Book Baskets

Brown Bear, Red Bird, Yellow Duck, Blue Horse, Green Frog, Purple Cat, White Dog, Black Sheep, Gold Fish, Teacher.

Don’t mean to brag, but that was straight from memory.

Weird flex, I know. I can recite Bill Martin, Jr and Eric Carle’s classic because both of my boys have this trend of getting hooked on a book and wanting it read ad nauseum until they have it completely mastered and/or the book literally falls apart.

Because of that, we recently installed these Closetmaid baskets in the playroom. We put their current favorites or the seasonal books in them, and then trade them out when it’s time or the favorites-of-the-week change. This system also helps us manage library books, so they don’t get mixed in with our personal collection. The rest of our books reside on traditional shelves above that we can trade out when it feels like it’s time.

I also love this new system because I was once taught in a Reader’s Workshop training that early readers literally judge a book by it’s cover, not the spine. Book baskets are preferable to traditional bookshelves for early readers because they choose books by the cover art. While this system wouldn’t be feasible for libraries, it’s great for home and classroom management.

During my time in the classroom, I found the locker bins from the Dollar Store to be the perfect size for children’s books, but these Closetmaid baskets were perfect for the space in the boy’s playroom.

Game on, holiday books, game on!

#holidaychildrensliterature

#bookorganization

#billmartinjr

#ericcarle

The Amazon Wish Book

The Amazon Wish Book arrived a few weeks ago.

Despite the half-hour of entertainment it offered Beckett on a dull Saturday, the whole ordeal was cringey. The branding worked it’s magic, as Beckett vigorously flipped past the pink pages to any blue page with toys that say POW or VROOM.

I don’t know when he made those gender distinctions, but he was on board. I felt concerned that this world we’ve built for him limits him to “boy stuff” only.

I immediately thought back to Tomie dePaola’s Oliver Button Is A Sissy. Oliver Button was a little boy who was teased mercilessly because he loved to dance and draw and play with paper dolls. The boys in school even wrote “Oliver Button Is A Sissy” on the school wall. This precious child persisted, defying gender norms by just being a child at his own version of play. After performing a tap routine in a talent show, Oliver returned to school to see that some of the girls had boldly crossed out “sissy” and wrote “STAR.”

On my children’s literature tour in 2017 I had the pleasure of meeting the late Tomie dePaola at a book signing in New Hampshire. As he signed a box of Strega Nona paper dolls for me, he looked up and said, “This is all I wanted to do when I was growing up, play with dolls like this.”

All of a sudden I flashed back to Oliver Button Is A Sissy and realized who I was speaking to...

Oh, hi, Oliver Button, good to meet you.

So, for context, here we are with this children’s book about defying gender roles from 1979, which, presumptively, would have been reflective of dePaola’s childhood in the late 1930s, a time of highly defined gender expectations. For further context, RBG had just taken on gender equality in Moritz v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue seven years earlier in 1972.

And dePaola’s Oliver Button still danced and drew and played with paper dolls.

Beckett is Oliver Button’s age, and his baby brother is trailing right behind, wide-eyed at everything his brother does and every way we respond to him. They are going to do what their little hearts feel called to do. I just have to make sure that I’m writing STAR on the wall above their heads and teaching them to do the same for others.

#tomiedepaola

My Bottom Line

As a kid I used to read books like Number The Stars and wonder how the Holocaust could have happened.

Today I realize it happens because there is an important component of bravery we don’t teach our kids...the risk. We don’t talk about being at peace with what we may lose when we say “no” to bosses, authority figures, influential friends or colleagues.

Bravery requires not waiting to act until you have something on the line. Bravery requires us to not wait until there is no one else to speak for you.

Reading books like Number The Stars to our kids gives us the opportunity to discuss what’s important to us and what our values are. It helps us lay the foundation for them to figure out their values for themselves.

With intentionality, those conversations can happen at any age. Literature is a fantastic way to prompt these hypothetical conversations, so you don’t have to talk about the peaceful protestors on the news that are being pepper sprayed. Beckett is too young for Number The Stars, but there are plenty of picture books on the theme of bravery that we do read.

He’s also my captive audience right now and I get that. So, if your kids don’t want to snuggle up with you anymore for a picture book, try reading their required school reading while they are and asking a question or two at the dinner table or in the carpool line. If your kids are really too cool, I don’t know, copy important quotes on sticky notes and put them on their bathroom mirrors or steering wheels. Maybe text them quotes you found powerful or significant. You’re uncool no matter what, just lean into it.

It’s our job to keep them safe and prepare them to be grown-ups, so while they’re young, the bad things can just be like those “ghost stories” Lowry mentioned. But one day it will be their jobs, and they have to know when their bottom line has been crossed.

“And they are beginning to realize that the world they live in is a place where the right thing is often hard, sometimes dangerous, and frequently unpopular.”

― Lois Lowry, Number The Stars