Like many children's book bloggers, Dawn Mooney is a mom and her favorite test audience is made up of her three kids. When she writes for the group blog 5 Minutes for Books, you can bet the selected stories have gotten a thumb's up from some very discerning critics. Dawn's also a former preschool teacher, a perspective that we're sure comes in handy as a fiction picture book judge.
Bone Dog
by Eric Rohmann
Roaring Brook
In her roundup of several Cybils nominees, Dawn makes a point of summing up her kids' perspectives. Since we're pretty adamant about books being kid-friendly around here, it's refreshing to see their opinions added to the mix. In Bone Dog, by Eric Rothman, Dawn says she was reluctant to share a sad story with her kids, but:
they weren’t bothered by it at all, and my five-year-old daughter even declared the story “so beautiful.” One could say that she’s a child who’s in touch with her emotions (as in, she quite often expresses them with gusto), and she really took to heart the book’s main message of “A promise made under a full moon cannot be broken.” I doubt this is a book that I will bring into my preschool classroom, but I think it works better with one-on-one readings with a family member who can lovingly explain the emotional subtext.
Read the full reviews here.