Scholastic Story Play Books: Dinosaurumpus!, Snuggle Bunny, Shoe-la-la! and I Love You Becuase Your'e You





If you know a family that is about to, or just, welcomed their first child, run out and buy all four of these brand new StoryPlay books for them immediately! Scholastic has created a fantastic new line of books for little listeners that is the perfect bridge between concept board books and longer picture books. StoryPlay books are as much for parents as they are for children, incorporating prompts to engage readers with the story and each other as well as two pages at the end of the book that include ideas for activities, games and more, all relating to the book. The StoryPlay books are,

vetted by a rotating team of educators. StoryPlay books are curated to help young readers and listeners develop pre-reading skills, reading comprehension, problem solving abilities, social skills, and memory strength. A burst on the back cover of each title specifies which thematic or developmental area (among them socialization, emotions, self-expression, and science) the book shines a spotlight on.

Having read picture books out loud to my own children, for work as a bookseller and now as an elementary school librarian, I find that the annotations to the StoryPlay titles are things that I, after 20+ years and 10,000 hours, do instinctually when reading out loud. Now that I am working with readers of all ages and abilities, I am much more sensitive to comprehension, picture clues, inference and imagination while reading and the StoryPlay books draw these out of the story and guide the (adult) readers on interactions with listeners wonderfully.


Another fantastic aspect of the books in the StoryPlay series is the very reasonable price of $5.99, which is less than most board books. Scholastic has drawn from their excellent backlist for three of the first four titles, with Snuggle Bunny by Katie Dopirak, illustrations by Cori Doerrfeld, debuting as the first original title in the series. Scholastic plans to add twelve new titles to the series each year, four of them original titles and eight from the backlist. In many ways, the StoryPlay books remind me of the 21st Century, turbo-charged versions of the Little Golden Book, a magical part of my childhood. Not only are these high quality, inexpensive picture books that are a brilliant addition to any bookshelf, but they are packed with additional educational information that's invaluable.

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