In Praise of Snuggles & What We’ve Been Reading
In Praise of Snuggles
“We all have belly buttons… We are born from the bodies of others. We cannot exist without breathing and eating. Nor do we exist for ourselves alone” (p. 135 of A House for Hope by Rebecca Parker).
The chapter is “A Home for Love,” and part of it focuses on the interconnectedness of us physically. We touch, hug, and engage with one another as biological beings in addition to any mental or emotional connections.
We reach out to even pet an animal and we reconnect with the world around us and ourselves. I pet my dog, and the act of showing him affection makes me feel love, uplifting my mood. Pictures of cuteness online are grand and nice, but I need positive physical engagement with animals and people.
Consider snuggles, hugs, and other touches a part of our daily sustenance. If you have children, reading with them is a natural way to get in some good snuggle time. We’ve been reading a lot of good books recently (see below), and I hope you check them out. If you’re an adult looking to find something good, check out the Power Ups for Parents page and Misc Recommendations. I love reading and snuggling my dogs.
What We’ve Been Reading
Nerdy Birdy by Aaron Reynolds — 5 stars
A very compelling book about being inclusive and accepting others. The book turns the normal plot a bit on its head in a fascinating way. The nerdy birdy protagonist is rejected by the cool birds, so he joins other nerdy birdies. He thinks that they’re accepting of outsiders since they accept him, but they all do and like the same things (light sabers, playing video games, etc.), but when a different bird, a vulture, comes to town, Nerdy Birdy is shocked when he invites her to join his crowd (“there’s always room for another nerdy birdy, right guys?… right?”) and the nerdy birdies reject her because she isn’t like them. He realizes that they were just as prejudiced against ‘others’ as the popular birds who rejected him, so he goes to hang out with vulture and chooses the path of acceptance of differences. They don’t do or like the same things, but they like each other. They are respectful. What a wonderful message that I hope takes deep root!
Caveman: A B.C. Story by Janee Trasler — 5 stars
This is an amazing book for kids who are just old enough to understand story and may be trying to sound out letters and start to read their first words. I had low expectations based on the simplicity and seeming silliness of the cover, but I am so glad that we picked it up at the library. The book uses one word per letter in the alphabet to create a story of a caveman and his adventures with a squirrel, a dinosaur, and more. The version we read is a boardbook, and while it’s fine to read with kids younger than 2, ones just a bit older will get more from it. Being able to sound out the word on the page is a very empowering experience, and my daughter doing this for a few of the words in the book and so ‘reading’ the entirety of the story and knowing what’s going on based on just the word plus the pictures starts to form the whole process of reading on one’s own and gaining something valuable from it (knowledge, entertainment, etc.).
Unicorn Thinks He’s Pretty Great
by Bob Shea — 5 stars
A good book for showing how our differences can be useful. Unicorn seems pretty cool because he can do things like turn things into gold, but Goat finds out that his horns are actually really good for soccer while Unicorn’s horn just deflates the ball. We all have something to share with the world, and this silly book is a nice introduction to showing kids that they have strengths and interests to share in positive ways, too.
by Katrina Goldsaito — 5 stars
I was shocked at how my daughter tuned into this book. The book focuses on sound, particularly silence, the lack of sound, so the pace of the book is slow as the reader is asked to pause and listen. Being still can be a really difficult thing for a small child, so not all children may be able to handle this book. However, if the child can handle the stillness, the book offers a lovely glimpse into Asian culture, city imagery, and words and concepts that may otherwise not be introduced. This is a gem of a book that is worth reading and cherishing in the right times, but I acknowledge that it may not resonate with every child and certainly won’t be reread in the same way for many in the way that a more active book like Dr. Seuss’s would be.
by Rob Scotton — 2 stars
If your child is fighting going to school or daycare, this book may help. It wasn’t an amazing book otherwise.
by Maureen Fergus — 3 stars
Buddy and Earl are pets, a dog and a hedgehog, and instead of going to sleep, they have adventures in their house. The adventures are cute; the hedgehog thinks he seems a mountain and a lake that the dog sees as the garbage bin and a water dish. The dog sees a monster, and the hedgehog can see that it’s just the vacuum cleaner. Discussing the different perspectives with children is really fun and enjoyable. However, I found it useful to ignore the words on the page since I found the writing clunky, at least for reading with a 2 year-old, and just discussing what was going on. Quite fun but definitely not perfect.
by Audrey Wood — 3 stars
This is another book that I found easier to ignore the writing inside and just talk about what was going on. The first couple pages in particular had so much text that it was hard to get the story started. Once it does start, the illustrations on the pages allow for great conversations and imagining. There’s a room with a lot of food. What does the child see there? What would he/she like to have there if it was his/her food room? In all of the pages, I asked my daughter where the baby in the family was. She was often doing something silly, and finding her was a bit like a Where’s Waldo that allowed more conversation and examination of the book. Lovely ideas are presented that allow for conversations, but the story itself and certainly the writing is a bit weak.
by Claire Freedman — 1 star
Ridiculous and not in a good way. If you are toilet training a child who needs to be convinced that underpants are great, maybe this will offer a benefit to you. Otherwise, stay away. The story makes no sense and drives me nuts because of the way it may mislead children about scientific aspects. Dinosaurs living at the same time as people is a common enough thing in fantasy, but the book presents dinosaurs as having gone extinct because they fought each other to death over underpants. That’s morbid for no good reason, and the cause of dinosaur extinction is not a concept commonly discussed enough for children to not possibly read this and come away thinking there’s a grain of truth there. It’s rather clear that dinosaurs no longer exist, so that aspect of the fantasy I have no problem with. This may be a pet peeve and others are fine with it, but I didn’t find much redeeming about this book.
For further reading:
Chillot, Rick. “The Power of Touch.” 2016 Oct 5. https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201303/the-power-touch
Keltner, Dacher. “Hands on Research: the science of touch.” 2010 Sept 29. http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/hands_on_research/
