Quiet Books Before a Not-So-Quiet Weekend

As I sit at my laptop and count down the minutes until the girls get out of school for the weekend, I am soaking up the quiet.

After a summer of non-stop noise, I relish the hush that falls over the house when I get back from morning drop off. I am able to work on writing assignments, balance the checkbook, do some laundry, go for a walk, eat lunch, and write for fun (to me -- that's fiction).

I know very well that in just a few hours there will be screaming, conspiring giggles, pounding footsteps up the stairs and questions. "Mom, can I ... have a popsicle, can I watch TV, can I keep this snake I just found?"

We all need our quiet time -- am I right? Even children need something non-narcotic to lull them into a relaxed state. I advocate using books for this purpose.

One of my favorite "quiet" sleepy-time books that I read to my girls for years is the classic The Big Red Barn by Margaret Wise Brown. This is a perfect book for all girls who still appreciate read aloud books. The rhyme is rolling and charming, the illustrations, by Felicia Bond, are so adorable -- your girls will love to scan the pages for little suprises.

Now that my girls are older (and have read The Big Red Barn about a million times) they prefer picture story books like Fancy That by Esther Hershenhorn. This book, about a limner (painter of portraits) named Pip enthralls my girls every time we open it up.

The story tells a vivid tale of life in the mid-1800s (through gorgeous illustrations by Megan Lloyd) -- but it also weaves a story of determination, finding one's calling and family love.

Sounds like a lot for a picture book, but Hershenhorn and Lloyd have done such a fantastic job of layering this story and its illustrations -- and my girls delight in discovering all the patterns that occur throughout the pictures and text.

Pip and his sisters are left at the end realizing that siblings are a true gift (sometimes I like to reiterate that once or twice when I finish reading), and when I put my girls to bed, they are smiling and hopefully, maybe thinking that they've got it pretty good.

I hope you have some quiet time this weekend -- I know I probably won't -- but that's OK. As my own mother keeps reminding me -- someday they'll go off to college and there won't be noise after school.

That's the kind of quiet time that I'm more than willing to wait for....