Poetry and notes

The upside to being a voracious reader, of course, is being a keen writer and storyteller.  The Bookmonster has that in spades ... our house, in fact, is literally wallpapered in dozens of notes commenting on various preoccupations from puppet shows to ballet, instructions for Mum and Dad, messages to her little sister, and general observations of daily life.

Some of then are funny, others mundane, and some scarily beautiful. Take the tale of the fox.

"The fox is stiff. Very stiff.  Stiff as my finger sometimes.

It means it is numb. Stiff and cold."

The fox in question was found dead in our backyard.  It was her first closeup encounter with both a fox, and a dead animal.

Her teacher has observed that the Bookmonster tends to process her feelings through her writing, and her composition book is full of two or three sentence accounts of scary or upsetting experiences, usually illustrated to underline the point. What a tremendous outlet for a young child ... while this reading/writing thing has its challenges, it is quite clearly a very fortunate gift.

Annika reviews Bindi

Bindi Wildlife Adventures: Camouflage. By Chris Kunz.

This book is about Bindi helping to find a stolen Komodo Dragon when she visits Singapore.  She also saves the life of a girl called Jasmine who was bitten by the  Komodo dragon. They have poisonous saliva. I liked this book because it was about Bindi, and it was funny when she made a joke about the bumboat.  She wanted to know if they were going to travel by bumcar, or bumcycle. It made me roar with laughter.  I also liked it because it helped me to learn about a new animal. 

Home from the library

The Bookmonster has ballet on a Monday afternoon, and that's when the Puzzlemonster and I go to the library to refuel.  The stocks were low this week: only three books that seemed suitable for Annika, with nothing particularly appealing in the non-fiction section either.

We took out: Magic Ballerina, Summer in Enchantia (Darcy Bussell); Blizzard of the Blue Moon (Magic Treehouse #36 by Mary Pope Osborn), and Philomena Wonderpen is a teeny weeny doll (Ian Bone).  They have already been read and re-read and the Puzzlemonster objected yesterday when her sister decided to move onto "her" library books. (Gilbert the Great, Brave Little Penguin, I've Lost My Kisses, Murphy Jumps a Hurdle, and Little Dog).

Peace was reestablished when I reminded them that the Bookmonster LOVED to read to her little sister, and they spent half an hour curled up on the couch together, reading aloud. I try to remember its good for the Bookmonster to read aloud ... she loves to play with the tone and colour of the language, and delivers the full dramatic experience.  It's also a good gauge of her understanding of the words ... and it's wonderful to hear her explaining the meanings to her adoring little sister.