Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school Ships in the night; mama's out to lunch; or,books

Just wrote a post on another forum about DS. All the kids discussed on there are his age. I didn'y get anything like the responses I was hoping for, so I went back and reread my post... And realized my language was probably overtechnical for the audience, my jokes excessively cerebral, and my concerns quite opaque if you read the thing asuming a typical 2 yr old. I wouldn't have understood me if I didn't know my kid.

So now I feel all isolated, and kinda dumb.

Anyone know a good nonfiction book about the technical details of historical ships (incl. ancient, preferably) accessible to a smart 2.5 yr old? The Usborne lift-the-flaps book we have is about the right level, but full of errors. (should I just take a red pen to the thing? )

Also, sources of info (web or book or whatever) on child labour on railroad building? (Long story, take a close look at the "driving of the last spike" photo for the CPR, as DS did .)

Actually anything appealing to a 2.5 yr old that's about 30-60 min of reading aloud, non-fiction, fairly technical, and, ideally NOT TRAINS? He likes fairly calm layouts, by kids book standards, and appreciates being able to ask for specific content in a specific order by pointing to the appropriate pics.

-Mich

For the ships-- look at Stephen Biesty's Cross Section books-- lots of art to look at, relatively comprehensible without reading. There's one about a Man of War ship.

DeeDee

DS at that age loved 'Why Things Don't Work' - there is a train one, racing car, motorbike, helicopter etc. Comic style story but very informative re how all rhe above do work. He knows more about engines etc than I do . He's moved from engines to the human body now...

This was hard for me because DS was totally the opposite - loved hugely complicated pictures with lots of detail. So we were always looking for super complicated stuff. This one is cleaner in picture but lots of detail as they are illustrations of the process and have cute mice to help explain!

Transformed

DeHe

I logged in just to suggest this book. DeeDee stole my thunder.

Oops, sorry Ametrine.

DeeDee

I love that book.

I don't know if this is technical enough, but my kids both loved the Animals Do the Most Amazing Things series at that age.

He likes complicated _diagrams_ he just hates bad, busy page-layouts -- Takes after his mama, the illustrator

Thanks for the great suggestions! We hit a good sale at a bookstore, and I'm feeling much saner now

Still have to find that much-recommended cross sections series, though.... looking forward to it, based on the response on here!

AND I feel a little less like an alien from Zeta 8.

-Mich