August 08 Book of the Month

Announcing Planet Silas' August 08 Book of the month:
Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown, Pictures by Clement Hurd.

I hesitated using this classic as the book of the month. After all, it is Goodnight Moon, the queen of all classic bedtime stories. It's sort of an obvious choice. But after many hours of deliberation between me and myself, I decided I wanted to use it, for several reasons. First, it is still considered by toddlers (or at least mine) to be an engaging and much beloved book. Silas often requests it (and not just at bedtime). It was also the first book that Silas got for completing Summer Reading at the Library last year, so it holds sentimental value because of that. Lastly, selecting this book opens the door for me to tell you all about a couple of fun Goodnight Moon parodies/discussions which some of you will love and some of you will hate (consider yourselves warned). The first is Goodbye Moon, which I first saw linked to Mr. Nib's blog. The second is Goodnight Bush, which I found out about from a mama on the Mother's forum I recently joined. Hee-hee-hee. I won't say anything more about these. You can follow the links and see for yourselves.

Silas contemplating the subtext and inner complexities of Goodnight Moon:
And, we have an honorable mention this month! It is:
Sam's Opposites by Yves Got.

Another frequent request by Mr. Bear, he seems drawn to the bold line drawings and characters. The only complaint I have about this is that there are A LOT of opposites. I will admit to skipping a few pages if I want to hurry the reading along a bit.

"I like this book, mom. Tee-hee!"

This book has become increasingly interactive as we try to act out some of the opposites depicted. Here, Silas is demonstrating the goodbye part of the Hello/Goodbye pair (he does the hello handshake too now).

And on a totally different and not so uplifting subject: I meant to write a separate post about this yesterday, and well, it just didn't happen. So I'm tacking it onto this post, as unfitting as it may be. It's all I seem to have energy for.

This has been a hard week for us. Not so much for Silas, who is his usual energetic and (mostly) happy self. Instead, his mom and dad are dealing with some stuff. Yesterday marked the 1 year anniversary of loosing our dear friend, teacher, and mentor, Robin. It still hurts. Robin was my professor in college as well as my Buddhist teacher, and I worked for him for a number of years. He initiated our wedding. He taught us (particularly me) so much. He has been on my mind a lot lately, not surprisingly. On top of that, a few days ago, we received news that Fernando, one of Drew's closest friends going all the way back to middle school, died suddenly. His funeral took place on the anniversary of Robin's passing. We are very grateful to Drew's mom for attending the funeral in our place, since we couldn't travel back to Wisconsin for it. So, just 8 years after our wedding, 2 of the people in our wedding party have died. So sad. :(