JUST FOR FUN: SOME ENTERTAINING READ ALOUDS WHEN KIDS ARE SICK

I recently came across two very entertaining books. They are perfect choices for reading aloud to a sick child, who is bored in bed and needing some cheering up.

The first book is an older classic - one of those "just for fun" books that sparks the imagination.  Like the boy in the story, your child may want to get busy with A BIG BALL OF STRING (written and illustrated in 1958, by Marion Holland, grades K-3)

Told in rhyming text, it's the story of a boy who starts collecting pieces of string...  "I had a little string.  It was no good at all.  I went to look for more string to make a string ball."  When he comes down with a cold and finds himself sick in bed, he keeps himself occupied by thinking up things to do with the string:  "I can look at my book!  I can shoot with my gun!  I make my bell ring! I can make my train run!" 

Who knew what a fun investment a ball of string could be?

The second "just for fun" book I'd like to mention, was recommended to me by a friend and her avid library-going preschooler.  It's a newer book:  RHYMING DUST BUNNIES, written and illustrated by Jan Thomas,  and wasn't around when my kids were little. But if it had been, the laughs we'd have gotten from it would have made allergies and all the efforts we made against them more bearable!  

This is one of the silliest and funniest books I've ever come across.  It's about three Dust Bunnies who are having fun rhyming.  A fourth friend, "BOB", just doesn't quite seem to catch on.   They don't understand his offering of, "Look!", in their attempt to rhyme, "far, jar, and tar" with "car".  And when they try to rhyme "bug":  "rug...hug...mug", his response is, "Look out!"  Assuming he's just rhyme challenged, but not realizing he's simply warning them about an approaching "monster with a broom" (a vaccum), they get swept along and...well, you'll have to go find the book to see how the hilarity ends! 

Jan Thomas has written and illustrated several other picture books that are just as fun!