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One of the greatest pleasures I have found in motherhood is in sharing good books with my children. I love to read books with these small people and to discover that they take the same joy in them that I do. Let me recommend one source of this joy to you in case you haven’t discovered her already, author Patricia Polacco.
Polacco’s books are wonderful for reading with elementary school children and on one’s own. Polacco is prolific and both writes and illustrates her books. She is one of the rare authors who are able to do both extremely well. Her stories (many based on her own childhood) are oh-so-human, so engaging, so interesting, so ready to transport you to a different place and time. As for her illustrations–well, facial expressions have never been so well captured. (Intriguingly, Polacco earned a PhD in art history and is an expert on Russian iconography–but her pictures are earthy and achingly real, her texts down to earth and accessible). Some of my favorite titles are Thank you, Mr. Falker, Just Plain Fancy , Chicken Sunday, and The Keeping Quilt.
After forgetting about Polacco for a while, just last week my love of her work was renewed by a title I’d never seen before: Rotten Richie and the Ultimate Dare, a partly (mostly?) true story of a conflict with her brother and how it all ended happily ever after. Since sibling contention is an ongoing issue in our home, and I’m always hoping and looking forward to the day that my children can write their own happily ever after endings, I just adored this book. Check it out!
P.S., Already familiar with Polacco? What are your favorite titles?
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3 Responses to “Patricia Polacco”
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Oh, I have never heard of some of these! But I love, own and have given as gifts, the book “The keeping quilt”! That book is one of my very favorites. We will definitely have to do some of these for our summer reading. Thanks for posting!
.-= Patty Ann´s last blog ..Fireants! =-.
I love Patricia Polacco as well. She’s one of my mom’s favorite authors. My mom’s favorites are An Orange For Frankie & Christmas Tapestry. My kids LOVE Emma Kate – and we just checked out Rotten Ritchie & the Ultimate Dare a few weeks ago!
I love Patricia Polacco! We talked about her in my children’s literature class quite a bit. She is excellent. I love learning about all these good authors!