Not a Box by Antoinette Portis

Not a Box by Antoinette Portis

Rating: 4 stars

It was shape week at our house this week.  I know.  Random.  But I'm a girl who likes a plan, and with the start of summer, I wanted a framework of some sort or else I feel like the days are too loosey-goosey (spell check didn't like that) for my liking.  God forbid we have a week without accomplishing something!

So we tried to eat lots of different shapes.  We ate quesadillas shaped like triangles, cucumbers cut up as half-moons, star cut-out cookies, pancakes with blueberries for circles (a double whammy!), bell pepper strips for rectangles to name a few.

We played with tangrams or tangram-like activities, and then for our field trip we went on a shape hunt at our local zoo.  I know that sounds incredibly dorky, but the kids were totally into it and we wondered if we even recruited a friend to go with us whose mom didn't roll her eyes at my excitement over finding a feeding bin shaped like a triangle.  That's a friend for you.  Click here for more details of our shape hunt at the zoo.

It's not a box.  It's a burning building!

During a playdate one afternoon we read Not A Box, which is probably a book everyone knows about already.  It's simple--aren't the best things simple?  Portis (whose book A Penguin Story we love love love) shows how a cute, simply drawn bunny can transport a simple box into anything he wants with his imagination.  My kids aren't box-crazy yet, but they did get into this story for the shape aspect of it.  After my friend read all the book while I cooked dinner for the kids, she handed out a piece of paper with a rectangle on it and each kid transformed their rectangle into a "not-a-box."


I was actually bummed not to participate--when was the last time YOU did an art project?  Probably too long ago.  I find it so enjoyable to stop cleaning, stop blogging, stop picking up the kitchen for the upteenth time to just...draw and paint with my kids.  Priceless stuff.  Anyway, I digress.

Good book and easy activity to provide an opportunity for a little creativity.  Not bad!

A Penguin Story by Antoinette Portis

A Penguin Story by Antoinette Portis

Rating: 5 curious stars

It's nearly 100 degrees out for the fourth or fifth day in a row (I've lost count...am becoming a puddle) so I thought I'd write about a book with snow in it to make myself feel cooler.

We received this as a gift last Christmas; both Lorelei and Ben love it.  Ben especially, as he digs penguins.  What kid doesn't go through a penguin phase?  We are already excited to see them at a zoo whenever we brave the traffic and crowds this summer to see the National Zoo.

Edna the Penguin is tired of the three colors she always sees: black, white, and blue.  Every day, every night, the same colors.  She believes--she has this deep faith in herself--that there is Something Else.  She's not sure what, but she just knows with her little penguin heart that there is Something Else, some other color out there to see.  So she sets off, hiking night and day, with little food to sustain her, till...

WOW!!!

She finds Something Orange!  It's a tent, and a flag, and a glove, and a jacket, and a coat...tons of orange stuff at a scientists' camp near the penguin camp.  She is so excited that she turns around, runs home, grabs all her friends, and together they trudge back to the camp to see the Something Else.

Kinda makes me think of Plato's Allegory of the Cave...ah, Philosophy 101 back at Seattle U...

The scientists and the penguins make friends, and one guy gives the penguins an orange glove with which to return home so they will always have another color in their black, white, and blue lives. 

The story ends with Edna thinking, "There must be Something Else..." and you see a green ship in the background.

This is a really sweet book, and one kids get excited about.  The illustrations are simple, wonderful, clear-cut pictures that, like I said, Ben especially loves.  I know that Antoinette Hartis is best know for her Not a Box book, which we appreciate, but this one is better for us during this phase of Lorelei and Ben's childhood. 

We'll be reading it all summer long.