Mosel was an associate professor of library science at Case Western Reserve University. Mosel was also the author of The Funny Little Woman, which won the 1973 Caldecott Medal for Blair Lent's illustrations and was recognized as an Honor Book by the Hans Christian Andersen International Children's Book Awards. In 1997, The New York Times named it one of the best 50 children's books of the previous 50 years. The book was named an American Library Association Notable Book and won the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award. Because so many young listeners responded enthusiastically, she decided to write her own retelling, and Tikki Tikki Tembo became her first book for children. When she grew up, she shared this wonderful tale with countless children, including her own. About the AuthorĪrlene Mosel (1921-1996) first heard the story of Tikki tikki tembo as a child. Tikki Tikki Tembo is the winner of the 1968 Boston Globe - Horn Book Award for Picture Books. Arlene Mosel and Blair Lent's classic re-creation of an ancient Chinese folktale has hooked legions of children, teachers, and parents, who return, generation after generation, to learn about the danger of having such an honorable name as Tikki tikki tembo-no sa rembo-chari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo. Several nights in a row, if you can…įind these titles at your favorite local independent bookstore.Three decades and more than one million copies later children still love hearing about the boy with the long name who fell down the well. Perfect for kids ages three to seven, and best read aloud. Like many things, this is how we learn, and Tikki Tikki Tembo is a good book for just that. It’s so much fun to conquer a difficult string of syllables (like supercalifragilisticexpialidocious), and then repeat them over and over and over again. Regardless of the injustice (and resulting adjustment), Tikki Tikki Tembo is always a hit with kids. Perhaps brevity (and equality) is the way to go – childhood is complicated enough without the added burden of tongue-twisting birthright issues to overcome. It’s a close call, but he survives, and the ancient custom of naming firstborn children such elaborate names is revisited. Communicating the dire circumstances of a child with an extremely long name takes much more time, and as a result, precious moments are wasted in his rescue. The second slip happens with the older boy, so this time his younger brother is tasked with fetching help. If you guessed that the young boys did not learn their lesson the first time, you’d be correct. “Step over step over step over step” the man heads down, and “step over step over step over step” he heads back up with the little boy in his arms. ![]() ![]() First the younger son takes a tumble, leaving his brother to find help from his fairly nonchalant mother, and then from an older gentleman in the village with a ladder. Each day the children play around a dangerous object (in the case of this story, a well), and despite being warned of the danger by their mother, they fall in. Like fables do, there are lessons to be learned. The mother’s first born son is named Tikki Tikki Tembo-no Sa Rembo-chari Bari Ruchi-pip Peri Pembo, which (for the story’s purpose only) means “Most Wonderful Thing in the Whole Wide World”, while the younger son has a monosyllabic name that (unjustly) means “little or nothing”. The injustice of this fable is not lost on my own little one. The story is based on an invented Chinese custom whereby children are named in certain ways based on their birth order. ![]() Tikki Tikki Tembo, retold by Arlene Mosel and illustrated by Blair Lent, is one of those books. Occasionally it gets a bit predictable and tiresome for the reader, but repetition is a valuable early reading tool, particularly in texts that already have a repetitive structure. Rut actually has a negative connotation, but I don’t really think this sort of nightly repetition is a bad thing. ![]() Both my girls often get into reading ruts.
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