Darswords

Children’s book: Laughing eyes: Fun rhyming poems for parents and children about everyday life with beautiful illustrations by Haya Magner
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I love being asked to read and review books that I wouldn’t have seen otherwise. After all, my little ones are all grown up. In fact, today is my youngest one’s birthday. Hard to believe it was 36 years ago that miracle came to be! She would have loved this book back in the day.

This was going to be a four-star rating. I’m not crazy about poetry. And there wasn’t text-to-speech or a way to make the text part larger. But I managed. I turned the Kindle sideways just to make it bigger for my eyes.

The illustrations were amazing. That alone should have rated the five stars. It made me want to get out my crayons or pencils and start drawing. I think it would affect a child like that, too.

Let’s not forget the lessons taught in the poems. I love parenting styles that allow a child to learn through their own experiences rather than being forced by the parent to do what they say. The parent lets the child go out in socks rather than wear shoes in the rain. And the rhyming story tells how the child feels about cold, soggy feet.

What put me over to the five stars is that this ought to be several books. I’d love to see some of the stories get their own books. So not only would it take several nights to get through the book but the child could go on and read each one of the over and over.

And what I always love in books is the conversational starters. There are so many in this book. What lessons did we learn? What should the child do? What can his parents do? Why do you suppose the child felt like that? This book brought to mind many talks my kids and I had. And I always made sure they heard the illustrator’s names and the author’s names so they would see what imagination and creativity could bring to a world.

Thank you, Haya Magner, for letting me read your charmer!

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