Check It Out - One Special Day

ONE SPECIAL DAY (written by Lola M. Schaefer and illustrated by Jessica Meserve)

It is hard to imagine a better book for sharing with an active preschool boy whose mom is expecting a baby.  Nothing mushy here.  Spencer is strong, fast, loud, funny, and wild.  His boisterous outdoor play is illustrated in action-filled illustrations.

Adding to the fun are simple similes for kids to guess:  “He was messy as a…”  cut to an illustration of a large, pink, self-satisfied pig covered in Spencer’s muddy handprints.

But when mom and dad come home with the new baby, we see that Spencer can also be gentle enough to hold the baby and enjoy cozy family time together.   No worries, though.   The laugh-out-loud end pages show him training his new young sibling to stick out his or her tongue and beat on a pot with a wooden spoon. 

Preschool teachers will enjoy using this book to teach about similes as well as new babies.  (And after years of dealing with high stakes testing in the public schools, I’d like to add that a simile never, ever lowered a child’s score on the writing sample.  In fact, it sometimes raised it as high as a kite.)

Pick it up at the Easton Area Public Library.  Parents looking for more books about bringing home a new baby can check out this extensive online booklist.