Read-alikes: Two books about rhymes

March 26

Hi hi hi 👋

My children are on spring break this week and did I do anything to plan the “hot” vacation I swore, at the beginning of this year, we were going to take? (My parameters: “Hot. Not Florida.”) I did not. I’m not a procrastinator — I am in fact the obsessive opposite of a procrastinator — and yet here we are, NOT somewhere hot, with soft sand and salt water as far as the eye can see, where the sun can slurp its way across my body and down into my soul.

(Related: I want to go to the Riviera Maya but also Chichén Itzá: if you have done this, please, let’s discuss.)

However, because I need a novel experience right now or I am pretty sure I’m going to lose my mind, tomorrow we’re going to Medieval Times, a weird, undoubtedly extremely cheesy dinner theater featuring an 11th-century royal banquet, including jousting, which I have wanted to go to for as long as I can remember. (I swear I am doing this for my children but also my inner child — THERE! ARE! FALCONS! — and I make no apologies, especially because it will break up the interminable 500-mile drive south to visit my in-laws, which is our real destination, which is always a trip and absolutely never a vacation.)

Happy week, wherever you are and whatever you’re doing. (I hope, if there is a sword fight, it’s a fun one and if you’re super lucky, some falconry.)

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Read-alikes

It’s been just over two years — 749 days! I counted! — since I’ve come up with a new section for this newsletter, but when I got an offer to review a book from Penguin Young Readers Group titled The Book That Almost Rhymed, my very first thought was, “Chester Van Chime!”

Often books spark that kind of connection — I see the fruit of reading widely and reading well in my own children all the time, when I’ll be reading something aloud and they’ll suddenly interrupt, breathless, saying, “THIS IS JUST LIKE THAT OTHER THING!”

Indeed, this is one of the great joys of being a reader. Charlotte Mason, a British educator and reformer whose theory, teachings, and curricula have had a profound influence on contemporary homeschooling, believed this was so important, she included it in her 20 Principles, found in Vol. 6 of her work, Philosophy of Education:

‘Education is the Science of Relations’; that is, that a child has natural relations with a vast number of things and thoughts: so we train him upon physical exercises, nature lore, handicrafts, science and art, and upon many living books, for we know that our business is not to teach him all about anything, but to help him to make valid as many as may be of —

‘Those first-born affinities

That fit our new existence to existing things.’

Meaning: we help our children learn about many different things and trust that they have the capacity to make their own connections, to fit that new knowledge into what they already know.

Ideas speak to each other, and so, too, do books.

Sometimes a title just goes with another one — an unintentional pair. Book besties.

Hence: read-alikes.

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Chester Van Chime Who Forgot How to Rhyme by Avery Monsen, illustrated by Abby Hanlon (2021)

“There was once a youngster named Chester van Chime,
who woke up one day and forgot how to rhyme.

It baffled poor Chester. He felt almost queasy.
To match up two sounds, it was always so…

…simple for him.”

So goes this clever and whimsical story about a charming little boy named Chester, usually the best at rhyming, but not today. He doesn’t know what’s wrong, and he tries not to panic, but as he walks around town (a bright place detailed by Hanlon’s cheerful gouache and colored pencil illustrations), things just get worse.

Preschoolers who are familiar with rhyming texts will get a kick out of this delightful read, including its satisfying ending — basically, that we all have bad days and they work themselves out — but don’t underestimate this one for early elementary kiddos who are into wordplay and/or goofy storylines that veer from the obvious. It’s fun.

The Book That Almost Rhymed by Omar Abed, illustrated by Hatem Aly (2024)

I received a copy of this book from Penguin Young Readers Group — opinions are my own.

It’s hard enough to write a skillful book that rhymes, but to write one as inventive as this one is something else entirely. Here Abed came up with an amusing premise, executed hilariously: a boy is telling the perfect rhyming story, only to be constantly interrupted (in verse and on the page, through Aly’s dynamic and humorous digital illustrations) by his little sister, who keeps coming in with a seemingly nonsensical narrative of her own.

But how silly is it, really? What if it’s making the story better? And what if she’s building her own incredible rhyme?

When I first read this one to my children, the moment I closed the cover, they said simultaneously, “I love that book!” And I do too, not least for its refreshing spin on the “annoying little sibling” trope (prob because I have been and often still am an annoying little sister myself), suggesting that perhaps a sibling who disrupts our idea of how things should be is actually improving not only the plot but also playtime, and that maybe — if you’re willing to let go a little — adventure is more fun when you build it together.

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Read good books and take good care 😘
Sarah

P.S. All Bookshop.org links are affiliate ones — I receive a small commission if you make a purchase, which I am legally required to tell you though course I’d rather talk about (and I assume you’d rather hear about) falcons instead.