With Thanksgiving coming up, I have been on the hunt, not just for books specifically about Thanksgiving, but for books about gratitude and giving. For small children, I've found that many of these focus on the concept of sharing. So, I've recently checked out a few just to see if any resonated with me, or presented the idea of sharing in a way that I thought might actually encourage my children to share - with each other and with others. I'm not sure this book, Bears on Chairs by Shirley Parenteau, does the trick, but all three of my kids LOVED it from the very beginning and we have been reading it upwards of ten times a day since we borrowed it last week. I think they like the colors and the cute illustrations of the bears (and it introduced them to a new descriptive word: calico).
The basic story is that there are four little bears and they each have a chair, so they don't have to share. Then along comes a big bear. There is no chair for him, and it doesn't work when he tries to share one chair with one other small bear. In the end, they need to push all four chairs together and that makes enough room for all five bears to sit comfortably.
I did notice last night that my kids were eager to all sit together on the same couch - something that doesn't often happen. Even though the couch is clearly big enough for all three, there is always some disagreement about who gets more space, who can't fit, etc. So, while they are learning only the most concrete lesson from Bears on Chairs right now, perhaps in the future we can expand it to other things.
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