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Book Review: Firefighters Coloring Book

Jun 242010

We love coloring books in this house. Or, really, I love coloring books and my kids seem to be catching on. All the same, we have an ever-growing collection of themed coloring books. Recently, I’ve been looking for and collecting buying firefighter themed coloring books. I thought I’d share one with you.

Firefighters Coloring Book doesn’t have an imaginative title; it is what it is. It happens to be a Dover Coloring Book which I actually remember from anatomy class in high school. The Firefighters Coloring Book is a typical coloring book with black and white pages that leave room for even wide, toddler based crayons to add life and color to the page.

This coloring book follows firefighter Mike through his day. He arrives at the fire station. He changes into his fire gear. He tests and cleans equipment and fire engines. He does some drills. He goes out on inspections. He eats some lunch. And then he rushes off to put out a fire. He then fights the fire and even rescues a baby. Mike is a hero.

I love coloring books that tell one story as you continue through the book. Some of our licensed character coloring books jump all around and you’re never sure what you’re favorite big red dog will be doing on the next page. I like organization and cohesive flow. My kids might not care about such things but, really, I do. As such, coloring with them in books like this one doesn’t usually resolve in a full on body twitch from me. Usually. Have you colored with a two and a four year old? Save us all if I color the shoes the wrong color. I digress.

Yes, I Colored This

(Yes, I colored that page. What of it?)

The two page spreads for various scenes, including the wide fire truck, are my favorite parts of this coloring book. I like how it allows for a bigger presentation of the big red (or whatever color you want to color it but, really, fire trucks are red) truck. I think giving kids more room to create and color and imagine is always a positive thing.

Other Dover Coloring Books with a fire theme include the Firehouse Coloring Book and the History of Fire Engines . The latter looks a little more complicated than my preschoolers’ fingers can handle so we’ll hold off on it for awhile.

I’ll be sure to bring you more firefighter coloring book (and printables) reviews in the near future!

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[Have you entered my $100 giveaway yet? Why not?]
[Disclosure: Links are through the Amazon Associates program.]

Book Review: Fire Truck

Reviews 4 Responses »

Jun 042010

When my brother was two, he wanted to be a fire truck.

I can’t make these things up.

Yes, really. If you asked him what he wanted to be, his reply was that he wanted to be a fire truck. Not a firefighter. A fire truck. Shortly thereafter he picked the human profession of paleontologist. My brother is kind of weird unique. All the same, it has been a long running family joke for years. Even my cousin who wanted to be an elephant doesn’t get teased as much as my brother for his grown up wishes.

We received Fire Truck by Peter Sis as a gift before BigBrother was born. It’s a cute little board book that warms my heart for various reasons.

Fire Truck

The book features a little boy named Matt (which just so happens to be my brother’s name). He loves fire trucks. He thinks of them first thing in the morning. They’re the last thing he thinks of on his way to dream land. He loves fire trucks. As you might guess from the story that lead into this review, he wakes up one morning and he is a fire truck.

The board book then launches into a double pull-out page of what Matt the Fire Truck has on him (1 ladder, 10 boots). It’s a great little counting lesson as well as a lesson as to what fire trucks have on them other than firefighters. The only bad thing about this particular pull-out page is that it is easy to tear off the one side. Even my children who are particularly great with everything from paper pages to pop-up books have managed to tear the page off (accidentally) twice. Glue on the “hinge” makes it workable again.

Matt the Fire Truck then zooms around his house putting out fires in book shelves and rescuing stuffed animals. Until he smells pancakes (which are BigBrother’s favorite, by the way). A review on Amazon claimed that the book ended too abruptly. I feel it speaks to the attention span of younger children. “I’m a fire truck, I’m a fire truck, I’m a… ooh, pancakes.”

I love reading this book with my boys. It is one board book that we have decided to keep despite the fact that they’re both into longer books with paper pages now. I can imagine reading this to my grandchildren someday and telling them about how Great Uncle Matt wanted to be a fire truck. I also can’t wait to buy the book for my brother and sister-in-law when they begin to add to their family.

I learned today that the book is also available in a hardcover. I may purchase it so that we can retire (and save) our much loved board book.

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[Disclosure: Links are through Amazon Associates.]

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

Holidays, Parenting 13 Responses »

Mar 022010

Today has been Dr. Seuss’ birthday! We’re big fans. I always have been, always will be and I hope to raise two little boys who have an appreciation for him as well. We’re on track with that as I can’t count the number of times I have read The Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, The Lorax (our most recent addition) or the other numerous books on our Shelf O’Seuss. I thought we’d do something a little special today since it was his birthday.

BigBrother was my inspiration for today’s plans since he brought home a very cute craft from preschool yesterday.

Craft

That’s right. I made Green Eggs and Ham. Not the kind featured in the book but scrambled eggs with bits of ham, which the Seussville website told me how to do in case I couldn’t figure out how to add green food coloring to liquid egg and cook it up. I also took it a step further and added some green food coloring when I was cooking up the ham.

Green Ham

When I first added the egg, it looked…. interesting.

Added Egg

But soon it started to scramble up and look kind of like eggs with ham. Somewhat.

Scrambled

When I put it on the table, the boys looked at it a bit skeptically. I mean, I can’t blame them all that much. It just looks… weird.

Mmm?

But LittleBrother eventually said, “I’ll pretend it’s broccoli!” He likes broccoli so that’s a good thing.

LittleBrother

And despite his texture issues, scrambled eggs are an acceptable food with BigBrother, no matter their color, and he ate it just as slowly as he eats any meal that I make.

BigBrother

FireDad chose to wait until after I started the process to tell me a horror story from his youth. Apparently his sister and a friend made green pancakes one morning. FireDad ate said pancakes and, later that day due to an unrelated illness, he got sick and threw up. He forever blamed the green pancakes. I would like to report, however, that he has not yet hurled.

I take that as a sign of success.

My Bite

Tasted fine to me!

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

Fire Book Review: A Small Christmas

Reviews 3 Responses »

Dec 152009

We hit the library at the beginning of the month to grab some new books. I hit the library’s online catalog before our trip to request a few Christmas books. I found a few Christmas books with a firefighter theme and, of course, I requested those to be sent to our library. We’re loving them right now. I thought I’d take a couple of days and review them for you.

First up is A Small Christmas by Wong Herbert Yee (2004). If you’re familiar at all with Fireman Small and his various books, you might want to pick up this one.

A Small Christmas

Fireman Small is a small firefighter in a small fire house in a small town. He’s always rescuing something, helping someone or trying to sleep only to hear the alarm of another call. A Small Christmas is only different in the fact that the saving he is doing in this book has nothing to do with fire and everything to do with saving Christmas! At the beginning of the book, he’s busy helping the mayor pick a tree, driving it back on the top of his fire truck. The boys liked this illustration because it looks just like their Christmas sweaters. (I wonder if that’s where the designer of their sweaters got the idea?)

Fire Truck

As the book goes on (32 pages, 4-6 lines of reading every other page), Fireman Small’s firehouse is visited by Santa and his reindeer. But Santa has already flown all over the world, delivering presents to all the good boys and girls. And he falls asleep in Fireman Small’s bed! To save Christmas, Fireman Small has to deliver the presents in the snow… on his fire truck, of course!

Small Christmas Snow

The boys think this book is rather funny. Why would Santa Claus be tired? Why did he get in the bed? Why wouldn’t the reindeer move? What would happen if the fire truck couldn’t go through the snow? Lots of questions were posed as we read through the book a second, third and fourth time. We’ve read it a lot this month, having been placed on the “favorites” rotation of Christmas books we have in our own library along with the others we got from the library.

I think this book would be a welcome Christmas addition to the library of any child who loves fire trucks. If you’re looking for a gift for a child in the age 4-8 range, or even a bit younger or older as LittleBrother (2) loves it as well, this might be a great book for you to pick up.

A Small Christmas is currently $6.95 at Amazon (12/15).

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[Disclaimer: The book is from the library. The links are Amazon Associates links.]