instruments ready so that once they get to the square (if they ever do) they will be ready. As Berlioz is tuning his instrument, out comes a bee (which was where all that buzzing was coming from), which stings the mule on his backside and off they go to the village square where they arrive just in time.

Mei Mei has six of the happiest hens in China. She takes great care with them and sells their eggs at the market. One of the hens, Diasy, is not very happy though because the other hens are picking on her. Daisy has quite an adventure when she finally gets tired of the other hens and ends up getting swept down the river. In order to survive her adventure she has to learn how to stick up for herself which helps when she finally ends up back home with those other bossy chickens.

This story is told from the perspective of Noah’s grandson who is helping get the animals on board and helping to take care of them while they are on their 40 day voyage. The illustrations on the sides show the outlines of various animals that are on the ark. Your child might have a fun time trying to guess what each of the animals are while you are reading the story.