Welcome to Tadpole Tales. The purpose of this blog is to review children's books with parents in mind. I intend to review kid’s books, written for children of all ages. Board books, picture books, readers, chapter books, novels – I’m up for it.
I love children’s books. I always have and I think I always will. I remember, as a small child, having a stack of favourite picture books that I would make my mother read over and over again. When I learned to read, I was a voracious reader, devouring everything I could get my hands on. I recall one particularly eye-opening summer vacation spent at an aunt’s cottage. I ran out of ‘young adult’ books then found, and read, a stack of Harlequin Romance Double Digests.
As an adult, I wandered away from the kid’s sections of bookstores and libraries and started reading mysteries, thrillers, classics, award nominees/winners and cookbooks. Then I had children. Running myself ragged, day in, day out, looking after three little kids was more than enough reality for me every day. The last thing I needed was a grisly murder scene or a steamy love affair. I needed an escape and I found it in the 9 – 12 section of the bookstore. Once the kids are in bed and I have some down time, I want to sit with a dragon, some time travel, a spaceship or a talking animal. I’m pretty sure that I haven’t read a book intended for an adult audience in at least a year.
Now that I have three children of my own, I find myself wading knee-deep in children’s literature. The eldest brings home a library book every week and a book at her level every day. The middle is starting with phonetic readers that make little sense to me, let alone her. Youngest, the only boy, has enabled me to delve into more masculine themes in the board book section of the bookstore. I love it. And because I love kid's book and I love the kids too, I find I can’t resist buying books at every opportunity.
Children’s books are thin and sit jammed on the shelves. They are all different dimensions, some jutting out way past the edge of the shelf, others hiding away as if ashamed of their stature. When I have time and energy, I love to sweep my hand along the spines, reading the titles, teasing the little gems out of their hiding places, leafing through the pages and picking out a new story to read at bedtime.
The problem is that most of the time, I have no time… or energy! I have three children! I spend a lot of time making sure we are all clean, fed, happy and healthy. I make time every day for reading to, or with, the children but when I need to add a new book to our shelves, it can be a bit of a chore to try to pick a great title out of the sea of stories.
I told myself there had to be a better way to get good books for the kids than to sit and sort through them, one by one, sometimes getting diamonds, sometimes getting rocks. I decided to look at reviews and base my decisions on those. It has worked for me with adult literature, why not with children’s literature?
I’ll tell you why. Because they don’t always tell me what I need to know. Yes, I want my children to hear a good story written by a skilled author and I do often get that information from traditional reviews. However, there are things that I, as a parent, want to know about books that the reviews don’t tell me.
I tried to get information from other moms. I have gotten some great recommendations this way but, honestly, when I’m with another mom we are often busy helping each other think though the next big parenting challenge. We are not chatting about bedtime reading.
So, I sat alone, judging books by their covers, clicking randomly on links on my favourite bookseller’s website, ordering books and tossing the dice. Did I pick a winner this time? Please let this one be good. I didn’t think it should be like a lottery, but it was.
Then I realized that I could be the source for good information about kid’s books. My children have vastly different personalities, are different ages and different genders and aren’t shy about sharing their opinions. We live in a house sagging beneath the weight of books and I’m not averse to picking up new ones. I can read and review books and include parent-friendly information (see the Parent Friendly? section for more information about that). I can save us all from the tedious books, the overpriced books, the books that kids look at with disgust. I can introduce us all to the diamonds in the rough, the read-again-please-mommys, the short but sweets, the lesson givers.
And so Tadpole Tales has been born. I intend to review children’s books, written for kids of all ages. Board books, readers, picture books, chapter books, novels – I’m up for it.
