Bored, Nothing to Do

Read because my mother happened to mention it... she's remembered it since it was new, I guess, as the boys are about the age my brothers were then. She liked it even better this time around. Without her influence I might give 3 stars, but she helped me to appreciate the details and the humor, and to suspend disbelief.

And yes, that kind of spanking was still fine back then. Very rarely used, not painful, administered by a parent who is acting, not reacting ... just a strong attention-getter.

I am glad her library system still has a copy and I gave it a circulation boost.

2023 - ‘70’s Immersion Reading Challenge

Bored-Nothing To Do! by Peter Spier (1978; 1991 ed.) 42 pages.

This is cute. Minimal words per page, lots to look over on each page.

Two brothers are told to go find something to do. You know…like our parents used to tell us back in the “olden” days. Sure enough, just like boys, they go destroying everything around the house to put together something wonderful. A little too wonderful…an airplane. Something more realistic would have made the story better.

This reminds me of days gone by when my kids were little. My youngest, Kristin, was sad when our goldfish died. So, I told her, “Go bury it and we’ll have a funeral. Well, she was only 4 years old. She tore into a premium bag of show more purchased topsoil (used the whole bag) and tore off pieces of Coast Guard housing fence to make a cross. She had it all set up and came and got me for the funeral. Jimminy-Cricket! Tore up Coast Housing fence! No price too high for a goldfish funeral, right?

Then, as we were being transferred and going through our inspection checkoff to leave the house, we discovered that our 7-year-old thought it was so cool the hit the corner sidings at the back of the house with a baseball bat (destroying them) because slugs would fall out. Aye, yi, yi!

The things kids will do! Better beware when you tell your kids, “For Pete’s sake, go find something to do.”
There’s no telling. show less

Two boys are bored, so they decide to make an aeroplane, as you do. They pull together materials from around the house, much to the consternation of their parents.

A fantastic book, with lovely painterly illustrations and great diagrams at the back for those who want to build a plane of their own. This book is a firm favourite in our household.

It is a really cute picture book. However, children may not find it as entertaining as adults would.

This book encourages children to use their imagination and encourages innovation. It is about two little boys that are bored with nothing to do. They go around their house and yard and find supplies to build a plane. Their parents tell them to put the parts back. At the end they are again bored with nothing to do.

This is a book about two young boys who were bored and needed some entertainment. They decided to build a plane and used alot of parts around the house that their parents found missing eventually. They were caught in some mischief and got spankings and sent to their room where they were back to square one of being bored again. Good read for a younger class, because it has such short sentence structure.

After reading this book, I believe that it is a very good example of a picture book because of the elaborate details in each picture as well as the small number of words per page.