sound effects

A Series That Luke Loved: Emily Jenkins’ Toys Trilogy

Hi there.  Luke here.  I’m four and a half years old now.  I still enjoy reading picture books either with my parents or by myself, but I also really enjoy being read longer, more difficult books, too.  My mom has tried Magic Treehouse (not engaging enough for me), Magic Schoolbus (I like them but they are pretty complicated), and some Roald Dahl books (I’m definitely not ready to talk about child abuse and parents dying!), but the Toys trilogy by Emily Jenkins has been the first series to really stick.

The chapter books are about the adventures of three toy friends (and a few other supporting characters like a one-eared sheep, a rocking horse, and a bath towel): Plastic, a rubber ball; Stingray, a blue plush stingray; and Lumphy, a stuffed buffalo.  They belong to a little girl whose name (they are pretty sure) is Honey.

I enjoyed these books for a number of reasons:

1) SOUND EFFECTS!  I love sound effects!  They make me laugh and keep me engaged.  Seriously, who doesn’t think “Fwuuumpa! (baggle baggle)” is funny?  Ok, how about “Fwap! Gobble-a gobble-a”?  And “Grunk, gru-GRUNK!”  When Stingray gets scared, she makes this sound, “Frrrrrrrr.”  My mom does a great job with this sound–I laugh every time.

2) Songs!  Sprinkled throughout the stories are funny little songs.  My favorite is sung by Frank, the washing machine.  Did you know that washing machines get lonely and need dance parties, too?

3) Just the right level.  Some longer chapter books have too many words that I don’t know, and when there are too many of them, I have a hard time following the story.  But these books had only a few words that I didn’t know, and my mom would either define them for me or I could piece together what they meant from context.

4) The story.  As a kid who finds social interactions challenging, these books gave me many examples of how friends can interact.  From fights to making up to feeling empathy for others to having fun, the toys in the stories, with their distinct personalities and strengths and weaknesses, provided models of friendship for me.  The toys’ adventures are also laugh-out-loud funny, touching, and a bit philosophical. (The last two pages of the third book made my mom cry.  She said that the ideas about existence in them were beautiful.  They were ok, I thought, but she said that I’d better understand them when I got a little older…)

So if you’re looking for a series to read to an older preschooler, Kindergartner, or first grader, check out the Toys books!

           

Happy reading!

–Luke (age 4.5)

Clicking on a book will take you to Amazon.com, and if you decide to buy the book, a portion of your purchase comes back to me.  I, in turn, will use the profits to purchase books for our local library or for a children’s literacy project.

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The Joy of Jumping on the Bandwagon: The Book with No Pictures

Hi there!

My name is Luke, I am three years old, and I am a bookaholic.

This past Christmas, Mama gave me B.J. Novak’s The Book with No Pictures.  She also gave it to three other friends of mine.  Clearly, she loves the book and put her money where her mouth is.

Sometimes Mama’s taste in books does not coincide with mine (see A Sick Day for Amos Magee), but in this case, we are in complete agreement.  The Book with No Pictures is AWESOME!  So, there are literally zero pictures in the book (unless you count the penguin symbol for Penguin Books, in which case there are exactly THREE pictures on or in the book–trust me, I counted them).  But there are crazy words that the person reading the book HAS TO SAY.  And the “person reading the book” is usually an adult, so listening to an adult make weird noises and say weird things is really quite entertaining.  Try it!  And to make that adult read the book over and over again is the ultimate power trip.  Think about it: the adult thinks that she is doing something educational for you, something “beneficial for your development,” but in reality, the adult is making a complete fool of herself and making you laugh and laugh at her as she stumbles through words like “ma-grumph-a-doo” and sings nonsense songs about her face being a bug.

Silly parent.  The joke’s on you!

I’m just sitting here enjoying the show, enjoying the book, enjoying the words, en…joy…ing…read…ing…awww, man!  I’ve been had!

   The Book with No Pictures by B.J. Novak

 

Clicking on the book will take you to Amazon.com, and if you decide to buy the book, a portion of your purchase comes back to me.  I, in turn, will use the profits to purchase books for our local library or for a children’s literacy project.

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On Acting the Fool: Reading Tip About Reading With Sounds

 

My Mama and Dada are fools.  Wait.  Perhaps I should clarify.  My Mama and Dada act like fools when they read with me.  They’ve acted this way since they first began reading to me, and it’s part of the reason why I love reading with them so much.  They add noises wherever they possibly can.  They add noises that don’t even exist in real life, all so I will engage in the books they read.  And the noises work!  I love books with lots of possible sound effects, and now that I’ve begun my own pretend play scenarios, I use the sounds myself.

Here are some of the books that provide plenty of opportunities for both animal sounds and other noises that my Mama and Dada read to me when I was really little:

Here are a few books that I liked when I got a little older:

Here are a few other sounds that my Mama and Dada use throughout the books we read:

  • up and down (brrrrrrp with ascending and descending pitch)
  • walking (doot doot doot with fingers walking)
  • running (huffing and arms swinging)
  • doors opening (creeeeeak)
  • falling down (thump or ka-boom)
  • cars or go (vroom)
  • stop (errrrrrr! Or screeeech!)
  • wind blowing (hooooo)
  • rain (pshhhhh with fingers wiggling up to down to mimic rain)
  • squirrels (sing-song “squirrel, squirrel, shake your bushy tail” and have child wiggle)
  • flowers (sniff flowers and have child sniff, too)

Act the fool!  Add sounds wherever you can.  They draw in little guys and gals like me and help us really enjoy reading with you!

–Luke (blog co-star, age two and a half)

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