The Best Alphabet Books

BETWEEN THE LINES

ANNIE HO

PUBLISHED : Monday, 12 January, 2015, 4:32pm

UPDATED : Monday, 12 January, 2015, 4:32pm

Reading to children improves their cognitive abilities

Last summer, the American Academy of Paediatrics issued a new policy statement for its members, recommending that paediatricians advise parents of young children about the importance of breastfeeding, vaccinating and reading aloud.Until that moment, reading to children was just another fun and enriching educational experience, on par with playing in the park and attending live theatre performances.

When educators extol the virtues of reading to children, parents interpret its importance in terms of language skills and literacy development. But the academy's pronouncement shows that the importance of reading goes beyond educational value. Parent-child read-alouds have a vital impact on children's cognitive, social and emotional development. A child who is read to, breastfed and vaccinated will have a better chance for good health and brain development. The AAP policy statement also recommends its members to counsel parents on how to read aloud, and what books to read.

To make reading fun, and to cater to the short attention span of infants, parents can start with short nursery rhymes and point-and-name picture books. The readings can be incorporated into a daily routine. A short story at breakfast, or even on the potty, can take advantage of those precious few minutes when a toddler is your captive audience.

In this way, the "five R's of early education" - reading, rhyming, routines, rewards and relationships - are strengthened.

As infants grow into toddlers, and progress to kindergarten and primary school, their vocabulary and comprehension advance at a faster rate than their reading ability. Picture books that celebrate language can help to encourage greater literacy development, and what better way to celebrate language than to go to its source: the ABCs. So here is a selection of alphabet books that can be enjoyed by both growing children and the parents who are reading to them.

Two classics are Dr Seuss' ABC and Maurice Sendak's Alligators All Around. Both use alliterative sentences such as "a lazy lion licking a lollipop", with illustrations in the authors' signature styles adding to the enjoyment.

For a contemporary take on the ABCs, Steve Fiffer cleverly created a single sentence comprising words that begin with all the letters, in alphabetical order. The result is Arctic Bears Chase, a witty word puzzle with humour-filled illustrations.

Alphabet concept books are experiencing a rebirth, with some recently published picture books that combine the alphabet with beautiful storytelling and art design.

In Ah-Ha to Zig-Zag, artist Maira Kalman presents a quirky alphabetical guide to objects from the Smithsonian Design Museum. Kalman opts for unconventional choices including a ceramic dog, a 13th-century silk thinking cap, and a pair of 19th-century tin slippers.

Elizabeth Schoonmaker brings back her much-loved feline in Square Cat ABC. Her original book Square Cat, introduces Eula the square cat, who bemoans her life in a world of round cats. In Square Cat ABC, Eula meets a blue mouse, and their tale leads readers from A to Z, as the characters work through everything from the mouse's fear of porcupines to Eula's disdain for spinach.

Primary school children will love the short interconnected stories that explore the alphabet in Oliver Jeffers' Once Upon an Alphabet. The illustrations are droll, dark and slightly odd. Some of the stories can be morbid, akin to the style of Roald Dahl and Lemony Snicket. But in general, they are funny and original, contain rich vocabulary, and push the boundary of our expectations for a children's picture book.

Dr Pamela High, lead author of the AAP policy statement, writes: "Books are a useful tool, but we also want parents to understand that reading to their children is so powerful because children think their parents are the most important people in their world."

Annie Ho is chair of Bring Me A Book Hong Kong bringmeabook.org.hk a non-profit organisation advocating family literacy

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as Mind improves with listening

Chart a course to the world's best book museums

Between the lines: Explore interesting book museums around the world

Tuesday, 02 July, 2013

Annie Holife@scmp.com

Eric Carle is the famed author and illustrator of The Very Hungry Caterpillarand Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? as well as 70 other picture books for the very young.

His collage technique, using bright colours, is instantly recognisable. After a long and successful career, Carle could have settled into a comfortable retirement. Instead, in 2002 and at the age of 73, he and his wife founded The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, Massachusetts.

The Museum Book is a good introduction to the history of museums and what museums are for

Located midway between Boston and New York City, the museum houses an extensive collection of more than 10,000 picture book illustrations, as well as three art galleries, an art studio, a theatre, and picture book and scholarly libraries.

It also organises educational programmes for families, scholars, educators and children.

The picture book library has more than 3,000 picture books from around the world. But the big draw is the bookshop, where visitors can buy contemporary and hard-to-find picture books.

If your family holiday takes you to that part of the United States, then you must try to visit the museum's special exhibition this month called "Seriously Silly: A Decade of Art and Whimsy by Mo Willems".

Willems is one of my favourite children's book creators, and he will be signing books on specific dates during the exhibition.

The Pioneer Valley area where the museum is located is also home to a number of other museums suitable for family fun: the Dr Seuss National Memorial and Springfield Museum, the Norman Rockwell Museum, Amelia Park Children's Museum, Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and the Magic Wings Butterfly Conservatory.

If you are on the other side of the Atlantic this summer, then you may consider heading to northern England to visit Seven Stories, the national centre for children's books.

Located in Newcastle upon Tyne, the centre is housed in a seven-storey building, and its special archives contain draft illustrations, and handwritten author's notes and correspondence.

With a mission to make books an essential part of every child's life, the existence and accessibility of Seven Stories is especially meaningful in this northeastern region, where the number of children living in poverty is double the average in England.

Meanwhile, The Museum Book: A Guide to Strange and Wonderful Collections by Jan Mark is a good introduction to the history of museums and what museums are for.

And for those staying in Hong Kong, the summer months bring plenty of book-related activities.

The Hong Kong Book Fair runs from July 17-23 at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, and there will be special activities and events for children and young adults. Besides stocking up on picture books from Taiwanese publishers and speciality books such as those on religion or cooking, it's also the best one-stop shop for stationery and art supplies.

Another annual summer event is the Hong Kong Public Libraries' "Summer Reading Month", with music and puppet shows, storytelling sessions and parent-child reading activities.

A book-themed summer vacation awaits!

Annie Ho is the board chairwoman of Bring Me A Book Hong Kong, a children's literacy charity (bringmeabook.org.hk)

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as Chart a course to the world's bestbook museums

A Wrinkle in Time; When You Reach Me; Where the Wild Things Are

Fond memories linger despite wrinkles in time
BETWEEN THE LINES Annie Ho (familypost@scmp.com) May 06, 2012
In my quest to introduce the best quality storybooks to my children, I've rediscovered some favourite book titles from my childhood. Now I have amassed a humble collection of books I read and loved years ago. My parents didn't read aloud to me and I didn't become fluent in English until after we emigrated to Canada when I was seven, so I never read those early classics like The Very Hungry Caterpillar or The Cat in the Hat. As a result, my favourite books are stories that my daughters will probably not start to enjoy until they are in primary school. One of my first purchases was A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle, science fiction for junior readers at its best. Re-reading it brought me back to those wonderful upper primary years in Mrs Taylor's class. Every Tuesday and Thursday, I would gather with a half-dozen other students to attend a special class that used an interdisciplinary approach to teaching. This class was very likely modelled on the International Baccalaureate programme, which didn't exist in Canada until I was in high school. We worked on one class project per term and were taught maths, history, science and anthropology in that context. One of those projects was "Build a city of the future", in which we spent months creating architectural models, writing descriptions of the city we each envisioned (form of government, city planning, transport, family home life) and discussing our choices. In my future city, the residents teleported. I must have been reading A Wrinkle in Time and taken the idea from the book. From there on, I went through a phase of reading science fiction and fantasy; one that sticks in my memory is a story by Ray Bradbury about a child who has moved to Venus and is locked in a closet by classmates on the one day every seven years when it stops raining and the sun comes out. I didn't read science fiction as an adult until I re-read A Wrinkle in Time. Then I learned about the new book by Rebecca Stead in the young fiction category that had just come out. What prompted me to immediately obtain a copy of When You Reach Me was a book review describing it as a story that "pays homage to A Wrinkle in Time". When You Reach Me is about Miranda, an 11-year-old girl living in New York City. Two incidents happen to her at the beginning of the story: her best friend is punched by a random kid on the way home from school, and she receives a cryptic message about her lost spare key. These two incidents end up being intertwined, and Stead spins a yarn inspired by A Wrinkle in Time. In fact, A Wrinkle in Time is Miranda's favourite book, and she carries it with her wherever she goes. It is of no surprise that When You Reach Me won many awards, including the 2010 Newbery Award. A wonderful story inspired by another book is Dave Eggers' The Wild Things, loosely based on Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are. In this case, quot;inspired" means taking a 30-page children's picture book and fleshing it out into a 300-page adventure for Max, the main character, that includes divorced parents, an older teenage sister and many new characters on the island where the beasts live. One of the hardest things to do when you write for junior readers is use the right language to communicate a young adult's point of view. While Stead does a better job than Eggers in finding that exasperated tone of innocent but all-knowing youth, their complex, multilayered stories will appeal to children and grown-ups alike, especially those of us who remember what it was like being on the cusp of adolescence. Annie Ho is a board governor of Bring Me A Book Hong Kong bringmeabook.org.hk a non-profit organisation devoted to improving children's literacy

Happy April Fools Day! (An April Fool's Joke Column)

A foolproof guide to raising intelligent little monsters
BETWEEN THE LINES Annie Ho (familypost@scmp.com) Apr 01, 2012
I have been searching for decades for a comprehensive guide that can provide parents with the tools to raise intelligent little beings. I had pretty much given up any hope of finding one that was well-researched and reputable. Then, I came upon the Yale-Harvard Friendly Co-operation Joint Study of High-functioning Progeny, of which more than a dozen chapters were devoted to early literacy in children. I read the full study, to be published today, and distilled from it the astonishing findings listed below.  1. Dr Seuss is the best way to learn phonics The study cited Dr Seuss as one of the early proponents of phonics and revealed that he had written all his books with phonics in mind. According to Dr Seuss, children who were read a story over and over would be able to recite it from memory rather than learn to spell out each word on the printed page. To prevent this from happening, he said parents must read aloud each story only once and then ask the child to read the text phonetically. In Australia, one of the leading countries for phonics, all grade one pupils use The C-a-t i-n the H-a-t as their first phonics reader. The Australian version of this Dr Seuss story enlarges the size of the text and reduces the size of the illustrations to help schoolchildren focus better on the relevant aspects of the story. Everyone knows that illustrations are useless. 2. Physical restraint improves attention spans The study found that babies who were physically restrained during early read-aloud sessions had 80 per cent greater attention spans by the age of four. Parents are advised to use some form of physical restraint until a child is capable of giving his or her undivided attention throughout a storytelling session. The researchers stressed that such restraint must be gentle and not cause babies excessive discomfort. Car seats and high chairs with baby-proof seat belts are suitable. However, baby carriers should not be used, because they provide too much promise of love and comfort and will distract infants from the serious task at hand. 3. Uninterrupted reading improves logic formation When comparing read-aloud sessions where the parent paused to answer questions raised by his child with those where the parent read a story uninterrupted, the study concluded that children from the latter group solved logic puzzles 80 per cent faster than those children who illogically interrupted. The study used a test group of children who were allowed to set the pace of the storytelling by pausing to revisit previous pages, asking questions before the story was finished or running off mid-story to engage in another activity. The result was that these children were unable to form logical sequences in their brain because they did not have a proper concept of beginning, middle and end. Always let the child know that YOU are the boss. 4. Animation beats illustration The most significant finding of the study is that children remembered a story better in animated form than in printed illustration. For children, particularly those who were three months to six years of age, illustrations from a book became uninteresting when repeated more than 4.7 times. On the other hand, this same group of children could remain fixated on the moving-image version of the same story for many hours. The researchers postulated that the brain stored memories in moving images; therefore the images from an animated film were easier to remember than printed illustrations. According to the study, if electronic devices were more affordable for a larger percentage of a country's population, then governments would no longer advocate reading aloud with printed books. I fully agree  that electronic devices and educational apps were the best investment for our children's future. After reading this study, I feel reassured about my decision to install TV screens in our children's bedroom, bathroom and the family car and to always have at least two iPads situated within their reach. Multi-use restraints that can be attached to a variety of seating are also highly recommended. I urge parents to pick up a copy of the Yale-Harvard Friendly Co-operation Joint Study of High-functioning Progeny in order to glean more tips for raising superior children. PS - Happy April Fool's Day! Annie Ho is a board governor of Bring Me A Book HK (bringmeabook.org.hk a non-profit organisation devoted to improving children's literacy

Mem Fox: Her own books and her favourite books, Young Readers Festival

Sunday March 4 2012

Storyteller weaves magic for the next generation Annie Ho familypost@scmp.com  Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes by Mem Fox, and illustrated by the equally talented Helen Oxenbury, was my introduction to the author, who succinctly and expertly spread the 'read-aloud' gospel in Reading Magic, the reference book that propelled her to become a foremost authority on early childhood literacy.  A favourite of many toddlers, Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes was, I thought, one of those old classics from way back when, with its watercolour illustrations and simple, repetitive text. I first came upon this storybook when my elder daughter was in baby school in 2009. The story reminded me of those timeless tales Good Night Moon and The Tale of Peter Rabbit, so I was surprised to learn that Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes was written in 2008. This meant that the dog-eared copy with binding coming undone from my daughter's classroom was less than a year old. No doubt the book had been read and reread by many children.  Fox is arguably Australia's best-known children's author and literacy expert. I chatted with her recently and asked if much had changed between the time she wrote Possum Magic in 1983 and her latest book, The Little Dragon, published last year. Aside from the fact that she is now a grandmother, Fox says nothing has changed. While authors of adult fiction may develop into other genres or experiment with different writing styles, Fox continues to focus on writing books for children from birth to three years, and she has written about three dozen of them. She believes that reading aloud to children is the best way to teach them to read on their own. As a result, she aims to write storybooks that children want to read over and over again. If her sales are any indication, she has succeeded.  During our conversation, I gained an insight into the reading journey of Fox's family. Not surprisingly, she grew up surrounded by books. She was born in Australia but spent her childhood in Africa. Her parents were readers, and their shelves were lined with volumes of poetry and all the works of Charles Dickens. They often read aloud to her, and she claims to have been 'drowned in Australian books' because her parents wanted her to be familiar with her heritage.  Anyone who has read Reading Magic knows the first-hand accounts of Fox reading to her own daughter and the resulting 'magic'. And now her young grandson gets to hear this gifted storyteller read her own stories. He repeatedly requests to be read The Goblin and the Empty Chair, one of her rare works written for the five- to eight-year-old age group. She is amazed her grandson is only 22 months, yet loves to hear this story, which contains themes he is too young to comprehend. She is equally amazed he can fluently recite the opening lines: 'In a time long past, in a land far away, there lived a goblin who had once seen himself reflected in a still pond.'  Although Fox is pleased there are so many more books written specifically for the three-and-under age group in the past three decades, she still delights in reading stories such as Dr. Seuss' Mr Brown Can Moo! Can You? to her grandson.  What does Fox look for in a picture book? The same things she targets in her own: books that 'enchant, inform, comfort and entertain'.  Bring Me A Book Hong Kong has invited Fox to 'A Family Reading Affair', a weekend of activities for both parents and children, to be held on Saturday, March 17, and Sunday, March 18, at Youth Square in Chai Wan. Fox will be hosting workshops for parents, as well as giving master storytelling sessions for children. Go to www.youngreadersfestival.org.hk and click 'Weekend Family Programme' for more information.  Annie Ho is a board governor of Bring Me A Book Hong Kong, a non-profit organisation devoted to improving children's literacy through reading aloud to them and providing access to the best children's books for underserved communities.