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Daddy Wrong Legs

by Nina Laden

Chronicle Books    3/4/2014

978-1-4521-1528-3

Age 2 to 4     16 ½ pages

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“Every daddy is different—mix-and-match the split pages to see how! A daddy can have frog legs, dog legs, or even bone legs! Can you find a pair like your daddy’s own legs?”

Review

Well, this is a perfect Father’s Day book, only a couple of days late. But daddies need legs every day, not just on their special day. Open the book and you will see a “Daddy Wrong-Legs” on the left side and a “Daddy Long Legs” on the right side. Which is correct? Are either of them your daddy? If not, flip a page, or both pages. Little fingers can decide to turn only the top page or only the bottom page, instead of both pages. Whatever they chose to do a daddy will appear on each side. Keep turning until you find your daddy.

This is a cute book for kids learning to match things. Each half has a corresponding half somewhere that will make it whole. Not until the last two pages will kids find a daddy that looks almost like their daddy. He is standing with his little girl sitting on his shoulders and the house cat gleefully rubbing his leg hello. Until you get there, many other daddies lie waiting for its match or mismatch, whatever your child prefers. A little frustrating are the rooster top half and the alligator bottom half. The rooster’s lower half is unable to get below him and the alligator just doesn’t have a head. I would have loved to see the daddy alligator and his just hatched baby gators.

Daddy Wrong Legs has a daddy spider (not my favorite), elephant, frog, ape, teddy bear, octopus, skeleton, dog, and human—when correctly matched. Who is to say what is correct? Not me. Kids needing  little help n look to the backgrounds that match top and bottom. Daddy Wrong Legs will entertain young children for quite a while as they mix-up the animals. I like the thick pages that will stand up to tiny fingers and PB&J sandwiches that squish onto the pages. The cover shows a “wrong daddy:” a daddy getting kisses from his pup has chicken legs and a couple of confused baby chicks. Turn the chicken legs page a couple of times and daddy dog has his doggy bottom half including a tail and one more puppy. I think kids will laugh heartily as they randomly turn the pages, getting all sorts of daddies never seen before.

Daddy Wrong Legs is an inventive book, maybe a bit of a novelty, yet loads of fun. Kids can work on their matching skills and have fun playing with the different pages to make oddball animals that will have them laughing. Daddy Wrong Legs needs no supervision after the first run through. The text is minimal. Mainly, the book encourages hands-on play young children will enjoy. With its cute animal halves, its strong pages that easily clean, and supervision-free enjoyment, Daddy Wrong Legs makes a perfect book for kids now insisting on doing things alone and their own way. Yep, your newly independent child will like making all the possible daddies. With some encouragement, kids might have stories to tell about their interesting daddies. Life-long joy of reading can begin with Daddy Wrong Leg, even when the reviewer misses Father’s Day.

DADDY WRONG LEGS. Text and illustrations copyright © 2014 by Nina Laden. Reproduced by permission of Chronicle Books, San Francisco, CA.

Buy Daddy Wrong Legs at Amazon—B&N—Book Depository—Chronicle Books—your local bookstore.

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Learn more about Daddy Wrong Legs HERE.

Meet the author/illustrator, Nina Laden, at her website:   http://www.ninaladen.com/

Find more books at the Chronicle Books website:   http://www.chroniclebooks.com/

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Also by Nina Laden

Romeow and Drooliet

Who Loves You, Baby?

Grow Up!

Ready, Set, Go!

Peek-A Who?

Peek-A-Zoo!

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Reviewed HERE

Halloween is just around the corner.  Soon we will be surrounded by ghosts, witches and maybe even some monsters.  Your little monster is sure to enjoy this picture book about family and parents.

Age Level:  0-6

Have you ever wondered if monsters have mommies and daddies? It turns out monsters families are a lot like our families. This monstrous tale about parents and family is perfect for children aged eight and under.

On sale for only $.99 this weekend, September 27th though September 29th (normally $2.99).

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Today would have been Lady Bird Johnson’s 100th birthday. In honor of her and the season, we wanted to share one of Lady Bird’s Christmas recollections, as told to Michael Gillette in Lady Bird Johnson: An Oral History.

ENTERTAINING AT THE RANCH

As the first Christmas at the ranch approached, it was wonderful in a way, but we really hadn’t gotten the house fixed up very much. But we put a wreath on the front gate. We had all the family, and Lyndon assumed the role of paterfamilias. I guess it was just a few days before Christmas that we got everybody out there. Of course, the queen of the occasion—for Lyndon and for me, too—was his mama, but from the remaining children of Lyndon’s father’s siblings, all of those that were still living were there. There were at least three generations there. I think there were twenty-one of us in all. Lyndon sat at the big table that had arrived. All the leaves were put in. We had rolls of pictures made.

Did this family gathering reminded him of earlier ones when he was a youth growing up?

Oh, you know it had to be, and I’m sure that was exactly why he wanted to do it. He remembered all of those, and he wanted to assume the role and gather the clan. I just wish I had done better by it and had had the house all aglow with flowers and fat, comfortable furniture. There was our rather bedraggled-looking Christmas tree, which the children and I actually decorated together. It didn’t profit too much from our inexpert fingers. Then we took pictures by the front door, which had a wreath on it, too. It was a big picture-taking session, and I cherish every one.

My own family came to spend Thanksgiving with us at the ranch in 1953. Daddy and his wife, Ruth; my brother Tommy; and Sarah, his wife. Tony, the one with whom I felt the closet affinity of all, and Matiana. There were our children, sitting down crossed-legged, on the grounds in front of us, in the front yard of the ranch. I’m a little bit too plump, which doesn’t speak well for me. There’s a warmth in looking back and seeing Tommy’s and Tony’s faces, even if it is the occasion of a great big deer hunt and they have their kill propped up in front of them, and in seeing Daddy with his three children by the fi replace. I’m glad they shared this old house with us some.

Michael L. Gillette directed the LBJ Library’s Oral History Program from 1976 to 1991. He later served as director of the Center for Legislative Archives at the National Archives and is currently the executive director of Humanities Texas in Austin. He is the author of Lady Bird Johnson: An Oral History and Launching the War on Poverty: An Oral History.

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Image credit: From the Lady Bird Johnson: An Oral History, Original in the LBJ Library. Public domain.

The post Christmas at the White House appeared first on OUPblog.

Happy International Children’s Book Day! When their father goes away unexpectedly, Roberta, Peter and Phyllis have to move with their mother from their London home to a cottage in the countryside. Thus begins E. Nesbit’s The Railway Children, the latest in our Oxford Children’s Classic series, which we’ve excerpted below.

Father had been away in the country for three or four days. All Peter’s hopes for the curing of his afflicted engine were now fixed on his father, for Father was most wonderfully clever with his fingers. He could mend all sorts of things. He had often acted as veterinary surgeon to the wooden rocking-horse; once he had saved its life when all human aid was despaired of, and the poor creature was given up for lost, and even the carpenter said he didn’t see his way to do anything.

And it was Father who mended the doll’s cradle when no one else could; and with a little glue and some bits of wood and a penknife made all the Noah’s Ark beasts as strong on their pins as ever they were, if not stronger.

Peter, with heroic unselfishness, did not say anything about his engine till after Father had had his dinner and his after-dinner cigar. The unselfishness was Mother’s idea—but it was Peter who carried it out. And needed a good deal of patience, too.

At last Mother said to Father, ‘Now, dear, if you’re quite rested, and quite comfy, we want to tell you about the great railway accident, and ask your advice.’

‘All right,’ said Father, ‘fire away!’

So then Peter told the sad tale, and fetched what was left of the engine.

‘Hum,’ said Father, when he had looked the engine over very carefully.

The children held their breaths.

‘Is there no hope?’ said Peter, in a low, unsteady voice.

‘Hope? Rather! Tons of it,’ said Father, cheerfully; ‘but it’ll want something besides hope—a bit of brazing say, or some solder, and a new valve. I think we’d better keep it for a rainy day. In other words, I’ll give up Saturday afternoon to it, and you shall all help me.’

‘Can girls help to mend engines?’ Peter asked doubtfully.

‘Of course they can. Girls are just as clever as boys, and don’t you forget it! How would you like to be an engine-driver, Phil?’

‘My face would be always dirty, wouldn’t it?’ said Phyllis, in unenthusiastic tones, ‘and I expect I should break something.’

‘I should just love it,’ said Roberta—’do you think I could when I’m grown-up, Daddy? Or even a stoker?’

‘You mean a fireman,’ said Daddy, pulling and twisting at the engine. ‘Well, if you still wish it, when you’re grown-up, we’ll see about making you a fire-woman. I remember when I was a boy—’

Just then there was a knock at the front door.

‘Who on earth!’ said Father. ‘An Englishman’s house is his castle, of course, but I do wish they built semi-detached villas with moats and drawbridges.’

Ruth—she was the parlour-maid and had red hair—came in and said that two gentlemen wanted to see the master.

‘I’ve shown them into the library, sir,’ said she.

‘I expect it’s the subscription to the vicar’s testimonial,’ said Mother, ‘or else it’s the choir holiday fund. Get rid of them quickly, dear. It does break up an evening so, and it’s nearly the children’s bedtime.’

But Father did not seem to be able to get rid of the gentlemen at all quickly.

‘I wish we had got a moat and drawbridge,’ said Roberta; ‘then, when we didn’t want people, we could just pull up the drawbridge and no one else could get in. I expect Father will have forgotten about when he was a boy if they stay much longer.’

Entomologists estimate there to be around a quintillion individual insects on the planet–and that’s just insects. Bugs are everywhere, but how much do we really know about them? Jeff Lockwood to the rescue! Professor Lockwood is answering all your bug questions–one at a time, that is. Send your question to him care of [email protected] and he’ll do his best to find you the answer.

Are daddy-longlegs really as venomous as I’ve heard?

Well, that depends on what you’ve heard.  If people have told you that these creatures are deadly, then those people are dead wrong.  This tale is debunked on the website of the University of California Riverside, and I trust my colleagues at UCR.  I know a several of the entomologists there, and they’re a really smart bunch of scientists (a claim that one might question, given that they chose to live in Riverside, but my concern is for their entomological acumen, not their geographic aesthetics).  So, I’m going to use what they say about daddy-longlegs and if you end up dying from a bite, then it’s on them.

First, let’s get clear on just what creature we’re considering.  I grew up thinking that daddy-longlegs were those spider-like beasties with a spherical body and really long spindly legs that were invariably found in wood piles and in the crawlspace under the house.  However, some folks use the name to refer to cellar spiders—which do have rather long legs.  Both versions of daddy-longlegs are arachnids, along with scorpions, mites and ticks.  However, the creatures of my youth aren’t spiders at all.  They belong to the Order Opiliones, while the true spiders—including cellar spiders—belong to the Order Araneae.  The big difference is that the woodpile version (also called harvestmen) don’t spin silk and their head-thorax-abdomen is crammed into one blob, while the cellar version spins silk and has two body parts (the head and thorax fused in a cephalothorax and the abdomen).  And just to make matters a bit more confusing, the silly Brits call refer to crane flies (which do have long legs but then so do giraffes) as daddy-longlegs, but they also have really weird terms for the hood/trunk of a car and other such things so we’ll just ignore their misnaming of arthropods.

The UCR folks think that most people are referring to cellar spiders when they talk about daddy-longlegs.  I think my colleagues are nuts.  In my estimation, they know their entomology, but not their colloquial terminology.  I suppose that because cellar spiders are common along the Pacific Coast, the UCR faculty hang out at cocktail parties where people sip Chardonnay and ask entomologists about daddy-longlegs in their basements.  Well there’s a big country to the east of California, and out here a daddy-longlegs is most assuredly the sphere-and-legs version.  But let’s move on to the venom-thing.

As for the real daddy-longlegs (Opiliones), these fellows mostly eat decomposing stuff, hence their affinity for woodpiles and crawlspaces.  They’ll nab a smaller creature if the opportunity presents itself.  However, they don’t have fangs or venom glands.  Some species can secrete nasty stuff, so if you’re a small animal then perhaps you could be poisoned.  If a human wants to be harmed by these daddy-longlegs, it might be possible if you gather up a humongous bunch of daddy-longlegs and eat them.  As Paracelsus told us centuries ago, the dose makes the poison—and even water is poisonous in sufficient quantities.