Greetings, all! I, Richard Nicholas Nimz, prospector of the written word, have returned! Yes, I am taking this class again because I have a problem with my memory and several assignments were not turned in on time. Yeah, I'm kind of an idiot like that. However, this gives me an opportunity to give this blog a second season, which I'm glad for. Thus, I bring another book about reading, Open This Little Book.
Citation: Klausemeier, J. & Lee, S. i. (2013). Open This Little Book. Chronicle Books: San Francisco.
Plot: You'd be forgiven for wondering if there is one. Half of the book revolves around various animals opening differently-colored books. Then they come to a giant, whose fingers are too big to open her book. All of the other animals come forward, open her book, read about themselves, and then close their books and go about their merry ways, exhorting the reader to close this book and pick up another one.
Impressions: There's not much of an emphasis on why you should read. Rather, this book is about reading itself, and it's really cute. The artwork is nice, but there's something a little weird about an artist who pencils in curves but colors in watercolor 'blocks'. The big draw of the book is the fact that it's made up of a bunch of little pages that shrink in size as they get closer to the middle of the book. For example, the first two pages are a little red book, which the reader opens to reveal a smaller green book, which the reader opens to reveal a little orange book and so on down the line. It's very inventive, and given that the children who would have this book read to them have not yet developed a proper attention span, that gimmick really helps. The anonymous reviewer from Kirkus Reviews agrees with me: "The sleek text and endlessly inventive design register strongly by showing rather than just telling. A delightful and timely homage to reading and, more, to books themselves."(2013). An obvious use for this book would be to teach children about the colors of the rainbow, since all of those colors are represented here. Another would be to use it to kick off a scavenger hunt where the kids have to hunt down the books from this book, which are hidden in other books. Of course, there is always the option of simply showing it off and having children make their own little books with unique page shapes, with adult help on the scissors.
Bottom line, if it isn't a classic, it will be memorable. Well worth a try.
Sources:
Open This Little Book. (2013). Kirkus Reviews, 81(2), 224.
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