Read Aloud Thursday

I realize that it is completely the wrong season to highlight a book about snow unless you live south of the equator. However, this is the second time we’ve checked out Tracks in the Snow, which is both charmingly written and illustrated by Wong Herbert Yee, so I didn’t want it to get passed over again  just because it’s summer time here. After all, we can dream about cooler days, right?  This is one of those books that is pure joy to read due to the repetition of words and rhyme scheme.  It is very sing-song, and while this is not always a good thing for adults, it almost always is for children.  I find it immense fun to read books like this to my girls because by the end of the book, they can at least repeat the refrain with me: 

Tracks in the snow.

Tracks in the snow.

Who made the tracks?

Where do they go?

I won’t give away the solution to the mystery that plagues the little girl in the book, but suffice it to say that it is a very satisfying ending for my young ones.  (As a side note, the illustrations are of an Asian child, which I think is interesting because for some reason we don’t see that very often in our readings, unless it is a book that is pointedly set in Asia, etc.)  Highly recommended!

I have searched and searched in vain for a cover image of this next book, and although I don’t like to highlight books for which I cannot supply some sort of visual, I’m going ahead with this one because my girls like it so much. The Golden Locket by Carol Greene has several things going for it here at the House of Hope: 

1. The story’s protagonist is Miss Teaberry, which is a name my girls recognize from the Mr. Putter and Tabby books (my thoughts here).  Lulu realized the first time we read it that this Miss Teaberry isn’t “her” Mrs. Teaberry from the Cynthia Rylant books, but the name recognition alone made her face light up.
2. It is very folktale-ish, and folktales usually go over well here.
3. The story involves animals, confusion and chaos, a very perplexed Miss Teaberry, simple-but-expressive  line illustrations by Marcia Sewall, and a happy ending.  What’s not to love?

To give a very brief synopsis, The Golden Locket is the story of Miss Teaberry, whose cat unearths a golden locket in the garden as she weeds her zinnias (another bonus point:  we have zinnias in our straggling butterfly garden!).  The locket causes Miss Teaberry to lose a night’s sleep because she worries over it so much, so she decides to send on to “an enchanting young girl” in the next town by way of her mailman, with the stipulation that he must tell the girl it is from a secret admirer.  She wants to be rid of the locket and any obligation it might bring her.  She simply wants to go back to her zinnias.  Of course, the girl is grateful, so she sends back a gift to Miss Teaberry, who then has the postman to deliver this gift to “a winsome young boy” in a town in the opposite direction.  The exchange continues until Miss Teaberry concludes the matter very satisfactorily herself.  This is a charming, charming story that we all loved.  Highly recommended!

What are you all reading aloud together?  Share it here, please!  Leave a comment or a link to your own blog post. 

 

Happy Read Aloud Thursday!