Green Eggs and Ham celebrates its 50th birthday this month!

I ran across a great article on journalstar.com about the milestone. The article lists some very interesting facts about this classic book including:

• It is the 4th best-selling book in children’s literature
• The book helped revolutionize beginner reading with its economy of language
• It started as a joke & bet. As stated it the article 

” The 1960-published book was the result of a $50 bet between Theodor Seuss Geisel and his Random House editor, Bennett Cerf. Could Seuss write a children’s book using only 50 different words, a book that would make 6-year-olds want to learn to read all by themselves? Seuss wrote the book and won the bet, of course. Though, reportedly, Cerf never paid him the $50.”

•  It is even more amazing that 49 of the 50 words used were monosyllabic (“anywhere” the one exception).

My favorite quote in the article comes from Kansas State University English professor Philip Nel. He is quoted as saying,

“The value of hooking kids as readers at an early age can’t be underestimated. It’s vital to “bring kids to books and present them as a pleasurable pastime and not just a chore.”

Can I agree here or there? Can I agree anywhere?

I just saw a review of “Heroes for My Son” by Brad Metzler, which contains a “hand-picked collection” of stories from 52 men and women that the author wanted to share with his kids.

The review contains a brief overview of several of the stories, including some interesting information on Dr. Seuss that I wanted to share:

“…When Theodor Seuss Geisel realized the current crop of children’s books, stories like “Dick and Jane,” were too nice, he set out to change them. Life magazine reported that those books were leading to massive literacy problems among kids. So his publisher gave him 348 words not commonly read by schoolchildren but thought important to learn. He took 223 words from the list and added 13 others. And with only those 236 words, he created a book 1,626 words in length, called “The Cat in the Hat,” which sold nearly 1 million copies within three years. Today, over 200 million copies of Dr. Seuss books have been sold. Dr. Seuss’ first children’s book was rejected by 27 different publishers.“

I think we are all glad he didn’t give up after the first 27 rejections.

I have previously mentioned my curiousity with celebrities writing children’s books and their motives. However, the post I saw today tops them all.

Apparently, John Gotti Jr. (yes, the Gambino crime family member) wrote a children’s book while in prison. The book is called Children of Shaolin Forest  and was illustrated by his cell mate.

I am all for rehabilitation, forgiveness, and second chances; but I am having a hard time with this one.

What do you think? Would you allow your children to read a book authored by a crime family member?

For those of you not familiar with the interactive capabilities the iPad offers for children’s books, the Alice for the iPad video on YouTube provides a quick glimpse.

The reviews I have seen for the app itself have been underwhelming, but I think the YouTube video does a nice job highlighting the available capabilities.

I recently saw a press release for a newChristian children’s book called ”My Little Brother Chrisno”, which was written by a 7-year old and his mom.

The children’s book tells the true story of Angel Missions Haiti (a non-profit agency) bringing a Haitian boy with special needs to Carilion Clinic Children’s Hospital in Roanoke, Virginia, for medical treatment. Not only did he receive much needed medical treatment he was eventually adopted into a family of five.

The book intends to help children understand adoption and how to relate to people with special needs. In addition, 25% of all proceeds go to Angel Missions Haiti.

For those of you that have made the leap to iPad and you’re looking for children’s books, ePub Bud may be worth checking out.

 
ePub Bud is a network for uploading, digitizing, and downloadingchildren’s books for use with the iPad or any other device that supports the ePub format.

The site is similar to YouTube, but focused exclusively on digital books for children. It is essentially a clearing house for eBooks, but also offers you the ability to write or digitize your own books if you’d like to take them with you on your iPad or other eBook reader.

I finally found time to read through some information that has been piling up and noticed that 1 in 4 Americans listed “Goodnight Moon” by Margaret Wise Brown as their favorite bedtime story.

It is hard for me to argue with the survey, because I still have this great book (mostly) memorized from reading it to our oldest – she is now 9. “In the great green room, there was a telephone and a red balloon and a picture of the cow jumping over the moon…”

This information was gathered as part of a survey released during Children’s Book Week and also states that parents still find reading a bedtime story a precious moment between parent and child. They also agree it is an effective way to wind children down for a healthy night’s sleep.

I couldn’t agree more.

Sesame Workshop recently launched a new online store  (http://www.ebooks.sesamestreet.org/) for the Sesame Street eBooks.

 This is essentially the commercializaiton of the free eBook access we previously posted. The free version will continue to be available at http://ebooks.sesamestreet.org/free.

If you prefer to have unlimited access, you can subscribe to access more than 100 Sesame Street eBooks. The annual fee will be $39.99, but is being offered at an introductory price of $24.99 through July 4. You can view a demo at http://www.ebooks.sesamestreet.org/demo to see if you are interested in subscribing.

I hope everyone is enjoying Children’s Book Week this year!

Children’s Book Week started in 1919 with “the idea that children’s books can change lives”. It has been celebrated every year since in schools, libraries, books clubs, and anywhere else you find children’s books.

I saw numerous events listed online this year and hope you had an opportunity to participate in some of the activities.

In one posting this week, I saw a nice quote: “In my line of work as a children’s librarian, Children’s Book Week is every week of the year.”

I hope we all can capture some of the Children’s Book Week spirit throughout the year.

Publishers Weekly recently posted about a new initiative by Penguin Group and the Pearson Foundation.

The program, found at www.wegivebooks.org, provides access to “a growing digital collection of Penguin Group’s classic children’s literature”.

Each time you read one of the books online, Pearson donates a book to a child through their partnerships with various literacy organizations. These include United Through Reading, Haiti Learning Spaces, and others.

 Every time you read a new book online, you can select the organization you wish to support.

They intend to donate more than one million books in the first year.

Pretty cool!