Carole P. Roman, mother, grandmother, and children's book author has really created some unique, educational and creative kids books that we had the privilege of reviewing! We throughly enjoyed reading Oh Susannah: It's in the Bag, If You Were Me and Lived In... Kenya, If You Were Me and Lived In... Turkey, and If You Were Me and Lived in... Renaissance Italy! I can't wait to share a bit about these creative kids books!
My 5-year old Hayven and I had a great time reading through Oh Susannah: It's in the Bag. The character of this story actually reminded me of Hayven in her quirky thinking and view of the world around her. Susannah also tended to get side tracked and distracted by anything, which is similar to my Hayven.
In this book, Susannah has a really bad day and each chapter of the book ends with her placing an object into her backpack that she accumulated from her unfortunate circumstances. Her bag gets heavier and heavier with every piece of unfinished sheet of homework, failed test, and invitation to a party she didn't care to attend, rotten banana and so on. Finally, Susannah makes it home, but her parents are too busy for her attention. She tries to hide her bag of overwhelming failure under her bed. Her parents caught wind of Susannah's sad temperament and worked with her on how to deal with overwhelming circumstances as well as realizing their failure to spend the time with Susannah that she needed.
We had LOTS of laughs and lots of sounding out words that were new and challenging for my 5-year-old, but not too difficult with a little assistance. I think ages 5 and up is perfect for this book.
We also got to explore and read about different countries and cultures from around the world and back in time with the books If You Were Me and Lived In... Kenya, If You Were Me and Lived In... Turkey, as well as If You Were Me and Lived in... Renaissance Italy. These books were unique in a variety of ways. They all included maps, words in other languages with their correct pronunciations and definitions, as well as a taste of what culture was like through every day life in each of these places. But, the most unique factor of these books was the perspective in which they were written.
They address the reader as if a child from that area were explaining what life would be like if the reader (your child) lived there.
"When you went back to school, you would call it Sokol (o-coo-la)." If You Were Me and Lived In... Turkey, page 20
"Your favorite meal could be nyama coma (ni-am-a h-om-a), which is beef or goat roasted over an open fire, like a barbeque."If You Were Me and Lived In... Kenya, page 14.
"Your name could have been Dolce (Dohl-chey) or Lisabetta (Liz-a-bet-ta) if you were a girl. Your parents could have chosen Lorenzo (Luh-renz-oh) and Cosimo (Coh-zi-mo) for your brothers' names." If You Were Me and Lived in... Renaissance Italy, page 6.
If You Were Me and Lived in... Renaissance Italy was a very dense book with what seemed like a well-rounded, almost complete view of what Renaissance Italy would have been like from a good understanding of the troubles of the era, to the rise of creativity in art and music, to the dress and hair style, the gender roles of the time, layouts of the home and what daily life would have consisted of. There is plenty in this book about famous people who came out of this era such as Michelangelo, Raphael and so many more!
At the rear of each book is a glossary and/or pronunciation guide.
These books are truly great to supplement a geography class or to assist in a project of a certain region of the world. They are excellent and easy for early readers to read and understand.
Do we recommend?: After reading the 4 books we were given, I would think that any book from this author would be a great quality children's books. Yes we recommend these books :)
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