What’s The Nine-Year-Old reading this week?
Our mostly-weekly survey of the tidbits that cross The Nine-Year-Old’s desk. This week, The Nine-Year-Old spends some time painting and exploring grassy meadows with Oliver, the tuxedo cat and his kangaroo buddy Jumpy.
This week’s books: The Oliver & Jumpy Stories by Werner Stejskal
The Nine-Year-Old loves the Oliver & Jumpy ebooks. The characters are engaging, the stories entertaining, and the pictures wonderfully spare, which works well on our black and white Kindle.
There are more than 50 of these stories available for download on Amazon, packaged in collections that contain three stories each. Prices range from free to just a few dollars. (At press time, stories 37-39 and 40-42 were free on Amazon.)
The recommended age range for the stories is 1-8. The pictures will definitely appeal to the younger set, but I think the sweet spot writing-wise is 5 and older. Still, you never know until you try it with your child, so if you have access to a Kindle, you might as well sample one of the free ones and see what your young reader thinks.
(BTW, if you haven’t tried it yet, Amazon’s FreeTime service works pretty well for parents who want to let their children read on their Kindles without getting into books the little ones aren’t ready for yet.)
Also, rumor has it that The Nine-Year-Old has landed an interview with Oliver. If you’ve read the books and want to submit a question for that furry little trickster, post it in the comments. The Nine-Year-Old’s still prepping her list of questions, and she’d be happy to tuck your questions in with hers.
In case you also missed it — A sampling of mostly recent news:
Building a bee waterer (The Walden Effect)
Bees need water too, but can drown in regular old bird baths. A simple solution is to fill your existing bird bath with clean marbles before adding the water. The marbles give the bees a place to perch while they’re sipping. Once the waterer is built, you just need to refill it with clean water once a day. It’s a great job for environmentally minded kids.
The bee waterer created by the folks at The Walden Effect
Where is the lead exposure risk in your community? (Vox)
Flint, Michigan isn’t the only U.S. community at risk of lead in their water due to aging pipes in the streets and housing stock. Reporters at Vox worked with epidemiologists in Washington state to map the relative risk of lead exposure in communities across the U.S. Check it out to see whether you need to start filtering your tap water to get the lead out.
Related Links:
- What’s The Seven-Year-Old reading this week? (Caterpickles)
- What’s The Eight-Year-Old reading this week? (Caterpickles)
- What’s The Nine-Year-Old reading this week? (Caterpickles)
- More Book Reviews on Caterpickles
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[…] talked about the Oliver and Jumpy picture book series on Caterpickles before, but in case you missed it, I’ll just give you a bit of background on the characters before […]
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