A couple of weeks ago I happened to catch the childrens books Saturday morning segment on National Radio and Kate de Goldi was talking about Arnold Lobel (click here to download the podcast of the segment). I didn't recognise Arnold Lobel's name, but during the segment she read out a wonderful sounding book called Tear-water tea, which Alex remembered from his childhood. In the story Owl thinks of lots of sad things so that he can fill his teapot with tears. Things like pencils that are too short to use, mornings that no-one will see because they are still asleep, spoons that have fallen behind the stove and are never seen again, and songs that cannot be sung because the words have been forgotten. The quirkiness of the story and the things that Owl found really sad appealed to me, and I decided to search out a few more Arnold Lobel books. In my internet searching I discovered that he was actually quite a prolific author and wrote a lot of the "I Can Read" series of books (including the Frog and Toad stories, which I had as a child).
I managed to track down a second-hand copy of Owl at Home, that includes Tear-water tea, and another couple of Arnold Lobel books and I thought I'd share some pages with you. The stories are actually quite funny and appealed to me as an adult reader (very important I think - reading out loud to children is much more enjoyable if the adult likes the story too). These are going to go in my growing collection of books for my future primary school classroom.
10 comments:
We have Hubby's old copy of Frog & Toad on our shelf. Fantastic!
How funny- I just picked a copy of Owl at Home up at the recycling centre- both because I loved the pictures and the title. "Owl at Home"- it could be me, really.
Tear-water tea, thats cute! I still have my copy of Frog and Toad Are Friends, it's quite a timeless sort of book.
Mouse Soup was a favourite of mine when I was a kid - I think I still have my old copy! :)
omg, that's too cute! I love the part where he thinks he's gonna die from too many clothes. And all those forgotten, unwanted things - I knew there was a reason for collecting all those old pencil stubs from op shops.
oh YES!
frog and toad together.
the name arnold lobel is in the recesses of my childhood memory too - we had the story on a little record that we played and played, and read the book along to!
that was back in the dark ages.
thinking of you as you get ready for uni soon - are you starting in march? i am, thru waikato uni.
(not sure if ya remember from last year's blog updates - i am upgrading my teaching degree!!! woot woot.)
mwah X
You're absolutely right that the story needs to have a good rhythm for the adult to read out loud. Sweeney and I butt heads over which books I'll read to him at night - Dr Seuss, Tiger Who Came to Tea etc - and which ones are for him to pore over by himself - anything with Bob the Builder in it.
You're committed to reading each story three times a night at least, so it needs to flow ...
Oh my, I remember that sad owl book!
The part about the spoons falling behind the stove & never being seen again really upset me when I was little and I couldn't bear to read any further!
Thanks for this!
The radio program is interesting too!
So happy to see that someone (sort of) close has these books!
I had 'Miss Suzy' when i was younger and loved the illustrations! I may have to find these for sale online now!!
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