Dom and I love to read together.  Rather, I read while he flips the pages so quickly that I can’t keep up.  Same difference.

We check anywhere from 5 – 15 children’s books out of the library each week.  We also have an extensive children’s collection on our own bookshelves.  There are some books that Dom and I love so much that I want to share them with other parents.  So I figure that I’ll do that once a week or so.  Here is this week’s book corner…

Red Light, Green Light by Margaret Wise Brown

I have covered one or two of her other books in The Book Corner.  I am sure that I will share many, many more with you all in the future.  She is an amazing writer, and she somehow knew exactly how to catch a child’s interest and hold it long enough to finish the story. 

This book is one I enjoyed as a child.  In fact, the copy I have was my father’s before it became mine.  The story focuses on the concept of Red=stop and Green=go.  A variety of characters go about their days, stopping on red and going on green.

The book begins:

 In the morning they all came out of their houses.
 Red Light they can’t go.
 Green Light they can go.

 The truck came out of the truck’s house
 A garage.
 …
 The boy came out of the boy’s house
 A home.
 …
 And the mouse came out of the house of the mouse
 A hole.

As the day goes on, each character (there are others besides the three mentioned above) travels his, her, or its own road.  “Red Light they can’t go.  Green Light they can go.”  Finally, night falls, and the characters all return to their homes.  The illustrations are beautifully sketched but muted, probably to make the red and green lights appear brighter.

I have been trying to teach Dom about crossing streets, since we live right off of a very busy road where people drive far above the speed limit (do I sound like a complaining old lady yet?).  He knows to stop on red/orange, and to go on green.  I honestly think this story helped drum that into his mind.