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3.82 AVERAGE
3.82 AVERAGE
Heart warming, hilarious, exceptionally well-written. Some of the best character development I've read! This book was a wonderful, much loved read-aloud for our family.
A book that I got when I was a kid but never read, glad I finally did. About 6 children in a village of the Netherlands who become committed to the idea of bringing storks back to nesting on their homes. Really cute story.
A really wonderful book to read aloud to an 8yo animal lover. The dialogue was realistic (surprisingly so for a book written in 1954), the characters were relatable and distinct, and there was humor sprinkled throughout. I have to admit that the cover had me thinking it would be windy and boring, but that wasn't our experience at all.
Very sweet and well done. Plus Maurice Sendak illustrations! I don't know why I didn't read this in childhood, but it is a good one.
I love kids books where the dialogue is realistic, and the characters of the grown-ups are also realistic. It's not contrived, it's not "goody goody" adults, it's REAL people. This story of the little schoolchildren in the Dutch town of Shora is so endearing. They put forth so much effort to get a wheel on the school so the storks can come. There are such lessons to be learned here: people aren't always what they seem (Old legless Janus isn't really a mean man), and the value of hard work and working together (the tin man, the old man Evert, fishermen fathers) and accomplishing something so everyone benefits. My kids will definitely read this one!
This is a charming book that had me rethinking my initial judgement of the book for its size and title. Throughout the story the children and their adult helpers came alive for me and had me chuckling as they worked together and learned to appreciate each other as they worked towards bringing storks back to Shora.
This book took us a long time to get through. It was a little hard to read out loud, and moved pretty slow through the first half, but we loved the last few chapters.
The Wheel on the School is a sweet story about how one person can inspire her community to action. Lina is the only girl her age in the school. She wants to know why the storks don't come to her village of Shora anymore. The school teacher asks all of the children to think about why the storks don't come to Shora anymore. In trying to figure out the answer to that question, they come up with a solution that will involve every member of the village. My kids loved how all of the different characters in the village came to be a part of the solution.
1955 Newbery Winner
At the beginning of the book, the teacher challenges his students to go home and wonder. He tells them that wondering makes things happen. They do wonder and all kinds of things start happening.
At the beginning of the book, the teacher challenges his students to go home and wonder. He tells them that wondering makes things happen. They do wonder and all kinds of things start happening.
This is an excellent choice to read aloud to children in the range of 4 to 9 years. It is a slow-moving story, perfect for bed-time & quiet-time with a parent, especially in a family where observation of nature & people, attentive focus on one's own projects, and respect for the various developmental stages of childhood are embraced.
This bold young boy commits a revolutionary act - he keeps asking questions, even after each adult he asks feels they have given him a complete & satisfactory answer. And he cares about something that he has never seen, but which he notices the elders in his community cared deeply about at one time. And finally, he dares to believe that he can fix things - that he can get folks to work together to do something he strongly feels they want & need, even if they don't recognize it yet.
How much better a world would we be living in if every child heard this story, saw this as a model of how to act, and grew up aiming to do humble good works like this?
This bold young boy commits a revolutionary act - he keeps asking questions, even after each adult he asks feels they have given him a complete & satisfactory answer. And he cares about something that he has never seen, but which he notices the elders in his community cared deeply about at one time. And finally, he dares to believe that he can fix things - that he can get folks to work together to do something he strongly feels they want & need, even if they don't recognize it yet.
How much better a world would we be living in if every child heard this story, saw this as a model of how to act, and grew up aiming to do humble good works like this?