Customer Reviews

Playful Reading: Positive, Fun Ways to Build the Bond Between Preschoolers, Books, and You

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Sometimes reviewers feel so inadequate describing rich, thoughtful volumes in puny reviews. For example, the ways early literacy, family ties, and memory making can be enhanced using Carolyn Munson-Benson's inspired, practical book about the influential relationship of preschoolers, adults, and books are developed with such mindfulness and delivered with such clarity in this sensible compilation of reading suggestions, doable activities and things to talk about, that one longs to pass it around and let it speak for itself. Good stuff!

Those familiar with the old favorite, Whole Child, Whole Parent by Polly Berrien Berends, will recognize similar caring intelligence in Munson-Benson's writing. Those who use Starting Out Right: A Guide to Promoting Children's Reading Success by M. Susan Burns, Peg Griffin, and Catherine E. Snow, will welcome Munson-Benson's juicy applications of its sound principles. Those motivated by Jim Trelease's stirring Read-Aloud Handbook will find in Playful Reading better suggestions for preschool reading experiences than he offers. And those who rely on various story stretching resources will find none more valuable, especially for home use with preschool aged children, than Playful Reading: Fun Ways to Build the Bond Between Preschoolers, Books and You.

Having read and considered thousands of children's books over her long career as a consultant and author on literacy, reviewer, developer of a classroom book nook program, and parent, Munson-Benson has developed, besides contagious enthusiasm, an unerring sense of rightness in children's books. She recognizes and appreciates their power and is very good at helping grown-ups direct that power effectively toward encouraging children's positive association with reading as well as their healthy general development. While it all is a lot to think about, she makes it easy with enticing lesson plans and ideas parents, child care providers or teachers will want to use. Grandparents and other special relatives of young children also will love it.

Besides designating solid picture books preschoolers enjoy, and offering easy creative ways of sharing and extending their reading experience with appropriate, satisfying activities, Playful Parenting also meshes with the work its publisher, Search Institute, has been doing to promote "developmental assets", its term for specific positive experiences, conditions and connections that nurture children. ( Search Institute's earlier books, What Kids Need to Succeed and What Young Children Need to Succeed and leaders guide, describe their framework of 40 developmental assets.)

Munson-Benson chooses children's titles, and structures her book, with attention to these assets. Categorizing books by the eight assets of support, empowerment, boundaries and expectations, constructive use of time, commitment to learning, positive values, social competencies, and positive identity , she features, for each chapter, a cogent explanation of that asset in the lives of young children, five perfect book choices that bring out the asset naturally, a story overview, some enjoyable activities, related things to think about, savor and verbally explore together, and additional good books that support that asset.

The Boundaries and Expectations chapter, for example, includes Officer Buckle and Gloria by Peggy Rathman, How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight by Jane Yolen, Now I'm Big by Margaret Miller, Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, and Trashy Town. As fitting as her titles are her original suggestions about ways to use the books in fun, non-didactic ways. For How Do Dinosaurs Say Good Night? for example, she discusses going to bed rituals, playing with toy dinosaurs, and having a pretend paleontological dig for butcher bones in a sandbox or plaster form.

The book has a friendly, down-to-earth style, and includes some delightful personal anecdotes. It is packed with so many relevant ideas, suggestions, resources, and inspiration, an index would be helpful. Every sentence is meaningful. There's no filler. One children's title is attributed to the wrong publisher, but this book has been tightly edited to be lean and appealing and make sense. It is laid out beautifully.


Rarely is price considered in reviews, particularly of wonderful books, but, although teachers accustomed to paying 24.95 for a curriculum guide may not mind, people ordering this as a family resource will be surprised to receive a paperback that, in format, resembles books that usually cost about 16.95. However, the content of Playful Reading, the possibilities it contains, surpassing the physical object itself, are worth a great deal. HIghly recommended.

This book may be helpful to parents who work one-on-one with children, but not so helpful to caregivers and preschool teachers who work with a group of children at any given time.