In honour of Halloween, a spoooooky children’s book.
Edgar is a little raven with a tough life. His mom is always telling him to finish his vegetables, stop bothering his sister, clean his room, take a bath… to all of which Edgar responds: NEVERMORE! Until his mom reads him a bedtime story (you guessed it, The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe) and promises she will love him EVERMORE.
This book is very simply written and illustrated. The illustrations are black and white with pops of colour. I don’t subscribe to the idea that children need busy colourful stimulating images all the time. Because of the simplicity of the pictures, the story is clearer. It’s a great winding down bedtime story. Edgar is depicted as charmingly rambunctious and slightly naughty but the message is that his mom loves him no matter what.
I love this simple little book because it’s fun to read aloud (although possibly I regret teaching the Squishies to yell NEVERMORE! no matter how cute it is). Kids tend to memorize their favourite books and this is an easy book to read together, with the Reader playing Mom and the kid calling out as Edgar.
I like the idea of taking classics and making them age appropriate, no matter how young the age. It will be years before kids reading this book can actually read and appreciate Poe, but this is a fun way to introduce them to classic literature. Edgar also has books about the Tattle-Tale Heart and the Treehouse of Usher. So cute.
A lot of things that are cute to teach kids lose some of their cuteness after frequent repetition. The book sounds great.
That sounds adorable and I think I need to start a picture book collection despite the lack of small folks in my life.
I started, or rather continued since childhood, my picture book collection long before I actually had to share books with actual children. In fact, sometimes I still only share under laboratory conditions. Kids are often sticky.
I’m going to need to get this for my peeps! Thanks for making me aware of it <3