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This book was a gift for my son when he was a toddler. At first, I wasn't sure I liked it because there is so much white space and it seemed to just not have a lot to it. I was surprised by the hard cover and price for such a simple concept. The secret of this book of course is that it must be performed, not just read. It's kind of like Shakespeare that way, so I classify it as quality literature! My son had it memorized before he could read. Now he can read it to us, but he still prefers to get me to say "Boo Boo Butt." It's written for one voice, but the more it is read to a child, the more a second voice interjects in the story. I love how it is interactive like that.

I enjoyed watching the video with B.J. Novak. That's always special to experience how the author reads their own book. I wonder what brought the idea to him. There are many wordless picture books, but this is unique in that it is only words and yet it is not a chapter book. The words on many pages are also colorful and in different font sizes and patterns. So maybe it does have pictures, they are just word pictures. It definitely has a strong visual quality. I want to know how much of the design of the book was Novak's idea.

Now that it has found a special place in our family, I can see myself buying it to share with someone else. I doubt I would have if it had just been a book I saw in the bookstore.

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When I was a kid my mom stayed home with my sister and me for the most part but took a paraprofessional job in a grade school when I was ten or eleven. There was a training she had to attend where she was introduced to this book. I don't remember much else about it as a kid, but when someone bought it for my son I was definitely already familiar with it. I read it to him and immediately teared up. Oh my, the way it gets a parent! Well, it turns out that my husband didn't know a thing about it and chose it one night to read to our little guy at bedtime. I think I wasn't home, because when I saw him later, he was a little upset. He did not like the tearjerker he had innocently pulled off the shelf! I think he appreciates the book, but I don't think I'll catch him reading it again!

I almost want to dislike this book myself. But in the end, I just can't. Is it sentimental? That word always gets a bad rap, but maybe it's appropriate sometimes. I admit to not loving the illustrations. They are good, no question, and they really do fit with the story, but they aren't what would draw me in. They appear too like what I would see in parenting books rather than a story. I'm not sure why. But I love the repetitive phrasing and the humor in seeing the grown mom climbing a ladder to rock her grown son. It certainly hits me hard since I have a son and we have our nighttime rituals. I don't really look forward to those coming to an end.

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This was the first time I had the pleasure of reading It’s a Book! by Lane Smith. My immediate reaction is that everyone needs to read this book, unplug and use your imagination. It speaks to our world in so many different ways.  In connection with our reading, is this considered a children's book, my answer would be, yes. I wouldn’t read it to my five year old because I don’t think she would truly understand the message behind the book. I would definitely read it to my 9 year old, who would rather be on technology than pick up and read a book. The end goal being spend time regularly in a good book.

One of the reasons why I enjoy this book so much is because one of the characters is a jackass. The final line “It’s a book, jackass.” made me laugh aloud. I know it is referring to the character, but I think at times we want to be able to call people jackasses for a variety of reasons. This book lets it happen. And throughout most of the book he is kind of being a "jackass".

Finally, the illustrations do not have a lot of detail or color to them but they work great with the storyline. You have to look at the pictures to fully get the humor behind the book. For example, Jackass asks if it has a computer mouse. Monkey lifts his hat to show a real mouse. By not looking at the pictures the reader would miss those “hidden” cues. I would definitely recommend this book for older children through adults.

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I love the dedication, “To children everywhere sitting in cardboard boxes”. I think every parent and child can relate to this book. As a child, I would spend hours myself building forts and creating projects using the boxes my toys came in versus playing with the toys. My own children pretend, cut, paste, decorate, etc. to boxes we get all of the time. To the owner of the box, it is not a box! It is a train, castle, or boat.

There is not a lot of detail to the illustrations, but I believe the intent is to get the reader to use their imagination and to give perspective. It might look like one thing to you but to someone else it looks like something completely different. I could see myself in my classroom using this as a mentor text for creative writing. After reading Not a Box, have students create an illustration starting with a box or any other shape, and then write a story based on that illustration.

Finally, I would consider this to be children's literature. I believe that it is intended for younger children to interact with the bunny character and what is happening when being asked about the box. However, I think all ages can enjoy and appreciate this book.

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I had also never read this book and I loved the message- a book can be enjoyed with no password, screen name, scrolling or need to charge the book. I liked the simple illustrations and minimal text on each page.  If reading this book aloud you would want to take the time to notice details. Until I started teaching first grade, I think I often missed the additional information/details in picture books because I was so focused on the text. My students will raise their hands and point out a 'clue' from the pictures that I missed. I always tell them they are good 'noticers'. The ending, "It's a book, Jackass" was a bit startling to me because I was thinking I should read this to my class, but I would be a little afraid that my kids would walk around repeating, "It's a book, Jackass!" and I wouldn't want to encourage that. I did find it funny and with older kids you would explain that a donkey is also called a jackass but its not a word we say at school usually!
I also had an emotional response to this book in that I really hope someday we don't have to truly explain turning pages rather than scrolling, etc. Many of my students really do come to school without being familiar with books. It reminded me of a time when I was babysitting a 4 year old boy and he kept throwing books across the room. Eventually I pulled him on my lap and read one of the books to him. Afterward he jumped down and said, "I didn't know there was a movie in there!" and ran away. I wondered if he had been throwing the books because he just thought they were really lame toys and didn't know what to do with them.

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First, I would like to start off this blog response my noting how close to my heart this book is to me. My mom read this to me all through elementary school and she always told me how she was like the mom in the book. It made me emotional reading it. Aside from the story it is telling, the images seem like colored pencil drawings. All the colors used are bright and happy even though it is an emotional book. I also love the authors use of detail with the items drawn in the background. They also have a little element on the pages that reminds you of the page you just read. You can also see that the cat is present on all pages but when the boy was a man it was a different cat. You can see right away that this book was written a long time ago since the mothers night gown looks like it was more commonly warn in the 60’s or 70’s. I did look it up and this book was written in 1986.

This story follows a little boy and his mom through life. I think it is a very relatable story to any mother and child based on the developmental stages of children and how they act while growing up. It also portrays a message that no matter how a child acts their mother always feels the same. In addition, we know that whatever age we are we always want our moms, and we always love them no matter what. I feel like this book perfectly portrays how important mothers are and how much love and work they put in to make sure their children have a wonderful life. It had a big message because at the end the mom is old and sick and then the boy had to go see the mom and sing to her. I feel like this is an important message for anyone since we need to always appreciate and love our parents and carry down their legacy. This book may spark conversations about death with children and their parents, but I think this is good to talk about this early. I would say this is a full circle plot and the boy’s relationship with his baby will be the same. I would like to read a book like this with a mother and daughter.

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I really enjoyed listening to this story being read to children. The reader acted as if the smaller text was what he was saying, which I believe was the intent of the book. He was also talking to the kids and not just reading the words off the page. I feel that with this type of setting shows us how students may react in real time. I think the theme of this book is to re-define picture books in general. Like Mo Willem books (which contain pictures) these books contain a lot of onomatopoeia and other figurative language elements that add voice to the writing. I would use this book to teach voice during a writing lesson. Going back to my original point, I think this book is trying to teach kids how words can be fun! Teaching non-sense words is also a great way for students to practice their phonemic awareness.

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These books take a simplistic point of view of a bunny rabbit talking to the reader. I really love how the narrator is the reader talking to the bunny on the pages. I also really enjoyed how simple the drawings were. In every drawing you can still see the outline of the box. I looked up what it’s called when the character speaks to the reader. This is called an “aside.” In plays, they use this when they want the characters to provide information to the audience, but they are not wanting the other characters in the play to hear what they are saying or know that information. It is like the rest of the characters freeze so the focus character can “fill in the audience.”

It is very interesting how old play writing techniques are being seen in children’s literature. I also think this book gives off a wonderful message to its readers telling them that they should always use their imagination and not care about outside opinions. Really this story might be telling kids or even adults who feel misunderstood to stand up for what they believe or what to do with their life because it’s their life and not the people watching them.

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Wow! I was very intrigued with this story. I feel that this book brings up a current issue in today’s world. There are many benefits to using technology in the classroom to support literacy learning and learning within other disciplines, but there are still a few questions that pop up in my mind. How much technology is too much technology? How early should children be exposed to technology? What is an appropriate age for kids to get their first smart device?

I personally feel if the device is not being used for school or educational purposes then students should be at least 7 or 8 years old. When I was teaching Kindergarten all the students had their own iPad in class. Although, there were many tools our school used to monitor student literacy and math skills on this IPad, I did notice a shift when I picked up a book to read. I feel that the Kindergarteners attention spans grew shorter and shorter as they sat to listen to a book. I could use all the voices and hand movements I could and I would still have kids asking when they can get on their IPad.

I do think 5 years old is too young to be immersed in all this technology. I also think it is very hard for them not to be immersed in this much technology since this is what our culture is now. I think there needs to at least be a limit to how much exposure they get during the day. In this story Jackass was too used to technology he did not understand what a book was and we do not want our students to be like this.

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This box draws on the (almost) universal experience of playing with a box creatively. Many of us, as children, liked to use the boxes our appliances came in to play creatively as shown in this book. It also made me think of how often toddlers seem to like playing with the container a toy comes in more than the toy itself.

I wonder if children today still do that?  I like Jennifer's idea to use this book as a mentor text. We need a new dishwasher and it made me think I should bring the empty box as one of our center activities and let each group of 4-5 students play with it after reading this book, then write about what they did. Or have them play first and read the book afterward to see if each group used it in similar or different ways than how the kids in the book did.

Although this book is written for children, I think most adults will enjoy it and have the same nostalgic response to it remembering playing with boxes as children.

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I borrowed this book from our school library and read it aloud to my class yesterday without reading it first and it was a huge hit! So much so, that they begged me to read it again at the end of the day. I admit that I had seen this book but it wasn't physically appealing to me and I dismissed it as another celebrity capitalizing on their fame by writing a children's book. But now I'm going to add it to my teacher wishlist!

My students love interactive books where they get to feel in control. (Examples include "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus", "Don't Push the Button" and "Don't Touch This Book!') I would love any recommendations for more. Even my two non-English speakers were literally rolling on the floor laughing. I think this book appeals to children because the reader (or teacher) HAS to do what the book says and so they loved to see me singing, saying naughty words like "Boo Boo Butt" and call myself a monkey.  They loved to see me making silly noises, reading nonsense words and calling myself a blueberry pizza head =)

I can't wait to share this with my nieces and nephews over Facetime and I can see myself reaching for this book again and again in my classroom. I'm not sure my students would ever tire of it!

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This is a book I often read to all 3 of my own children, but especially my boys. Although it is a children's book, I think parents will have a stronger emotional response to the book than children do. I remember my oldest son didn't like the book,  because he disliked the idea of ever growing up and moving away.  I think he also didn't like the idea of me getting old. But I would often get emotional reading it to them when they were little and I got a bit emotional again when I re-read this yesterday after just taking my baby boy to college last week. I tend to think Robert Munsch wrote this book equally for children and their parents!

Through the years I have seen some criticism of this book as too sappy. The idea of a mother driving across town in middle of the night and crawling into her grown son's bedroom is, of course, creepy. But I think it's just a literary device used to show that a mother's heart is always near her child, no matter what they do or how old they are. I think the repetitive text, "I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always, as long as I'm living my baby you'll be" can be very comforting and reassuring to a child.

Obviously, a loving mother wouldn't cross boundaries in as dramatic ways as portrayed in the book, but the author taps into the strong maternal instinct to care for her child. In fact, I related to this book differently now after taking my son to college and the emotions that brought, including an almost magnet-like pull to turn around and go back to him as each of the 200 miles separated us.

Now, the ending affects me differently as I contemplate the eventual changing dynamic between parent and child as parents age and the continuation of parent-child bonds to a new generation.

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Not a Box is the only book this week that I hadn't seen or read before, so I checked it out from the library. The hard cover that looks and feels like a cardboard box was a brilliant design idea. I love how on the back of the book it has the "this side up" with arrows label! Is the book not a book just as the box in the story is not a box? What a fun concept!

Another brilliant part is the dedication: "To children everywhere sitting in cardboard boxes." That takes me back to my childhood for sure. Boxes were space shuttles quite often. For my child, boxes have been puppet theaters, rocket ships, boats, and just places to jump out from and surprise friends on their doorstep.

The question/response format is similar to The Book with No Pictures, inviting a second voice to jump in. The questions and assumptions made by what I will call the grown-up voice also remind me of the narrator in The Little Prince and how, when he was a child, the picture he drew was not identifiable to the grown-ups. Ah, we grow up and concern ourselves with "matters of consequence" and lose track of our imagination. Poor little bunny in this book gets so frustrated but doesn't give up and keeps being a joyful creative creature.

We need to keep sharing books like this with students so that teachers and students alike remember to look at things with youthful eyes.

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I encountered It's A Book by discovering that it is a prequel to the board book It's a Little Book. The latter has the back cover note "The companion to the bestselling It's a Book, now in diapers!" Yes, it's true: the jackass and the monkey are in diapers. There also isn't a mouse, and the word "jackass" is absent. The jackass still asks the monkey a lot of questions, but only two of them are related to anything electronic. This baby donkey mostly wonders if it can chew on the thing or do something useful with it like build something. The final line is "It's a book, silly," and they read together. Ahhh. Very sweet.

So we have two types of children's books here and they are mostly the same book, and mostly the same format, but could we argue that they have different audiences in mind? If they do, is it based on age or on interests? Or both? The older child may be more aware of texting and tweeting and the other meaning of the word "jackass." The parent reading it to the child will likely also chuckle more than reading the board book. It makes me think of kids' movies that have humor adults can better appreciate, whether the kids get it or not. But are they still both children's books?

Oh the questions! At least we know that, yes, they are books!

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A few years ago my oldest brought home The Book With No Words by B.J. Novak from her school library. My first thought was what is one of the writers of The Office doing writing children’s books. Personally, I really enjoyed The Office but it has a specific kind of humor. My daughter begged me to read it right then because she said it was VERY funny, so of course I did. She was dying laughing the whole time, and I myself was cracking up, too. When I saw that this was one of the books we would be reading, instead of checking it out of the library, I decided to actually buy it since I knew how much I liked it already.

The Book With No Words is cleverly written. What really engages the reader is how it is written in second person, where it appears the author is speaking to the reader. Over the past several years, I have seen more and more books that are written in this type of format. Children and adults both enjoy books that interact with them.

Even though this book has “no pictures”, it uses color, a variety of fonts, and sizes. Annie, made a comment about maybe it does have pictures with word art. I would agree with this statement that you could assume the words to be pictures in a sense. What I like most about this book is the crazy nonsense words. Children love to make up silly words, and hearing adults say them makes them laugh and smile. In my opinion, yes, this is children’s literature and people of all ages can appreciate and enjoy.

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Love You Forever is a book that I am familiar with. Surprisingly, I have never owned this book, even asked a couple friends if they had it, and they didn’t either. I know I have given this book at least once if not more as baby shower gifts. I have mixed feelings about this book and maybe that is why I haven’t ever owned it.

The message is a beautiful one for parents, and I think the book personally is intended more for parents than children. Not that children can’t or don’t enjoy the book, too. For parents, it is about how no matter what and as the child changes, they will always be loved. It also represents the circle of life. The adult being the caretaker of the child, then in the end the child becomes the adult and the caretaker for their elderly parent.

On the other hand, I am not a big fan of how the child continues to be rocked after being a young child or of the mother crawling on the floor to see him. I don’t really like how the mother is rocked at the end, either. I am probably focusing too much on small details rather than looking at the bigger picture. This book has a lot of person meaning for many families, and  I know that I am probably ruffling some feathers not praising every aspect of the book, but again as a mother myself, I like the overall message, just not the entire presentation of the book.