After an absolutely beautiful weekend here in the Northeastern USA, today is a cold, damp, dreary day. To some, it would be a great day to do laundry or organize photo albums, but for me, it's a great day to read a book! Of course, it is a work day. This blog is certainly not work to me, though, because I am surrounded by some truly extraordinary picture books!
Tomorrow I will recommend some great rainy day activities. You know that my first suggestion would always be to curl up with a great book, so today I'll tell you about two more wordless books. They both can transform your rainy day into a journey of the imagination!
Gee, how fitting that the first book happens to be called Rainstorm! This innovative wordless book, by author/illustrator Barbara Lehman, shows us how one boy was able to turn a boring, rainy day into a truly magical one.
When he finds a mysterious key, he unlocks an even more mysterious trunk. It contains a long ladder, which brings him to an underground passageway and eventually to a spiral staircase which leads to..... a beautiful, sunny place. I don't want to give too much away! All I can say is that, in the end, reality and fantasy collide when you see the "beautiful, sunny place" from his bedroom window....
It'll definitely leave all ages of readers thinking!
Another extremely innovative book by Barbara Lehman is the 2005 Caldecott Honor Book, The Red Book. I love any book with a reference to maps and geography, and this book would go along well with a book I mentioned in a recent post. Both of them are about so much more than just maps and geography.
If ever there was a book like no other, it would be this one. Like Rainfall, it starts off with precipitation, but this time it's snowing. On her way to school, a girl finds a book in a pile of snow. She picks it up, and can't resist opening it up while she's sitting in class. She zooms in on one island on the map, and sees a boy who is looking at the exact same book. The girl sees what the boy is doing in her copy of the book, and the boy sees what the girl is doing in his copy of the book. Interesting concept, huh?
I'll leave the rest to your imagination, because you certainly have to have an active imagination to truly appreciate this unique children's book. I would say that it's not really for the youngest of readers, even though children of all ages will appreciate the illustrations.
There's so much going on beneath the surface of The Red Book that it really will make all ages of readers (even adults) stop and think. I would say that it's probably most appropriate for children between the ages of 9 and 12. If a group of them looked at it together, discussed it, or even attempted to retell or rewrite the story, it would be really interesting to see what they'd come up with!
So, if you're looking for something really different to not only spark meaningful discussion and creative writing, but also to enhance spatial perception, try one of these unique wordless books by Barbara Lehman.
Oh, and if you happen to be planning on taking a trip to a museum, or seeing the new Night at the Museum movie, you might also want to take a look at another wordless book (by the same author) called Museum Trip.
Would you like to share any thoughts about any of these wordless books?
