Tag: best picture books for kids

The Salamander Room

I found The Salamander Room by Anne Mazer in a second-hand bookstore here in Islamabad and it is SUCH a treasure. This is a story about little Brian who finds a salamander and wants to keep it in his room. What follows is a series of gentle questioning from his mum – it’s really sweet that she doesn’t say “Euww! No way!”

She asks how he will cater to the creature’s needs – “Where will he sleep?” etc. Brian answers all of her questions and concerns with imaginative solutions:

  • make a bed for the salamander with leaves and moss
  • bring in crickets and bull frogs to lull it to sleep
  • collect wet leaves, stumps and boulders for the salamander’s play
  • bring in other salamanders for company
  • make a pool and bring in insects for the salamander’s food and drink
  • control the insect population by bringing in birds and bullfrogs
  • provide trees and ponds for the birds and bullfrogs
  • lift off his room’s ceiling so the sun can shine through, trees can grow and so the birds can fly freely

I love how Steven Johnson’s illustrations chart Brian’s grand dreams. As the story progresses with each addition, this creative child’s bedroom is transformed into a lush jungle paradise!

The Salamander Room is a wonderful example of how a living book can be a springboard to nature studies and science. Your little one will be introduced to topics like cause and effect, habitats, amphibians, rainforests, ecology and how we can do our bit to care for the environment.

Some activities you can do with your kids:

This review was first published on Imaan.Net in August 2005 and has been updated for this site.

Salamander image by @issa_user via Twenty20

The Day of Ahmed’s Secret

Back in 2009, my friend Suzanne, who teaches English (among other things!) met with me and our conversation invariably meandered to books. She just about gushed over The Day of Ahmed’s Secret written by the late Florence Parry Heide and her daughter, Judith Heide Gilliland. Of course, I needed very little encouragement to hunt the book down!

Before I talk about this book, I MUST talk about the illustrator, who is one of my favourites – Ted Lewin. I can’t draw or paint for toffee, but I have always longed for the ability because of amazingly talented artists like him. Ted Lewin has illustrated numerous books that my kids and I enjoy. He has an inimitable style that gives the stories warmth and life. His watercolours are remarkably detailed and in this book, he and the authors expertly capture the sights, smells and sounds of the markets and busy streets of Cairo.

Every single time I read a book he has illustrated, I feel as if I were looking at a photograph! I’ve discovered the secret to his realistic and vibrant pictures – he uses his friends and neighbours and their kids as subjects and directs them to ‘act’ out the story while he photographs them in the studio!

The Day of Ahmed’s Secret is about young Ahmed who rides through the streets of Cairo to deliver cylinders of butane gas (it is for cooking) to his father’s customers. He has a secret to tell his family, but it must keep till the evening for he has his job to do first. Ahmed seems rather young for such hard work (he looks no more than 10 or 11), but he does it patiently (there is not a hint of complaint from him) and quite obviously, out of a sense of love and duty for his family. We sense how mature he is in his quiet introspective nature and in how he understands why he has to grow up quickly to help ease his father’s burden.

As Ahmed weaves in and out of the city, we meet various characters – the food vendor who always has a word for him, the rose water man, the customers and all the folks who make up the hustle and bustle of Cairo that he is a part of. He reflects on how old the city is and talks of the desert in almost sentimental terms. Through it all, we are constantly reminded of the secret he is carrying.

I could talk about all kinds of learning points like Egypt, deserts, pyramids and what not, but I prefer to just bask in the gorgeousness of this book 🙂

When Ahmed finally returns to the warmth and comfort of home, he finally divulges his surprise. It is worth the wait – I was so proud of him and felt like thumping his back!

A keeper!

The Mountain That Loved A Bird

I found this book while book hunting in Singapore last March… Bear was a wee month-old baby and was fussing up a bit at the bookstore, so I almost missed this treasure.

Beautifully written by the lovely late Alice McLerran and illustrated by Eric Carle, The Mountain That Loved A Bird is a beautiful tale that made my then 3-year-old Marz cry buckets! This book is good for kids 6 and above, but if your little preschooler enjoys a long story, then this is a keeper.

In this story, a lonely stone mountain lives in the middle of a desert. It is barren and thus, has never had company nor experienced anything beyond heat and cold. It has not much to see either – only the movement of the sun, the course of the moon and the stars when the skies were clear.

A small bird named Joy stops by one day. The mountain feels her sharp claws and her soft feathers and, overcome with amazement, asks her to stay. Unfortunately, Joy cannot comply – there is nothing that can sustain her there. However, she promises to make annual visits in spring and to name her daughter Joy, who in turn will name a daughter Joy and so on so that the mountain will always have a friend visiting once a year.

Ninety-nine springs come and go. Each time the separations become harder to endure. One day, unable to tolerate the loneliness, the mountain’s heart breaks. His tears are a stream which slowly but surely transform it and the land surrounding. Joy brings a seed and over time, the tears become tears of hope and happiness. Eventually, Joy brings not a seed, but a twig. Instead of her usual farewells, she tells the mountain that she has come to stay.

Eric Carle’s signature collages are simply superb! You will notice that the pictures become wonderfully vibrant as the story progresses. There are other versions of this book that you can check out on the author’s site.

For those in Pakistan, there is the Urdu version which the late Ms Mclerran was very happy about. This is what she said about it:

In the spring of 2003, even as Americans were invading Iraq, there was a new edition that seemed to me almost a miracle.  In Pakistan – a Muslim country with considerable ambivalence about the Iraq invasion by the US – a non-profit group of educators published a new edition of this story in Urdu, using gentle and pleasing collages by Adeel-uz-Zafar.  The printing costs of this book – a story written by an American, published at that point in history – were underwritten by a donation from an Arab oil company!

We have had so many lovely discussions and lessons centred around this book, like:

  • friendship & loyalty
  • keeping promises
  • hope
  • birds
  • mountains
  • climates
  • water, streams etc.
  • seeds
  • colours

You can also read Eric Carle’s The Tiny Seed as an accompaniment.

This review was first published on Imaan.Net in August 2005 and has been updated for this site.