It's that time again! I love posting our favorite library finds and this time is no different. In fact, the finds included below are rich in lessons AND in graphics, and I may just be more excited about them than my own daughter is!
Now this particular book list entry was inspired by a book I read for myself.
Mom's Book:
This book is an unknown treasure that every parent (of a little girl) should have on their bookshelf. No, it's not super heady, and it's not the next What to Expect Book. In my opinion, it's better than that. It provides not only the brain-work but actual practical ideas for recognizing your daughter's personality and playing to the strengths of that personality as you build a deep and meaningful relationship that will allow her to blossom into all the wonderful things she can be. Each chapter is full of tools for both mom and dad, and also specific ideas for mommy/daughter and daddy/daughter time. It really focuses on the ways that one can build strong relationships with their daughters. Dads are encouraged to (among other things) affirm their daughters with a promise on paper to value them, invest time in them, guard their hearts and believe in their dreams. Activities might include daddy/daughter dates at home, wood working projects or joint service projects. Parents are given ideas to build things like a princess treasure box filled with things that remind your daughter of biblical verses and concepts to help her to connect with the Bible on a heart level. Moms are also encouraged to speak into their daughters life, many times through teaching moments and loving acts. Parents, me in this circumstance, are encouraged to be perceptive and given tools to guage our daughter's personality and build love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithful, gentleness and self-control.
So, in honor of my very own princess, a self-proclaimed Bella Princess Ninja, I bring you this list of brainy, brave and just because!
Originally published as "Amelia che sapeva Volare," this treasure is about one of those characters that every little girl reads and dreams about, and not in a sparkly way. Amelia Who Could Fly talks about Amelia Earhart as a child. The lovable and adventurous stories of her dream to fly is complimented by gorgeous and colorful illustrations. Exciting and inspiring, this book teaches little girls not to fear and to reach for their dreams, but also the important lesson of falling and failing and getting back up again.
I will admit that initially I was hesitant to add this book to the list of my treasures. I enjoy building my daughter's curiosity and her fascination with science, but I try to challenge her while not emphasizing or using vocabulary that encourages a gap between religion and science. I believe that science is indeed fascinating in its development and while many don't put two and two together, science is filled with elements of beauty and creativity. It is an intriguing and gorgeous study. The fact is, there were times in history where religion didn't value science. Some traditions continue to undervalue science at the expense (in my opinion) of giving props to the depth of God's creativity. As we continued through the one-page blurbs, each containing a memorable illustration that accentuates each woman's unique characteristics, story and contributions, I realized that this book was not extremely biased one way or another. It simply tells the story in a short and succinct way. I'm now loving this books, which also includes a timeline, statistics and a glossary. I can see some who are more conservative than I having issues with the book. I can imagine the words "feminist" and "secular" being thrown around. This, however, is not my view on this book. It talks about strong, smart women. Some of them are fantastic role models. Others probably sacrificed some difficult things that we may not encourage. However, the review of each woman is succinct history, highlighting their strengths and encouraging girls not to be afraid of their brains and abilities. This is one of those values that I both recognize and encourage in my daughter. Just wait! My next science entry will be about her science birthday party!
I ordered the Secret Mermaid series (well, the first four books, which areall that were available at the time at Educatinghope.com Now the final three in the series are also available), and this is the perfect series for your little mermaid who is ready for some read-alouds but not quite ready for the entire Narnia series. Audrey would ask me to read multiple chapters each night and we read through them fairly quickly. It actually inspired me to continue on and order the entire Anna Hibiscus series and the Fairy Pony series for future read-alouds.
This series is about a girl who is initially sad to have to move into her dad's childhood home with her grandmother, until she discovers that she comes from a long line of secret mermaids. The books follow a pretty predictable patterns, but are full of adventure, good vs. evil, kindness and friendship wins, and all those other things we love to see and our daughters thrive on. Would I like to see more meat to the story? Yes. But my daughter is eating this stuff up as if it were chips and salsa (meaning she just can't get enough and also doesn't get sick from too much sweetness). I'm sure we will be buying each book as it comes out, which is okay because they average about 4.99/book.
We've talked about Audrey's favorite-- now for mine! I LOVE this book and actually conducted a full lesson based on the lessons from this book. From looking at this book cover, you must know that I was predisposed to loving this book based on its amazing illustrations. It is full of intriguing, delicate and colorful multimedia illustrations that are simply captivating.
The story itself is about a princess who is indeed a princess, but nobody can really say how or why until she meets a queen's jester. It ends with her being the queen of his heart and the queen of "here, there and everywhere." The development, of course is way more than all of that, and it is quite an inspiring way to incorporate curiosity, value for human character and also worldview. After finishing this story, we did a travel segment on National Geographic and then made our own booklet called Audrey: Princess of here, there and everywhere. In the book we included the planet, continents, countries, states, cities and addresses that make up Audrey's identity (yes, all those words are plural because, as a third culture kid, she herself felt the need to include her Brazilian roots in this booklet as well as her USA roots).
We have read several in this series , which is about a group of friends made up of several very different little girls who call themselves the jellybeans because, while they are very different, they go very well together. Each book talks about the talents of one girl and how those talents/preferences are appreciated by the others. Each girl teaches the others the values of her preference and the others are usually not only encouraging, but willing and able to bring her personality to contribute to the fun of the activity of the others. So many lessons are taught here that I love to keep reading each book to Audrey while it teaches about appreciating differences, taking interest in the interests of those you love, using your talents to the good of the community, and how the talents also make you uniquely able to contribute to the larger group or community. All-in-all, a winner no matter which one you choose. These books are also available in both larger books and smaller board books.
Disclosure: I recieved Women in Science from Blogging for Blooks, and Raising a Young Modern-Day Princess from Tyndale Bloggers in return for writing a review. This post contains affiliate links, which means I may receive a percentage of each sale when you make a purchase using these links or that I received this product in return for the ; however, I fully support and recommend each of these products. You can view my full disclosure policy here.