Bernette FordBesprekingen

Goodreads Review:
How does this city garden grow? With help from L’il Sissy and her siblings--and love, love, love! A celebration of nature, family, and food.

Visiting the city from her home in the suburbs, an African American girl sees how a few packets of seeds, some helping hands, and hard work transform an empty lot in a housing project into a magical place where vegetables grow and family gathers. It’s the magic of nature in the heart of the city!

Bernette Ford’s autobiographical story is a loving glimpse at a girl, her siblings, and her uncle, and their shared passion for farming. L’l Sissy’s fascination with measurement, comparison, and estimation introduces children to STEM concepts. And the progress of Uncle John’s garden introduces readers to the life cycle of plants.

Frank Morrison, winner of multiple Coretta Scott King awards and an NAACP Image Award, depicts dramatic cityscapes as well as the luscious colors and textures of Nature.

The combination of princesses and puppies makes for a sweet take on the princess genre, and themes of getting along and friendship will resonate among children and their parents

I liked this book because of the plot and illustrations. The plot is fast paced which keeps readers engaged. As soon as little red riding hood leaves her house, she meets the big bad wolf which is when the rising action starts. Then before you know it the wolf swallows her grandmother and tries to swallow little red ridding hood, which is the climax. The book ends with a woodsman saving both her and her grandmother and everyone lives happily ever after. The illustrations are also engaging. There are multiple illustrations on most pages, which helps to keep readers interested. For example on page 5 there are 4 illustrations. Overall the moral of this book is not to talk to strangers. If little red ridding hood ignored the big bad wolf, no chaos would have been caused.

a book talks about 4 children working within a classroom discussnig all the fun things that they can do
1 book

piggy knows how to use the potty. seeing piggy use the potty makes ducky want to use the potty so he takes off his diaper and uses the potty
1 book

Yes, another book in my Binky research. Like many of the others this one isn't newly published, but it's still available.

The approach this book takes is the 'pacifier is getting in the way of my fun' approach. Piggie has a binky he loves, but too often these days it is getting in the way if his play with Ducky.

** POSSIBLE SPOILERS**
Things come to a head when Piggy runs out of backups. You see he drops it in the dirt a couple of times, and unlike some kids I know he doesn't just pop it back into his mouth. And the first few times he just reaches into his pocket and pulls out a clean replacement. When he runs out of options, he ponders the situation and Ducky helps by urging him on, suggesting they put it aside and continue playing.

The ARTWORK in this book is so cute. There a little images on the text pages and giant images on facing pages. So. Very. Adorable!

And speaking of TEXT. The font is huge. Even I don't need to wear me specs.

Whether you are engaged in the Binky battles or just looking for a cute book to share, consider this one for both laptime or classroom time. The size of the pictures in this large format book should make it useful for reading to more than one child.

~Find it at the Library.

This book recognize everyone have different skin color, shape of parts of the face. Also shows that body parts of function. Simple easy reading. Great book for young ages 3-6 Source: Pierce County Library

42 months - O was standing on her bed doing each of the different positions as I read through them. I think she really needs a ballet class.

A bunny is shown expericencing the first snow of the season, and perhaps it's very first. Very cute depiction of what they could encounter; squirels, wolves, a village, village children, a snowman.
3-5 group

Piggy and Ducky are playing hide and seek, but Piggy keeps getting distracted by his pacifier falling out. Will he be able to keep having fun?

This is another picture book in a series from Ford and Williams that aims to help toddlers/young preschoolers move away from babyish behaviors. The goal in this book is for young kids to stop walking around with pacifiers all day long. This is a worthy goal, giving that prolonged use of pacifiers can lead to speech and dental problems, which are difficult long-term effects to explain to small children.

However, I feel like this book doesn't necessarily do a great job of discouraging children from wanting to use a pacifier. In the book, the main problem with the pacifier is that Piggy can't smile or laugh when he has it in his mouth. While it's not uncommon to see a pacifier pop out of the mouth of small infants when they smile or laugh, older kids (aka the audience for this book) are usually pretty adept at holding on to the pacifier when smiling or even when laughing. So this "impediment" caused by the pacifier in the story is not really one that is applicable to real life.

Furthermore, when Piggy starts to cry because he's dropped his pacifier after laughing and now it's too dirty to put back in his mouth, his tears immediately stop when Ducky re-initiates their game of hide and seek. Kids who use pacifiers past babyhood generally do so because it is a way to comfort themselves when they get upset; they would be very unlikely to quickly stop crying just because someone says so. Yes, they can eventually be distracted but it's not as easy as it's made out to be here. And if the way for a child to self comfort is taken away with the only replacement being comfort from an outside source (i.e., a friend), then this is not a helpful lesson in what to do to better deal with strong emotions.

I understand this is a book of fiction and it's designed for a very young audience, so it makes sense in a way for it to be a simplistic book in which a condensed version of the problem and the solution are presented. But it just seems to me that this book won't really help a kid who is attached to their pacifier long past its best by date, as neither the problem nor the "solution" will be recognizable to the child. For that reason, I would not necessarily recommend this book as a useful tool in a parent or caregivers battle to get rid of the pacifier.

Hamster just wants to play with his friends, but everyone keeps saying no because he always hits them. This makes him so angry that he starts hitting everyone!

This book is one of a series of books written by Bernette Ford and illustrated by Sam Williams that talk about topics related to moving from babyhood to the world of toddlers, including giving up a pacifier, a bottle, etc. I've found that some of these books are more effective than others. No More Hitting for Little Hamster! strays from the standard path a little more as the hitting problem follows many kids into the toddler and preschool years and even the elementary ones. Nevertheless, I find this title to be one of the more effective ones from the creative duo.

One of the things that is so good about this title compared to some of the others is that the underlying motives are explored - sure, it's still in a simple way kids can understand, but it's definitely there. The text clearly explains how Little Hamster gets so angry that he lashes out by hitting, thus helping children to understand why hitting happens. Meanwhile, the characters who are hit by Little Hamster expressly state that hitting hurts them, thus explaining to children why hitting is bad, even if you are very angry.

Best of all, Bunny manages to defuse the situation by showing Little Hamster how to keep his hands busy (and thus not hitting) by playing with toys and also holds Little Hamster to his promise of not hitting his friends when they agree to play with him.½

Ducky wants to play with Piggy, but Piggy is using the potty. When Ducky's diaper starts to feel cold and wet, she wants to use the potty, too!

This book is one of a series of books written by Bernette Ford and illustrated by Sam Williams that talk about moving from babyhood to the world of toddlers, including giving up a pacifier, a bottle, etc. I've found that some of these books are more effective than others.

No More Diapers for Ducky! seems like one of the less effective ones to me. For the beginning half of the book, Ducky plays alone while Piggy sits and sits and sits on the potty. Later, Piggy plays alone while Ducky sits on the potty. This doesn't give kids the impression that going on the potty is a particularly interesting thing - indeed, going on the potty means someone else is having fun without you, by the logic of this book. For many young kids, that's the exact reason they don't want to go on the potty - it means interrupting a task they are currently engaged in, a task that is usually play.

Yes, going on the potty is not glamorous, but at least the authors could have made a bigger deal out of how Piggy gets to read his book while he sits on the potty. Reading books is an activity, by the way, that Ducky is doing just outside the bathroom door as well; there is a lost opportunity here to note how you don't necessarily have to give up having fun just because you have to go use the toilet.

Overall, I suppose this book wouldn't be a bad tool to use as you talk to your children about potty training, along with an arsenal of the other kid-friendly potty-training books out there. But I don't think it's the best one by a long shot, and I'd skip it if you have a limited budget or time to read with your kids.

Bunny is always drinking his bottle but when Ducky and Piggy have a tea party, he realizes how the bottle hampers his ability to play.

I thought that the book No More Biting for Billy Goat by the same author-illustrator duo did a really good job of dealing with the problem of that particular aggressive behavior in a clear and concise way that children could relate to and understand. When I saw they also had this title, I thought this would be good to share with my class where I have a child who uses a cup at school but still drinks out of a bottle at home. Unfortunately, I was disappointed with this book. It is clearly designed for toddlers but the situation presented here is one of a character who constantly walks around with the bottle, even when playing. This may be the case for some children in real life, but the problem I've observed most tends to be more about meal times and even more so about naptime/bedtime. Kids have gotten used to having their bottles as part of their sleep routine, and they give tired and exhausted parents a hard time about it. The situation presented here seems like any a child would choose - give up the bottle in order to play - whereas the real-life situation is trickier. This book also seems to include a lot of shaming as part of the move to cups - bottles are for babies is the refrain Bunny hears. There must be more effective ways to teach a child to move on to more appropriate toddler behaviors.½

This book begins to define for children the differences in each other

Piggy can't talk or laugh because his pacifier Is in the way. When it falls out and he cries, his friend Ducky tells him he can play without it. Piggy doesn't need it anymore. This is a cute story to read to very young children about growing up.

Very easy reader that depicts children of brown skin. The children are confident in who they are.
Source: Personal
Ages 3-6

Four friends play, share, and embrace their diversity.
Ages: 3,4,5
Source Pierce College Library

Four children who feel good about who they are and how they look enjoy the activities of a typical day at school, happy and brimming with confidence and self-esteem.

A celebration of self. Black kindergarten children point out their unique features. Great for preschool age.

A book about people of different ethnicity and skin tones. ages 3 to 6

A great book about diversity help children to understand how children with different ethnic feel the same feelings.
Age group: 3-5
Source: Pierce College

A lovely book offering a visual portrayal of children of varying skin tones having fun and enjoying daily activities.
Source: Pierce College Library
Ages: 3-5

Very easy reader that depicts children of brown skin, how they love who they are and how they do the same things as other children.

Pierce College Ages 3-5

I rate this book at five. I rated it this because I feel like my kids will really enjoy this book because it is a pop up book that has beautiful illustrations and also teaches students about various folk tales of another culture. I thought the book was very different and I liked the fact that after each tale it had either an opened question or a thought to leave you with after you read and books really do not that. For content area instruction I will probably use this book to introduce the genre of folktales and folklores. I will also use this book to introduce to my students how books can be diverse.