Modern Mamma Marvels

I’ve been slacking on book reviews, especially children’s book reviews, since the conception of this blog. To be fair, it’s summer and we’re busy with vacations and sweltering in the crazy heat. It’s not that we’re not reading; we are! We’re just kind of overwhelmed with sunshine and outdoorsy type things. We’ll come inside eventually.

All that said, Amazon just released their Best Books of the Year So Far lists(s). While nothing on the adult fiction list really caught my eye, I have been wanting to read A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah which is featured on the non-fiction list. And while the children and teen’s list didn’t have a whole lot to offer for the younger set, I feel compelled to let my readers know about a little gem sitting on that list.

Not a Box by Antoinette Portis was an absolute surprise of a little book. While the book is supposedly geared for preschool ages through first grade, BigBrother loved the pieces out of this book. I cannot tell you how many times we read it in the twenty-eight days we had it borrowed from our local library. Quite frankly, neither FireDad nor I minded reading it over and over (and over and over). It’s not long or very wordy, hence the reason it is able to keep the attention span of a not-quite-two-year-old constant ball of motion.

It’s not fancy in illustration. It’s mostly black and white with some other colors thrown in here and there for emphasis on the every-other-page setup. The bunny rabbit, which BigBrother enjoyed telling me was a “bunny” on every page, has a box that he insists, with a bit of stubborn tone, is not a box. It’s a race car. It’s a building on fire and he’s the fireman! (BigBrother liked this page, as you can only imagine.) It’s a myriad of other things, all of which BigBrother liked to discuss in great detail. (”Boat, Mommy. Bunny boat!”)

In fact, the more I read the book, the more it reminded me of an old favorite from my childhood library. Wait, let me dig it out of the box sitting right by my desk. Ah, yes. Christina Katerina & The Box by Patricia Lee Gauch. It’s definitely geared towards a grouping older than the Not a Box crowd, it’s still filled with the same imagination that only children so freely express. (And how pleased I am to see a paperback copy available on Amazon! How fun!) The point is vaguely the same: girl gets box and creates a bunch of different thing; a castle, a clubhouse and, like Not a Box, a race car. As it’s written for an older crowd, there is an antagonist in the book… the pesky brother… who wants to destroy the imagination and fun of it all but Christina Katerina puts him in his rightful place.

All in all, I love both books! Imagination is the way to go, folks. And who doesn’t like playing in a big ole box? I still do and I’m… older now.

We’ve purchased Not a Box to add to our library of fun, imaginative books about boxes. Okay, so that makes two books about boxes. Are there more? Do you know of any? Comment with one if you do!