Diane Petryk Bloom, the Children’s book reviewer at the Examiner.com, of Milwaukee, has 
put together a nice list of new Christmas books. I love these lists. Now its off to look around for them to check them out and see what’s worth buying, and what’s worth leaving behind. I already know that the Hannah Montana entry will be left behind. But Lemony Snickets’ The Lump of Coal
Everybody knows that a dog is man’s best friend. How about his or her best audience? Dogs are now 
being used as ‘nonjudgemental’ audiences for children learning to read. Found in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, we read that young children are reading to dogs in order to build up their literacy, i.e. reading, skills.
The friendly beasts known as “Reading Education Assistance Dogs”, sit quietly, wag their tails approvingly, and drool, while your kid gets to forge all the way through a book, maybe for the first time.
Yet again, dogs step in where nature or a parent is lacking, and provide a friendly, keen, ear, a lick and a snuggle. Better by far than nothing, but wouldn’t a parent be a grand improvement. Parents should listen as well as read aloud.
Siblings, especially younger ones, love to be read to. If your budding reader has any, the younger siblings are also better than dogs, and the time together forms lifelong bonds, and sparks a conversation, not just barks.
Seems that this approach is nothing new, as this older article from the NY Times indicates. That mysterious bond between man and dog will never be plumbed to it’s full depths, it seems.
Cool Science News – New York Times Simply Science Science News for Kids Senor Parrot’s Perch