Prehistoric People and the Fourth Bear

These are the books we've read (or flipped through and discussed) last week.

Baby Mammoth Mummy: Frozen in Time! - Somehow our library doesn't seem to have a lot of books about mammoths and woolly rhinos and other large prehistoric animals our prehistoric forefathers hunted. But this book was available and it was great. Sure, the story of a little mammoth drowning in a bog is a  bit sad, but the story about how she was found and studied was absolutely fascinating. We did not read the whole book, just bits and pieces. And we watched a YouTube video about how Lyuba was found. A couple of great things about a video - it showed the Nenets dwellings that looked just like prehistoric dwellings and M was surprised to hear people in the video speak Russian.

 What Do We Know About Prehistoric People - This is a great book. It is written in a Question and Answer format, so you don't have to read the whole book if you only want to know the answer to "Did prehistoric people go to the doctor?" or "What did prehistoric people do in their spare time?" Each chapter is very well illustrated and each illustration has a detailed explanation. So it's a great book to explore with little kids.

 DK Eyewitness Book: Early Humans - M mostly looks through pictures in this book and I copy some pages for M to cut and glue into his lapbook. We have not yet looked through the entire book. DK books are heavy on facts and are written for older children. So we just pick and choose.

It's Disgusting and We Ate It - this is such an enjoyable book that talks about all the weird and disgusting (to some) foods from different regions of the world and from different times in history. There are a few foods that we didn't think all that disgusting, such as seaweed and caviar. Then again, to some people a snack of a dried ocean vegetable and raw fish eggs might sound a bit strange. Sort of like deep fried scorpions and earthworm soup sound to us. Besides, we all might be eating mealworms in the not-so-distant future. Hey, at the BugFest folks were eating and liking mealworms already (crunchy, they said).

If You Decide to Go to the Moon - In our non-prehistoric and non-bug related books, we found this gem at the library. The story takes you on a trip to the Moon and tells you step by step what you will be doing and how you might be feeling throughout the journey. I don't know what it is about this book, but it really makes you feel how lifeless and empty the Moon is.

For M's nighttime story we've been re-reading the Жили-были кролики books for the upteenth time. But I don't mind at all. The stories are simple, but kind and the illustrations are so beautifully detailed! Turns out, there are two more books in the series and as soon as they are available on Lookomorie.com, I'll be ordering them.




Oh, yeah, and The Fourth Bear by Jasper Fforde was the book that I occupied myself with last week. Loved every line of it too!