Choosing Books for Gifted Kids...  

"Some books

  are to be tasted

  Others to be swallowed

  And some few to be chewed and digested"

Francis Bacon, Essays, 50 ‘of Studies’, 1625

Picture Books

Choose books that are well written, clearly printed and include artwork that is both pleasing to the eye and relevant to the story.

Picture books for gifted kids should have:

➢Vibrant, original illustrations that enhance rather than accompany the text

➢Illustrations that are so fascinating that they can be looked at repeatedly to find more detail, private jokes and humour

➢New and fascinating words that are satisfying to the tongue

➢Characters who display real emotions, feelings and relationships that the child can recognise

➢Plots that are not completely predictable

More than a picture book

“And when he came to the place where the wild things are
they roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth
and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws
till Max said “BE STILL!”
and tamed them with the magic trick
of staring into all their yellow eyes without blinking once
and they were frightened and called him the most wild thing of all
and made him king of all wild things.”


Sendak

Gifted children with emotional & intellectual OEs usually have an  ability:

➢to empathise that allows them to identify with the characters

➢to understand metaphor

➢to become absorbed in the story with a meta-understanding of the issue

As a parent ask yourself if the book:

➢Promotes discussion between you and your child

➢Enables your child to make a connection with her own life

➢Validates your child’s feelings and responses to the issue at hand

Bettelheim & Zelan, 1982

“What is required for a child to be eager to learn to read is not knowledge about reading’s practical usefulness, but a fervent belief that being able to read will open to him a world of wonderful experiences, permit him to shed his ignorance, understand the world, and become the master of his fate.”

Reviews

The Alice-Miranda series: Number 1: Alice-Miranda At School

Alice-Miranda Highton-Smith Kennington-Jones is seven and a half years old, and very mature for her age. She leaves the school she loves (but is rather bored by) and acquires entry to the prestigious and exclusive Winchesterfield-Downsfordvale For Proper Young Ladies. Alice-Miranda is quickly enveloped into the strange and competitive world of the Private School. She must handle; grumpy cooks in need of a holiday, depressed gardeners, tantrum-throwers, bossy, spoiled brats and worst of all, a mean and elusive principal who no one has seen in ten years. Alice-Miranda must prove she is capable enough to stay at Winchesterfield-Downsfordvale by completing three impossible tasks, the penalty for failure? Instant expulsion.

Alice-Miranda at School is a delightful read with cute, opening-chapter pictures, that is well-worth the time for person under the age of 11, a bedtime story, or a light read for anyone who is a child at heart. 8/10.

Alice-Miranda At School

Jacqueline Harvey

Random House 

2010

Pages-281

Genre- Children fiction

First in the series, other books titled:

Alice-Miranda on Holiday

Alice-Miranda takes the lead