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2014 Notable Children’s Books–Younger Readers

5 Feb

Here is a great list of picture books you might like to read – alone or with children!

Waking Brain Cells

The Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) has selected their 2014 Notable Children’s Books list.  The Younger Readers section contains books for children preschool to age 7.  Here are the books:

Alphablock 15814436 The Bathing Costume: Or the Worst Vacation of My Life

Alphablock by Christopher Franceschelli

Ball by Mary Sullivan

The Bathing Costume, or, the Worst Vacation of My Life by Charlotte Moundlic, illustrated by Olivier Tallec

Benjamin Bear in Bright Ideas A Big Guy Took My Ball! Building Our House

Benjamin Bear in Bright Ideas by Philippe Coudray

A Big Guy Took My Ball! by Mo Willems

Building Our House by Jonathan Bean

15062342 Count the Monkeys

Bully by Laura Vaccaro Seeger

Count the Monkeys by Mac Barnett, illustrated by Kevin Cornell

The Dark The Day the Crayons Quit Deep in the Sahara

The Dark by Lemony Snicket, illustrated by Jon Klassen

The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt, illustrated by Oliver Jeffers

Deep in the Sahara by Kelly Cunname, illustrated by Hoda Hadadi

Eat Like a Bear 15815400

Eat Like a Bear by April Pulley Sayre, illustrated by Steve Jenkins

Exclamation Mark by…

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Slice of Life Stories

5 Feb

One of my favorite professional blogs is Two Writing Teachers. They have a project called SOLS, Slice of Life Stories, in which they challenge people to write little vignettes of daily life and post them. So, I am challenging myself to write a slice of life on Tuesdays. Yes, I realize it’s Wednesday, but last week’s stressful week has now become this stressful week. I keep telling myself things will be less stressful once literacy night (tonight) is over, but I think I’m a bit delusional. Anyway, on to my slice of life.

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Monday when I was getting into the car to leave work to go to a meeting, I noticed that the front driver’s side tire  on the car next to me looked low.I knew who the car belonged to. I briefly considered going in to tell her about her tire, but I didn’t. I had to get to my meeting. I forgot all about it until I got up yesterday morning. It was cold and I knew Id have to scrape, so I was a little grumbly. As I opened the driver’s side door I saw that my  front driver’s side tire was almost flat.

I am an introvert and a big self-talker. The words going through my head were ” Crap, crap, crap” and “Don’t cry”. For the record, “crap” is my favorite expletive and it says so on my Ravelry profile. After scraping the car to the rhythm of my mantras, I decided to drive 2 blocks to the gas station to see if it was fillable or if I had to call Triple A. The kind lady behind the counter at the gas station exchanged my quarters for a dollar and I was able to fill the tire. well, I almost filled it. It was a cold morning and my hands didn’t seem to want to cooperate, but the tire was full enough to drive to work when the air pump stopped.

I made it to work and checked the tire at noon and again before leaving. It looked about the same, so I figured I’d stop by the gas station near school, fill it up the rest of the way and hope that I didn’t have a repeat the next morning. I had my blinker on to turn right, into the gas station, when a little voice told me to keep going straight to Les Schwab Tires, just to have them take a look at it, thinking there might be a slow leak. So, I turned off the blinker, and did so.

Les Schwab Tires has been good to me, helpless female who knows nothing of cars. I told them my problem and then had to wait almost an hour. There was a point when I grumbled a bit, thinking I’d wasted my time. Then, my name was called and I was good to go. In fact, I was better than good. It turns out, there was a screw in my tire. If I hadn’t stopped in to have them check the tire, I would have a had a repeat performance today. I might have cried if that had happened.

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