KidStuff on Martha Stewart Living Radio


If you've ever been stumped by one of your kids' questions, you're not alone. Moms Marion Roach and Jodi Levine give you the tools to answer persistent questions and teach kids new things. Join them every Tuesday at 1 p.m. (ET) for an hour of learning, laughing, and great advice.

As reviewed on "KidStuff" on Martha Stewart Living Radio, Sirius 112, on November 14, 2006:

Topic: Children's Book Week

Since 1919, educators, librarians, booksellers, and families have celebrated Children's Book Week during the week before Thanksgiving. The theme for the 87th annual observance of Children's Book Week is More Books, Please! Pick up one, or several, of these great books to read to, or with, your children.

A Room with a ZooA Room with a Zoo
by Jules Feiffer
Ages 8-12
Hyperion Books for Children
Living creatures large and small are assembled in Julie's bedroom. This nine-year-old adopted daughter of Jules Feiffer loves animals, and she's putting together a zoo in her room. By carefully working on her mother and father, she collects a sick cat, a hamster, a big, ugly fish, six smaller fish that start to disappear, a turtle, a strong-minded kitten, an unresponsive hermit crab, and a borrowed classroom rabbit who appears to be dying.

Clara and AshaClara and Asha
by Eric Rohmann
Ages 4-8
Roaring Brook Press
In Clara and Asha—as in Eric Rohmann's Caldecott Medal-winning My Friend Rabbit—a simple storyline becomes the basis for fun and sophistication. Clara's friend Asha is an enormous fish, which means that hide-and-seek, Halloween, snow days, and afternoons in the park offer surprising opportunities for adventure. With oil paintings that playfully suggest stories within stories and convey great emotional range, this is a captivating book about the special world of a child's imagination—where a giant fish might come to visit, and the things you do and the things you feel with an imaginary friend are intensely real.

Lunch MoneyLunch Money
by Andrew Clements
illustrated by Brian Selznick
Ages 8-12
Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
Greg Kenton has always had a natural talent for making money—despite the annoying rivalry of his neighbor Maura Shaw. Then, just before sixth grade, Greg makes a discovery: Almost every kid at school has an extra quarter or two to spend almost every day. Multiply a few quarters by a few hundred kids, and for Greg, school suddenly looks like a giant piggy bank. All he needs is the right hammer to crack it open. Candy and gum? Little toys? Sure, kids would love to buy stuff like that at school. But would teachers and the principal permit it? Not likely. But how about comic books? Comic books might work. Especially the chunky little ones that Greg writes and illustrates himself. Because everybody knows that school always encourages reading and writing and creativity and individual initiative, right? In this funny and timely novel, Andrew Clements again holds up a mirror to real life, and invites young readers to think about money, school, friendship, and what it means to be a success.

Gift of Gracias: The Legend of Altagracia
by Julia Alvarez
illustrated by Beatriz Vidal
Ages 5-8
Random House Children's Books
After their olive crop fails, Maria fears that her family will have to abandon their farm on the new island colony. Then, one night she dreams of a mysterious beautiful lady shrouded by trees with branches hung with hundreds of little suns. They are oranges like the ones Maria's parents once ate in their homeland, Valencia, Spain. That very day Maria and her family plant the seeds that soon yield a magnificent orange grove and save the farm. But who was the mysterious lady who appeared in her dream and will Maria ever find her again?