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| Jackson with our stack of read-alouds for 2015. |
JACKSON’S FAVORITES: Bill Peet's Autobiography, Thimble Summer, Farmer Boy, Yes & No Stories (he says actually has mixed feelings about this and showed me one thumb up and one thumb down, but he insists it is a favorite), Little Eddie, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Furious Flycycle, Fantastic Mr. Fox.
MY FAVORITES: Jen's top selections for the year were the Arabel & Mortimer books by Joan Aiken, and Tomie dePaola author-illustrated autobiography series 26 Fairmount Avenue, perhaps because they were new to me, but mostly because they were so damn charming.
EXCEEDED HIGH EXPECTATIONS: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
RISKY PICK THAT WORKED: Small Steps: The Year I Got Polio is usually for kids eight up and up and given the subject matter, this could have gone badly awry, but we both loved it. Small Steps is a terrific, uplifting story of friendship among invalids and the grueling physical therapy necessary recover from a catastrophic illness.
Overall it was a wonderful year full of enterprising little boys (Tomie DePaola, Henry Huggins, Little Eddie, Little Pear, Charlie Bucket, Almanzo Wilder, et al.), magical impresarios (Gerald Durrell, Professor Savant, Mary Poppins, Willy Wonka and the Iron Giant), and charismatic beasts (the Golux, the Psammead, the Eshekamedi from Yes & No Stories, Roald Dahl’s foxes, the bears on Hemlock Mountain, Mortimer the raven, and David's Phoenix).
If you'd like to see previous years, here is our 2014 read-aloud record of good books for four year olds and our 2013 read-aloud record of good books for three year olds.
