Saturday, January 12, 2008

June 29, 1999


Aneesa says that June 29, 1999, by David Wiesner, will inspire Maya to be a gardener and a scientist. Hopefully Maya doesn't set her sights on growing mega-ton broccoli. Holly Evans plants seeds in starter pots and sets them aloft with balloons to see what effect "extraterestrial conditions" will have on them before they return to the ground several weeks later. Well, several weeks later giant vegetables descend upon the Earth. There is a twist after Holly, a good scientist who keeps accurate data, notices some of the giant vegetables weren't among her specimens.

Wiesner's imagination is weird and wonderful, and his watercolor art is beautiful. There are a lot of details on each page to be talked about. Check out the headlines Holly is pasting into her scrapbook.

Aneesa talked quite a bit in her post about the importance of reading to even the youngest children, even before they really understand. Libraries like mine also spend a lot of effort trying to get this message out and support parents. I guess I had taken for granted that pretty much everyone has heard this by now. However, at Christmas when we put books on Maya's Christmas list, we got a couple of surprised responses, family members wondering why we would want books for Maya. After all, she can't read.

So let's keep getting the message out there. Thanks, Aneesa.

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