Sisters and Brothers

Sisters and Brothers

There's a song on the album "Free to Be You and Me" (I'm middle-aged, so I can still call it an album) called "Sisters and Brothers" about how everyone in the world is brothers and sisters and we can all look out for one another. My little brother and I used to belt it out in merry unison…when we weren't bickering or tattling on each other.

In reality, the relationship between brothers and sisters—as my brother and I both knew quite well—is more complicated. My daughter's an only child, without either the stresses or the comforts of having a sibling, but she's getting a small taste of the experience this week, with my no-longer-so-little brother, sister-in-law, and 4-year-old niece in town.

Mostly, she's reacting pretty well to being upstaged by a charming and verbal preschooler; she even shared her brand-new circus Playmobil set (a gift from them) without (much) balking. She and her cousin are both pretty set in their ways, though, and after their week together I bet they'll both have a new appreciation for these books about life with a sibling:

Picture Books:

• 101 Things to Do with a Baby, by Jan Ormerod
• A Baby Sister for Frances, by Russell and Lilian Hoban
• Big Sister, Little Sister, by LeUyen Pham
• Do Like Kyla, by Angela Johnson
• How to Be a Baby (By Me, the Big Sister) by Sally Lloyd-Jones and Sue Heap
• Julius the Baby of the World, by Kevin Henkes
• My Mei Mei, by Ed Young
• My Rotten Redheaded Older Brother, by Patricia Polacco
• No More Kissing! By Emma Chichester Clark [out of print]
• On Mother's Lap, by Ann Herbert Scott
• Titch, by Pat Hutchins
• Zelda and Ivy, by Laura McGee Kvasnosky (oooh, that tricky Zelda!)

..and a Few Chapter Books:

• Beezus and Ramona, by Beverly Cleary
• George Speaks, by Dick King-Smith
• Snarf Attack and the Secret of Life, by Mary Amato
• The Stories Julian Tells, by Ann Cameron (I especially like the chapter where Julian tries to fool Huey about the meaning of the word "Catalog" and Huey waits in vain for the Catalog Cats to arrive)

There's also Mail Harry to the Moon!, which I haven't yet gotten my hands on in person but which is reviewed most recently at Charlotte's Library. As a big sister, I can sympathize with the narrator (Sorry, bro)...though, like him, I wouldn't really want my little brother on the moon; it's too much fun having him (and his family) here on Earth.

October 20,2008

Comments

[Alkelda the Gleeful]

My daughter sometimes says she wants a younger sister. I think she really wants a best friend! I need to find the article again, but at one point I had a link that highlighted some of the fallacies of the concept of the only child. The one that stood out was that sometimes only children are better at sharing than children with siblings because they've not had to deal with the constant struggle for one's own turf.

My daughter is enjoying the Ramona books-- I plan to read Beezus and Ramona to her after she's had a few books from Ramona's perspective.