I’m planning on reading from Arthur Scott Bailey’s nature stories (The Tale of Cuffy Bear, etc) this year with my 8, 6, 4, and 3 year olds as part of our nature studies. Does anyone know if it is beneficial to start with one of the books over another? Does it matter? Does each book follow a storyline thereby simply choosing a character we’d potentially be most curious about would be unwise?
We used these books last year and loved them! Now the children are at a level where they can read these stories to themselves and each other in their free time, so we’re still enjoying them! We started with Benny Badger, but only because I thought learning about badgers would be interesting at the time. It really doesn’t matter which book you start with. Many of the stories are woven together using the same characters in each story, but the focus of the books is on whichever animal is in the title. So, while Mr. Coyote and Mr. Ground Squirrel are part of the plot of the story and much is learned of both, Benny is the main character. Same with the other stories.
We read:
Benny Badger
Ferdinand Frog
Major Monkey
Frisky Squirrel
Tommy Fox
Solomon Owl
And, as I mentioned, the children still read more of these stories on our iPad in their spare time.
Oh I’m really excited about these! I hope my girls will be able to read them independently in the afternoons while my boys nap. 🙂 I just bought three from Amazon … Benny Badger, Jolly Robin, and Cuffy Bear. They look excellent. Thank you for replying!
You can also get them FREE for your kindle if you have one or to read on a computer using the kindle app (also free).
My 9YO son really loves the books, and I have read some to our two 6YOs, though I know they would enjoy them much more if I had the paper copy with illustrations.
They’re very much like Thornton Burgess. We enjoy them, although we’ve read so many Burgess that it drove us nuts to have Farmer Green instead of Farmer Brown and other name differences.
Ha, that’s cute RobinP. 🙂 Yes, we’re pretty much Burgess’d out at present so I hope this is a good change.
LDIMom … thank you! I’m weird and I don’t have a Kindle or Nook or anything techy like that … I barely have a functioning computer and I’m a total lover of books in my hands, which means I make my girls love them too! lol.
NOT weird at all. i just got a kindle last year. I do like it, but I LOVE a book in my hands. The kindle though has allowed us to have access to many more books on our tight budget, like these Arthur Scott Bailey books for instance.
I also got the entire G.A. Henty collection for $1 on the Kindle.
As for a functioning computer, I would surely miss that!
I think you’ll love the books though no matter the format!
I do keep hearing about all the money I’d save going with something electronic, especially when funds are tight. Definitely in the back of my mind. Thank you so much!