Browse: Home / Stuff My Kids Watch: They Do Actually Read, Too, Including a Lot of Mo Willems

Menu

Skip to content
  • Home
  • Who We Are
  • About
  • Privacy
  • Contact Us
  • Login

The-SoluteLogo

A Film Site By Lovers of Film

Menu

Skip to content
  • Features
  • Reviews
  • Long Reviews
  • News
  • Articles and Opinions
  • Other Media
  • Year of the Month: Haley Ioppini on PROCOL HARUM
  • Lunch Links: OUT
  • Choose
  • Year of the Month: Sunil Patel on THE DIRTY DOZEN
  • Film on the Internet: THE RENTAL
Look, my kids read!

Stuff My Kids Watch: They Do Actually Read, Too, Including a Lot of Mo Willems

Posted By Gillianren on January 4, 2022 in Features | Leave a response

Let’s be clear—my kids do not just sit around watching TV. I mean, they want to, but we have rules about these things. They’ve got housework to do, and even though we’re really loose about screen time, there are times when the screens get turned off. They also get sent outside to play, although not right now, because it’s cold and rainy and there’s ice on the roads. Most important of all, they routinely read books or have books read to them. Sandy, who is four, reads; Zane, who is eight, is read to In both cases, one of the authors in question is Mo Willems.

Mo Willems is multitalented. He’s creator of Sheep in the Big City and The Off-Beats. He’s been a writer and animator for Sesame Street. He’s been a writer and animator for Code Name: Kids Next Door. But where my kids fell in love with him was as the author of dozens of children’s books. I don’t know how many of them we as a family own, but it’s a lot. Some of them, we have two copies, because I have no problem with giving each kid their own copy of a book, if it’s one they’ll both read.

From the day Zane was born, we’ve given him books to read. He’s gotten books from us, from our friends and relatives, from his school. The same is true of his sister. As any parent can tell you, a lot of those books are terrible. There are one or two books that got ruined that we did not replace. There are others that may have ended up in boxes we haven’t unpacked in a while. There are some we merely suffer though in irritation, reading over and over even though we loathe them.

One of the reasons we got the kids into Mo Willems was that one of Zane’s godmothers, who used to work in libraries, had shelved the books many, many times. When you shelf a book that often, or books by a single author, you get interested. So she looked through them and enjoyed them, and she recommended them to us. When a friend who works in a library recommends a book for your kid, it holds extra weight. So we read them, and then, we started collecting them.

Another friend who works for the Fort Worth libraries recently shared something suggesting that you read kids a thousand books before kindergarten. I asked if reading one book a thousand times counted. People laughed, but parents understand. There are books that you end up memorizing, because kids like routine, and routine means hearing the same book a lot. Calvin and Hobbes is one of the many pop culture works that plays off this. This means that an author you start out neutral to, you often end up disliking, and an author you start out disliking, you generally end up loathing.

The lovely thing about Mo Willems books is that they’re funny to both adults and kids. This isn’t by peppering the books with both adult and child jokes. This is by their combination of silliness and seriousness. The characters take themselves seriously in a believable way, but they’re in funny situations and say funny things. What’s more, it’s in ways that fit with the characters as they’re established. Gerald is outwardly confident and inwardly anxious. The Pigeon is obnoxious and demanding. Goldilocks is greedy and not terribly perceptive. Each character fits their story and their book’s comedy.

Zane’s been hearing us read him the books as long as he can remember, and he still asks for them for bedtime stories. Sandy’s been hearing them her whole life and still asks for them for bedtime stories. What’s more, both my children have been learning to read from them. Sandy can’t quite get through a whole one yet, but one of the ways we started teaching her was by showing her recurring words in the books and spelling them out each time they appeared. She knows the word “Gerald,” after all, and that’s not bad for a four-year-old.

Keep my kids in their beloved books by supporting my Patreon or Ko-fi!

Posted in Features | Tagged Mo Willems, Stuff My Kids Watch

About the Author

gillianmadeira@hotmail.com'

Gillianren

Gillianren is a forty-something bipolar woman living in the Pacific Northwest after growing up in Los Angeles County. She and her boyfriend have one son and one daughter, and she gave a daughter up for adoption. She fills her days by watching her local library system’s DVD collection in alphabetical order, watching everything that looks interesting. She particularly enjoys pre-Code films, blaxploitation, and live-action Disney movies of the ’60s and ’70s. She has a Patreon account at https://www.patreon.com/gillianren

Related Posts

Also the animation isn't terribly goodStuff My Kids Watch: SHIMMER AND SHINE and Its Merchandising→

Charlie about to explore Humpty Dumpty, as kids doStuff My Kids Watch: CHARLIE’S COLORFORMS CITY Is Short on Creativity→

Sandy and MashaStuff My Kids Watch: Spinning Off For Kids→

Definitely a chase showStuff My Kids Watch: ZIG AND SHARKO Is an Acquired Taste→

  • Comments
  • Popular
  • Most Recent
  • j*****@yahoo.com'
    mr_apollo on Year of the Month: Mon OncleWonderful piece, Sam. It's made…
  • j*****@yahoo.com'
    mr_apollo on Year of the Month: Mon OncleFellow heretic here. I've never…
  • n***********@gmail.com'
    Ruck Cohlchez on Film on the Internet: AN AMERICAN CRIMEI wouldn't have called it…
  • j***********@gmail.com'
    Son of Griff on LIFE ITSELFGlad to hear back from…
  • n*********@gmail.com'
    Jake Gittes on Film on the Internet: AN AMERICAN CRIMEThis is the single most…
  • “The End” of SAVAGES

    31038 views / Posted November 10, 2014
  • What the fuck did I just watch? SPHERE

    26554 views / Posted March 19, 2015
  • Scenic Routes: SHOWGIRLS (1995)

    19053 views / Posted November 20, 2014
  • The Untalented Mr. Ripley: The Craft of Standup Comedy and the Non-Comedy of TOM MYERS

    18350 views / Posted June 26, 2018
  • Yvonne, or: CASABLANCA In One Character and Three Scenes

    9702 views / Posted August 21, 2014
  • Year of the Month: Haley Ioppini on PROCOL HARUM

    June 30, 2022 / Sam "Burgundy Suit" Scott
  • "Based on a true story."

    Lunch Links: OUT

    June 30, 2022 / The Ploughman
  • Is this someone you want making choices for you?

    Choose

    June 29, 2022 / Gillianren
  • Year of the Month: Sunil Patel on THE DIRTY DOZEN

    June 29, 2022 / Sam "Burgundy Suit" Scott
  • Film on the Internet: THE RENTAL

    June 29, 2022 / ZoeZ

Last Tweets

  • Year of the Month: Haley Ioppini on PROCOL HARUM - https://t.co/KVDKLupAS5, 8 hours ago
  • Finish out Pride Month with this week's Lunch Link OUT. https://t.co/tkEDYM1tzF, 12 hours ago
  • Choose - https://t.co/sqVw2yHzWR, Jun 29

©2014 - 2016 The-Solute | Hosted, Developed and Maintained by Bellingham WP LogoBellinghamWP.com.

Menu

  • Home
  • Who We Are
  • About
  • Privacy
  • Contact Us
  • Login
Do NOT follow this link or you will be banned from the site!