Mo Willems adds another fun tale to the shelves at Richland Library with his book, That Is Not a Good Idea!  Check it (or a number of additional new arrivals) out at your library, today!

Challenge yourself to read, sing, talk, play and write with your child in new ways this week!

Spring is in season at Richland Library with books like Sara Pennypacker's Clementine and the Spring Trip and Chicks! by Sandra Horning.  Check out these and other new titles, below, or drop by any library location to see more options.

Challenge yourself to read, sing, talk, play and write with your child in new ways this week!

Challenge yourself to read, sing, talk, play and write with your child in new ways this week.

Challenge yourself to read, sing, talk, play, and write with your child in new ways this week!

I love you. I think you’re grand. There’s none like you in all the land.”  - from Sleepytime Rhyme by Remy Charlip

The Coretta Scott King Award is given by the American Library Association (ALA) annually to outstanding African American authors and illustrators. This year’s recipient was Bryan Collier, an artist whose work is no stranger to the ALA.  The winning illustrations are presented in the book entitled I, Too, Am America, a short but powerful poem written by Langston Hughes, in which Collier beautifully portrays strength in the face of adversity with his watercolor washed collages. Collier has illustrated more than 20 books in his career, collecting several Coretta Scott King awards as well as three Caldecott Honors.

What are rare words, where can you find them, and why do they matter?

Rare words are those beyond the 10,000 words known as our Common Lexicon used in most daily conversation with each other.

You can find a great many rare words in children’s books. Children’s books have 30 rare words per thousand, while conversations between an adult and 3-year-old child typically include 9 rare words per thousand (JimTrelease: The Read-Aloud Handbook.) 

Quality children’s picture books are filled with rare words. Consider Byron Barton’s I Want to Be an Astronaut, a picture book for toddlers and preschoolers. It includes words like shuttle, mission, and gravity. These are words you might not use in everyday conversation with your young child. When you read this book aloud, you introduce him to these words, and they become part of his growing vocabulary.

Why is this important? Studies show that a child’s vocabulary upon entering school is the number one indicator of whether he will be a good reader. Trelease reminds us that by the time a child is 5-years-old, he will know 90% of the words he will use for the rest of his life. The eventual strength of your child’s vocabulary depends on how many of these rare words he knows. And the child who has heard thousands of picture books before he reaches school will have a larger vocabulary than the child that experiences very few books during his early years. 

There are thousands of vocabulary-rich books for young children. Check out the below sampling, but know it is the tip of an enormous iceberg. Visit the library often, attend storytime, and let us help your child develop a rich vocabulary through picture books.