Spells by Emily Gravett

I came across this absolutely darling book last week during my travels and had to bring it home with me. In Emily Gravett's storybook called Spells, published in 2009, a frog finds a spell book, and wishes it was a book about boats, so he rips and folds and makes it into a boat. He wishes it was a book about castles, so he rips and folds and cuts some more and creates a castle. He notices at the top of a torn page the words, "Spell to become a Handsome Prince." The spell has been ripped up, but he tries to put it back together with some pretty funny results.

What did you say?

"The pages are broken in half."

Why, yes, the next five pages are split in half, so while the frog tries to get his spell right from all the scraps he created turning the book into a boat and then a castle, your child (or you if you don't have one and love storybooks) gets to see all the creatures Frog turns himself into as he tries to put the Handsome Prince spell back together. The inside cover says this book is for ages 4 to 8, but I think this book would be fun for any age of child. I shared it with my thirteen-year-old son and he laughed out loud.

This book has a cute ending that lets the reader know that in the end, one can't be anyone but who one truly is.

Bravo, Emily Gravett for this clever and beautifully illustrated story.

Angela Jensen, one of Angie's coworkers from the NICU, donated six new books for our NICU book project. In Utah, we have a bookstore called Seagull Book where they sell books for less than market price. They often have discount tables of cute children's books for under five dollars each. Angela Jensen found six new books for the babies at Seagull Book. Thank you, Angela!

If you'd like to help with books for the NICU, click on this Link to the book project to see how to help.

Read every day, and let your child see you read. Make sure your child knows that readers live at your house.