Two Greedy Bears (review by Nadina J. González Nomi)

The story titled “Two Greedy Bears”, by Mirra Ginsburg, is concerned with highlighting the idea of sharing. The author tries to show how greediness affects behaviour. Not only does she achieve this, she also engages children’s attention with bright and colourful drawings, where the furry beards look like real ones.

This story is about two greedy bear cubs that learn a lesson of sharing after an unforgettable experience. One day, they run across a piece of round cheese. But they are afraid that the other one would get the bigger piece. They argue and fight due to the cheese. Suddenly, a fox comes and offers to divide the cheese in equal parts. However, he separates the food into two unequal ones. Thus, the fox eats and eats and eats until the parts are equal. However, they are two very little crumbs.

The story in intended to teach children that generosity is something necessary in order to establish a good and strong relationship with friends. The bears’ behaviour is badly affected by the competition between themselves. However, they get a valuable lesson through hard experience.

A children’s story should demand a certain level of emotional involvement on the part of the reader and/ or the hearer. To put it simply, the story should not just describe some narrative events; it should allow the reader and /or the hearer to participate in it. This involvement can be achieved while reading the tale to children because the reader and/ or the hearer can participate commenting the events that take place in the story.

I believe that “Two Greedy Bears” teaches a valuable lesson. Hence, this story will work for children of any age. It can have an enormous impact on kids by having important implications for future children’s behaviour. Children can reflex on their own conduct towards others. Therefore, this tale would be a good choice for story times and lap times, to help children choose the best way to behave with peers.

“So can I” (review by Gabriela Belitzki)

In this book, readers will meet a friendly girl who carries out several actions which are concerned with daily routines. From brushing her teeth to carrying groceries, this girl is able to do anything. But this child is not alone; she is joined by different animals that can perfom these same actions very well, and even greater than this sweet girl.

The authors, Allan Ahlberg and Colin Mc Naughton, draw different comparisons between these girl’s abilities and these animals’ abilities, which happen to be really funny. These comparisons are expressed through repetition, which is the authors’ main stylistic resource. As repetition implies the use of the same grammar structure throughout the story, it is easy for young readers to predict the following comparison between the girl and the animals. What is more, children can participate by creating new comparisons among the characters. Besides, the colourful and expressive illustrations clearly support the story, increasing children’s engagement.

This book is highly recommended for parents who enjoy reading with their children and for those children who are starting reading on their own.

A fantastic story not to be missed (review by Daniela Pugliese)

Engaging and surprising, when the elephant walks shows children that all of us are afraid of something. This book is brilliantly written and illustrated by Keiko Kasza, who includes so many humorous details in the pictures that children will feel amazed.

The story begins with a series of events in which an elephant scares a bear, who is stealing honey from a beehive when the bear runs away, he scares a crocodile and so on. Fear spreads among other animals until a mouse appears and the question is ‘who would be scared by a little mouse?’. Since the outcome is unexpected for children, it creates a great suspense. This book is wonderful for preschoolers and children who are beginning to read because each page has few words and each picture shows perfectly what is happening.

If you are looking for a book containing a moral then you should get this book. It shows children that there may be someone bigger than you who gets scared. I definitely recommend when the elephant walks.

The great, big, enormous turnip (review by Jésica Torres)

“The great, big, enormous turnip” tells the story of an old man who plants a little turnip hopping it would grow strong. But his wishing is so huge, that he will need many hands to pull it up. By this retelling, Alexei Tolstoy, leads young readers to involve themselves with the values of cooperation, teamwork and diversity.

The little turnip grows great, big and enormous being impossible for the old man to pull it up by himself. For this reason, he calls for help to the old woman. But as their strength is not enough, he goes on asking for help and joining more people and animals who accept to cooperate with the old man despite the differences they may have as regards culture, age, race and gender. In fact, it is not until they are all together hauling the turnip up at the same time and direction, that the big plant comes up.

Tolstoy’s retelling is great for young learners of the English language. Its repetitive use of the regular and a few irregular verbs in the past tense and the reiteration of lexical items that children are familiar with, make the book and effective resource; easy for children to understand and enjoy while learning collective principles in the foreign language.

Eat up, Gemma (Review by Gisela Méndez)

Gemma's family tells her that she must eat, but she doesn't like being pushed around. Instead she does what she wants: she throws her breakfast on the floor, pulls grapes off one by one, bangs her spoon on the table and gives her dinner to the dog. When Gemma,the main character in “Eat up, Gemma”, finally decides to eat, she chooses not only an unusual time and place, but also a funny presented meal. Sarah Hayes has written this story with a focus on the difficult stage for parents in which children are not willing to eat anything.

The text does not imply race, but its illustrator, Ormerod, extends Hayes’ witty prose with warm and lively drawings of a black family, sometimes frustrated but always willing to understand and care for its youngest member. The little Gemma, is a lovely character: showing in every action the lively curiosity of her age group.

The book will work as an interesting tool for parents to deal with toddlers who are determined not to eat their food.

Eat up, Gemma (review by Betina Ricchezza)

“Eat up, Gemma” is a wonderful and lovely story in which a whole family encourage baby Gemma to eat. The author, Sarah Hayes, uses simple language to describe funny situations of a family dealing with common problems of a baby. The author´s choice that Gemma´s elder brother narrates the story makes it much warmer and more sensitive.

Baby Gemma decides not to eat and when she hears her mum, dad or grandma saying “Eat up, Gemma”, she throws her breakfast on the floor or gives her dinner to the dog. All family´s attempts to encourage Gemma to eat fail. A Sunday morning at church, Gemma becomes fascinated with an unusual hat of a woman. This amusing situation gives her elder brother an intelligent idea to solve the problem.

Along the story the author manages to combine humour, worries and smartness which make “Eat up, Gemma” a great story.

Recommended for preschoolers and younger. They will reflect on it ; and even their parents !

Forum 1: The appropriate topics for children

As we read at the beginning of the year, Corbally sustains that “children’s literature is didactic (teaches/preaches); even the best of children’s literature is didactic.” So, if we agree products for children are supposed to ‘teach’, what do you think they should teach? Or, the other way round: what do you think they should not teach? What topics are proper or improper when children are the target?

Join the discussion!