Daddies Are For Catching Fireflies by Harriet Ziefert (Illustrated by Cynthia Jabar)
Review by: Ryan LaLonde
About the author:
Harriet Ziefert began her career as a teacher, then entered the publishing field where she developed a language arts and social studies curriculum for kindergarteners. For the past 25 years she has been writing books for young children. As an author, her main focus has been to create age-appropriate content, in an age-appropriate format — content that considers kids’ emotional and intellectual development together.
Harriet has written more than 200 children’s books and is currently the Publisher of Blue Apple Books and the Publisher of Begin Smart Books. She also created the “I’m Going to Read!” series for Sterling Publishing.
About the illustrator:
Cynthia Jabar lives on a small island off the coast of Maine where she loves to paint, to kayak, and to illustrate books for children. Other books she’s illustrated include The Greatest Gymnast of All by Stuart J. Murphy and Mommies are for Counting Stars by Harriet Ziefert. She doesn’t love washing her car or the dishes!
About the book:
Daddies do so many terrific things. A daddy always gives you the best seat at the parade, he reads you bedtime stories, and he tries his best to fix your toys when they break (even if he doesn’t always succeed). Filled with soft, beauti-ful watercolor artwork and lilting text, this lift-the-flap book about all the great things fathers do is perfect for young children.
My take on the book:
Many years before our son was born, we spent a great deal of time playing with our nieces and nephews in Memphis, Tennessee. I’d create games like I Spy and kickball – basically anything I could think of doing in the backyard. As day turned to night, hordes of fireflies began to appear. As I pointed the bugs in the air – the kids seemed amazed – as if they had never seen them before. When I told them they could actually catch them like I did when I was their age – they bolted for the house to find anything that could catch them in. The containers they choose were outlandish, pots and pans, plastic bags and a school backpack.
I went in the house and grabbed the cliché Mason jar for the perfect vessel. To them I was a genius. I explained this is best and to make sure to put holes in the lid. We then began the task of catching them. The art of graceful catches was lost on their eager hands. We lost many fireflies that night. But the ones that survived the trip to the jar were perfect.
We piled into a closet inside, with the filled jar. The eight of us crammed in small coat closet was worth it for the firework display we watched. The kids never saw anything like it. And