Kid Konnection: Read Across America Week

Every Saturday, I host a feature called Kid Konnection -- a regular weekend feature about anything related to children's books. Today, I'm going to share with you what my six year old son (aka Booking Son) did for Read Across America Week -- both at school and at home!

Read Across America Week at my son's elementary school is a pretty fun week for the kids and teachers... and me! We began our Scholastic Book Fair, and of course, I volunteered to help the little ones pick out their books. I had the best time watching them decide how to spend their money. Despite wanting to spend hundreds of dollars, I was pretty good. I bought Booking Son a Star Wars sticker book and a Bakugan book, and I bought Booking Daughter a few surprises for a later day!

Here are the rest of the Read Across America festivities:

Monday: Funny Hat Day -  Booking Son actually made an adorable Cat in the Hat paper one that he's been wearing around!

Tuesday: Tee-shirt Day - Every student (and teacher) was asked to wear a tee-shirt with words. Booking Son wore his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle shirt that said, "Four Turtles. Four Brothers. Genetically Reborn in the Sewers of New York." He was worried because he was having issues remembering "genetically."

Wednesday: PJ Day and Buddy Reading Day -- Booking Son wore his Penn State flannel jammie bottoms. He also had a third grade boy (his buddy) come down and read him a book. He couldn't tell me the name of the book because his buddy was very quiet -- isn't that adorable?

Thursday: D.E.A.R Day - Each child was asked to bring in a favorite book and when the bell rang, they got to "Drop Everything And Read." Booking Son brought in GREEN EGGS AND HAM. He had a blast and told me that lots of kids just looked at the pictures, but he tried to read. He mentioned that there were a few words he didn't know, but he just made them up!

And then towards the end of the week, we received a terrific box of children's books from Random House. Most of the books were for toddlers (I'll be sharing them in the upcoming weeks), but there were two that jumped out at Booking Son -- GO, DOG. GO! and the GO, DOG. GO! PARTY BOOK.

Summary: Fans of P. D. Eastman—and of dogs—will want to get their paws on a copy of this very special foil-covered 50th Anniversary Party Edition of Go, Dog. Go!  Written for beginning readers using only 75 different words, it features red dogs, blue dogs, big dogs, little dogs—all kinds of wonderful P. D. Eastman dogs—riding bicycles, scooters, skiis, and roller skates and driving all sorts of vehicles on their way to a big dog party held on top of a tree! Available for a limited time only at the regular edition price of $8.99, this highly collectible edition (ideal for birthdays and other human celebrations) will prove to you and your child that reading has not gone to the dogs. -- Random House

GO, DOG. GO! by P.D. Eastman was one of my all-time favorite books as a kid -- probably because it was one of the first books that I ever read! I was so glad to see that Booking Son wanted to read it to me this week. He's not exactly a reluctant reader, but just one that is afraid to fail. So I've learned to let him read what and when he wants rather than forcing the issue. It's taken me awhile to accept this approach because I desperately want him to be reading, but I know he has the skills, so I just need to be patient. It will come!

He did a fantastic job with GO, DOG. GO! and I was so proud of him. He was pretty impressed with himself too. I was surprised to read that this book has only 75 different words, but I guess that makes sense. Despite being over 60 pages long (which is really long for a beginner reader to read in one sitting), there is a lot of repetition. And I also found that many of the words were ones that Booking Son recognized from his sight words at school. Even though GO, DOG. GO! is 50 years old (wow!), it's still one of the best beginning reader books out there!

Random House is re-releasing GO, DOG. GO! in a special 50th Anniversary Edition including a foil-covered Party Edition with the complete text. In addition, they have released a GO, DOG! GO! PARTY BOOK which includes party hats, snack cups, place cards, a poster, and a board game. Kids are sure to love this fun-filled activity book while celebrating their own dog party!

Thanks to the publisher for sending us copies of these books.

And one more thing! Random House is also celebrating Read Across America Week and Dr. Seuss' birthday. You can enter for a chance to win Dr. Seuss Books! Random House Children’s Books is hosting a daily giveaway through Monday, March 6th on its “Dr. Seuss Books” Facebook page in honor of Dr. Seuss’s birthday and Read Across America.

For more Seuss fun and games, visit www.seussville.com.

If you'd like to participate in Kid Konnection and share a post about anything related to children's books (picture, middle grade, or young adult) from the past week, please leave a comment as well as a link below with your name/blog name and the title of the book! Feel free to grab the little button too!