I’m birthday shopping for a long weekend visit with a young friend, and I think I just found the most perfect example in the world of a book series that should not at all be threatened by the birth of the e-book.
The background: The boy is turning three, and he is into trains. But he has a lot of train stuff already, including two train-themed gifts we will be bringing for him from various grandparents. And he likes the movie “Toy Story,” but is, again, well-stocked. So … what should we get him?
We heard the news that he’s been struggling to learn how to use scissors, so I decided to look for a sticker book or craft kit of some sort. And a fabulously helpful Indigo employee pointed me to this series by Kumon, which has at least three books: It’s called “Let’s Cut Paper!” and each book features an assortment of tear-off activity pages for the child to, well, cut.
There was a car in two pieces, which, when cut, can be assembled into a vehicle. There was the octopus with eight marked lines for antenna-creation. There were pages on which to practice all sorts of scissor skills, ranging from short lines, long lines, curved lines and all other manner of dexterity challenges.
It even had suggestions for the grown-up for patter to extend the learning further. It was just what I needed, and will be absolutely perfect for practicing this emerging skill.
I just kept giggling at the title, though. I spend so much time reading e-books and writing about them that this just struck me as incredibly funny. “Let’s Cut Paper!” Try and make that into a e-book, I dare you!
