Preschool Gems Book Review

Raising kids, especially two boys, means having our fair share of arguments and tug-of-war games to referee. Not too long ago our three-year-old took a toy from his younger brother. I explained to him that if they were going to fight over a toy, I would have to take it away and that no one would be able to play with it. That’s when it happened…

“You can’t take it from me, Mommy. I’m faster than you.”

It was my very own blatant honesty with a touch of sarcasm coming from my sweet, innocent child’s mouth. I can’t say that I was shocked. He always has a way of speaking subtle truths while tweaking it just enough to make us all laugh. He was right – he is faster than me. And I’ll admit that, in the moment, I cracked a smile but apparently I need to stop letting him win all of our “races.”

Leslie McCollom, a preschool teacher, experienced this on a daily basis. After watching every single child, and the words they spoke, she decided to launch Preschool Gems. Leslie became a covert anthropologist, of sorts, in the secret world of children and began unearthing all of the little gems. She started by posting all of her funniest findings on Twitter and, as her following grew to more than 160,000 (with an additional 4,000 on Facebook), subsequently released an adorable book.

Preschool Gems: Love, Death, Magic and Other Surprising Treasures from the Mouths of Babes is a collection of the most strange and hilarious things she overheard at her school. The book reminded me of a cross between a PG version of Sh*t My Dad Says and a vocal version of Sh*t My Kids Ruined. I swear that I laughed throughout just about all of it. I would’ve made a Kids Say the Darndest Things reference but one of the quotes, “My mom lived in the nineties,” hit home and I didn’t want to age myself too much here.  Some of the funny quotes include:

“I have a cool trick, but it’s not allowed.”
“People are hamburgers in America.”
“At the park there’s, like, no laws.”

One child’s quote hit the nail right on the head. “The best score is when you win. That’s the last score.” Leslie McCollom has definitely won with this little jewel of a book. Preschool Gems is just as much entertaining as it is true. Perhaps we should all take a lesson from our preschool counterparts and live life with fewer inhibitions. Life would surely be much more entertaining. So, in good ol’ preschool fashion, I double-dog dare you!

*Randi received the above book, free of charge, to facilitate this review.  All opinions are those of reviewer only.