- Exclamation Mark
- Dogs Don’t Do Ballet
- Sam and Dave Dig a Hole
- The Most Magnificent Thing
- Private: Touch the Brightest Star
- James Marshall
- Cornelia Funke
- The Book With NO Pictures
- The 20 Best Books for Baby
- 20 Best Books for Pre-readers (3-5 yrs)
- The Best Wordless Books
- Detective Invisible – Kommissar Unsichtbar
- Childrens Books Agatha Christie Loves
- Mr. Murry and Thumbkin
Once a month, I read an illustrated storybook to kids at the library and afterward we do a craft project. The whole event is about an hour long.
I highly recommend doing this if you want to write stories for small children. Even if you have children, this is incredibly helpful and fulfilling.
Reading to the kids brings me closer to the community and closer to a better understanding of what captures kids’ attention and imagination. What’s gratifying too is that there are some kids who have become regulars.
Later today, I’ll be at the library reading B. J. Novak’s book, The Book With NO Pictures. This one always gets a great response from kids. They love it, especially when I hit the pages where I need to sound like a robot monkey.
A book with NO pictures?
This concept would have been a very hard sell for a kid like me. I wouldn’t have believed it – without a book like this. And this is truly the first book of its kind.
Kids scream with laughter and they repeat and mimic the words for hours afterward.
After storytime, I always guide the kids through a craft project, in this case: robot monkeys!
Because some of the kids are only 5 or 6 years old, it’s important to keep the project super simple. Otherwise, this quickly becomes a project that all the moms end-up making while their kids watch, eyes filled with tears.
For robot monkeys, we’ll be using colorful construction paper cut into simple geometric shapes, stickers and markers to make bold looking images. Kids especially love anything shiny and colorful.
IMPORTANT TIP: If you have a website for your storybooks (and you should!), then including a simple How-to Craft Project (or two) for your story is incredibly helpful to parents, teachers and librarians.
Keep creating, no matter what.
--Download The Book With NO Pictures as PDF --