Though I am a most impressive wide-mouthed frog even that pales in the face of my alligator impersonation. You probably can guess that the alligator eats wide-mouthed frogs! This pop-up book is one of the kids’ favorites and I recommend The Wide-Mouthed Frog by Keith Faulkner with illustrations by Jonathan Lambert if you are into dramatic renditions of a book sure to catch your fancy as well as the children’s.
I read at the KCMS family clinic and so have kids who are in the waiting room and are of varying ages and are there for varying lengths of time before leaving to see their doctors. I carry mostly books for the elementary level, but also include some for older children and they are really good at finding Waldo in Martin Handford’s Find Waldo Now – I am very bad at it. I have one little chap who is crazy for dinosaurs and I promised him that I would always bring “his” dinosaur book, The Big Book of Dinosaurs by Angela Wilkes, the best (I think) dinosaur book for young children available. I would be clueless without the pronunciation index! He has allergies and so comes to the clinic on a regular basis at certain times of the year, but I am always prepared with the book and a review of proper dinosaurial pronunciation.
I have been a reader since the program was initiated and so have watched it grow and get better and better with each innovation from convincing pediatricians to give out books to reading in the park. Ready to Read's greatest asset is introducing children to being read to aloud who have not had that wondrous experience and to provide a book for them to hold and feel and turn its pages. I sometimes have to caution them to “be gentle with my books” or haul them into the bathroom for a scrub of sticky hands as they learn that books are so valuable that they must use them lovingly. I always spread the books out on a table and sit with the kids on the very small, very hard stools so that is as warm and inviting an environment as possible. I make sure to always tell them, particularly children just learning to read and those finding it difficult, that books will bring the whole world to them and that if you can read, you’ll never be bored. I hope they believe me.