Clean Your Room!

After three days off last week for snow days and having our children on fall break at the same time, this is the moniker we were using around our house, "Why don't you clean your room?"

     In her book, How to Clean Your Room, Eileen Spinelli provides some much needed advice for children hearing the same question from their parents; in the most delightful and poetic way!  "First, wade through the clutter of color like an artist. . . what a lovely mess. Next stop at the books teetering by the bed, tottering with words, worlds you have read about, pages you have danced in. . ."  The author is a bit more kind than I am, I'm afraid.  Who knew cleaning your room could take on such a pleasant tone?  Who would have thought that cleaning your room, the most dreaded chore of all, could become such a pleasant experience?

     This book is filled with pop-ups, pull tables, and even a spinner... so your children might just spend more time reading this book than actually cleaning their own rooms.  It might also make a special gift for someone who keeps things tidy.  And perhaps it might inspire children to take on the piles, the "stuff", the clutter...

     It might just help a child realize that having a bedroom to clean is a gift.  Or, it might just encourage them to write a bit about other chores that they dread... with language so graceful that the chore is quickly forgotten.  "How to" writing with a special twist that only Eileen Spinelli could spin!