1 comments about Nursery Crimes.

1. Jambo and Marva are immigrant pigs living in Ames Town. They have 12 children and make their living by raising topiaries and pumpkins. One night the topiary thief Voler steals all their turkeys. Facing financial disaster, Marva cooks up a scheme that helps them prove Voler was the culprit The book is not scary, but it does have some tension. It introduces some uncommon vocabulary words such as topiary. It has about 900 words.

No comments about The Tasty Thanksgiving Feast (Lift-the-Flap Book (Harperfestival).).

No comments about The Thanksgiving Bowl.

No comments about Molly Y Los Peregrinos/Molly's Pilgrim.

No comments about Let's Celebrate Thanksgiving (Let's Celebrate).

No comments about Huff and Puff on Thanksgiving (A Totline Teaching Tale).

1 comments about The Squirrel's Thanksgiving.

1. Finding this gem for Thanksgiving reading-to-children made me happy. The book theme covers the smaller stresses of fmaily life, and compares the Squirrel family with another Squirrel family. The main characters learn the lesson --things are really pretty green on our side of the fence. The pictures endear you to their home life. Siblings learn to be positive. A win win book.

2 comments about The Can-Do Thanksgiving.

1. The Can-Do Thanksgiving offers young children, their parents, and/or their teachers a vehicle in which to begin to explore the subject of homelessness, hunger, and the needy. Its strenth is that it's written in a format that kids can understand and have fun with. It will also give a child a feeling that perhaps in their own way they can do something. After all, we ask our kids donate cans of food to feed the hungry but it often ends there. Well, the cans do go somewhere and each one can help someone, somehow, in its own way. In The Can-Do Thanksgiving children will experience this first hand.



2. I am surprised that SLJ panned this title. I personally think it is excellently crafted and very age-appropriate for grade K-3 for teaching the spirit of community service. The main character approaches the service projects the way a kid might, and she works through her commitment to the project with the spirit of a kid. The book is not preachy and definitely not a downer, like "oh, look at these poor people and their lousy lives.." like some books that are intended to create sympathy do. The people who come to the church for the community Thanksgiving dinner are portrayed as normal people with dignity and the story does not create a sharp delineation between the children who are doing the service from the children who are receiving the service.
   I am using this title with my Brownie Girl Scout troop to teach them about how children can go about helping in bigger projects that benefit the whole community.

3 comments about Giving Thanks.

1. This is not a book about being thankful for nature. It is about being thankful TO nature. The book teaches children to be thankful to animals, and inanimate objects of nature - not God. It would be helpful to the consumer if this book was labeled somewhere as a book of Paganism as this is not clear from the cover.



2. The book teaches children to be thankful to animals, and inanimate objects of nature.
   
   True. And it's lovely. The illustrations are beautiful. A father and son take a walk through the woods near their house, and the father teaches his son to be thankful for all the things in nature that they see.
   
   At the end, the son even says, "To me, it's a little embarrassing to say thanks to trees and things. But Dad says it becomes a habit; it just makes you feel good."
   
   Each page is richly illustrated, with lush paintings, and just a few words per page, allowing the child (and parent) to enjoy the illustrations and message.
   
   A beautiful book with a beautiful lesson.



3. This book is terrific! The illustrations are awesome!
   It actually gave us the idea for a new fmaily tradition for Thanksgiving -hiking with our kids - giving thanks to nature and everything around us. :-)

No comments about Setting the Turkeys Free.