Monday, January 6, 2014

Random Children's Lit Thoughts After a Trip to the Library

A recent trip to the library with Little Lipstick introduced me to a whole new set of Maisy books.

Maisy's world is of course confusing in general because there are very few adults, her parents don't exist and yet she still goes on these adventures- the city, the doctor, swimming, preschool- with only her slightly scatterbrained friends.

Yet after reading Maisy Goes to Preschool and Maisy Goes to the City back to back I was horrified to see that poor Maisy's preschool teacher- Mr. Peacock- has a second job working in the city as a toy store clerk. Times are even rough for teachers in fiction. Poor Mr. Peacock- not only does he have to take care of Maisy (who keeps her panda with her throughout the entire day at preschool- and gets paint on panda- you know that wasn't easy on Mr. Peacock) he also has to check out Maisy at the store in the city and help her when she gets lost (because who lets preschoolers wander around the city by themselves????)  I hope his next call was to CPS to alert them that Maisy and friends had somehow taken a bus and a subway train all by themselves and were loose in the city. But it doesn't look like he does. He must be one depressed teacher. 
Three characters that are NOT in Mo's version


On another note, we also checked out Mo Willem's Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs. Little Lipstick is too young to get the humor, but I found it hysterical. I cannot wait to read this to a kindergarten class. It is perfect for ending a unit on Goldilocks and the Three Bears as well as teaching predicting- at each stage you can predict what you think is going to happen based on your background knowledge of the Goldilocks story, but then Mo surprises you.

My favorite part of the book is that the dinosaurs take the time to test the temperature of each bowl of pudding to make sure one is hot, one is cold, and one is just right. As someone whose read a lot of Goldilocks lately it always bothers me that Mama Bear serves everyone out of the same bowl of porridge but only Baby Bear's is just right. I mean, shouldn't his get cold first since it is the smallest? 

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Speaking of Maisy, have you read Yummy, which is a retelling of fairy tales by the same author? She rejiggers Goldilocks, so the bowls are too hot, too salty, and just right!