My daughter let out an audible “Aww” at that part.)ĭaisy’s owner takes Daisy and her ball on a walk to the park, and Daisy meets a new brown dog, who excitedly jumps in to play with Daisy’s ball. The kicker is the beautiful moment when Daisy, while trying to fall asleep, decides to cuddle up to her red ball on the couch. How do we know she loves it? Because, in Raschka’s expressive drawings, you can see Daisy’s face light up and almost hear her tail wag whenever she’s near the ball. The simple, yet achingly deep story is all about a cute dog named Daisy who LOVES her big red ball. I think the reason that A Ball for Daisy worked so well for my daughter – and why it probably works so well for other children too – is that it very skillfully takes its reader on an emotional journey.
(My great apologies, Caldecott committee. It was one of the best bedtime reads we’d had in weeks and it all came from a book that five minutes earlier that I assumed she wouldn’t like. And, once I finished reading, she was more animated and chatty about what she’d just read than I’d seen her be in a long time. This little 32-page book, with no words at all, brought out so many emotions from her in a short bedtime reading that I could barely believe it. My five year old didn’t just LIKE A Ball of Daisy. I hope nothing ever happens to that ball. What’s that rule? The fact that – when I make a parental decision or even when I speak a particularly declarative sentence – I am almost always, always WRONG. So, as I flipped through A Ball for Daisy, a wordless picture book with big, expressive illustrations that even the youngest of readers could appreciate, all I could think was “She might be too old for this.”īUT, as frequent readers of this blog will recognize, there is one seemingly constant and unchangeable rule of parenting that I never seem to be able to escape. I definitely recommend it.) My wife and I began thinking, “OK, this is where we’re headed. (It’s both a beautiful and a hysterically funny chapter book. We’d just spent the past two days reading her the 128-page Lulu and the Brontosaurus by Judith Viorst and Lane Smith, and she’d loved it. She still loves picture books and even has a few board books that she refuses to pack away with the rest of her toddler toys, but, lately, she’s shown increasing interest in early readers and chapter books. Why was I worried? Because, recently, my daughter, who turned five in November, has started to gravitate towards older and older skewing reading material. A Ball for Daisy: Winner of this year's Caldecott MedalĮarlier this week, Chris Raschka’s A Ball for Daisy won the 2012 Caldecott Medal, the very prestigious annual award for the most distinguished American picture book for children.Įarlier this evening, I was flipping through Chris Raschka’s A Ball for Daisy as my daughter brushed her teeth and worrying that she wasn’t going to like it.
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