When your kid hates their glasses, Randy Kazandy can help
Written: Oct 05 '09
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Randy likes his glasses in the end, find hidden glasses, rhyme scheme, colorful illustrations
Cons: Randy destroys his glasses, book is pricey
The Bottom Line: Randy Kazandy rocks!
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| marytara's Full Review: Rhonda Fischer - Randy Kazandy, Where are your gla... |
When my four year old daughter learned that she needed to wear glasses, she was pretty upset. Before she even got them, she announced that princesses didn’t wear glasses and she wasn’t going to wear them. I expected that it would be a battle on a daily basis to keep her glasses on her face where they belong. I was worried that wearing glasses would be a huge blow to her self confidence because she immediately started talking about how she wouldn’t be pretty anymore. Thankfully, all these worries and bad sentiments were quickly erased after we went to the eyeglass place and she picked out a very pretty pair of glasses that looked super adorable on her. Even better, a whole world of clear vision was opened up to her and became immediately attached to wearing her glasses. Our glasses story worked itself out, but for many kids it is not so easy. Randy Kazandy, the “star” of Where are your glasses Randy Kazandy? was one of those kids who didn’t like his glasses.
Based upon a true story, Randy Kazandy was a little boy who had a hard time seeing due to a vision condition which caused him to see double. He needed to wear glasses, but he didn’t like the way he looked when he wore them and gave his mother a very hard time. Written by Rhonda Fischer – a relative of the real life Randy, has authored this whimsical children’s book that tells the tale of Randy and the shenanigans he went through to not wear his glasses. The story is written in rhyming verse and is perfect for reading aloud to a young audience.
Even though my daughter loves her glasses, I shared the story of Randy Kazandy with her because I think it is important for her to have storybooks about little kids like her who wear glasses for whatever reason. My daughter was quick to point out to me how ‘naughty’ Randy was for breaking his glasses and even asked me – why doesn’t Randy like his glasses? In the story, Randy’s mother had armed herself with many pairs of spares so she was able to replace Randy’s glasses quicker than he was doing away with them.
Some kids may think it is acceptable to destroy their glasses and think they could be replaced as quick as Randy’s mother did – so this is a caution and also a talking point. I do often remind my daughter to be gentle with her glasses, always take them off with both hands and store them in their case because they are very expensive. My now 8 year old son was a bit of a Randy Kazandy in the beginning when he got glasses but not on purpose – he was just very rough with them. So, I learned that in order to keep him in glasses I would need to stock up cheap spares (I quickly became very familiar with Zenni Optical).
The good news is that by the end of the story, Randy accepts wearing his glasses!
The deluxe hardcover by Whim Publishing is $19.99 and printed with lead free ink. The illustrations by Kim Sponaugle are vibrant and you can’t help but love little red headed Randy. On every page there are glasses – some are hidden in the picture and some are not. After reading the book together my daughter she and I went through each page and tried to find the hidden glasses. My daughter has vision issues and has to wear an eye patch on her strong eye so that she can strengthen her weak eye and improve her vision. Activities such as this (finding the hidden glasses) are just perfect for her to do while she is patching her eye. There are also games and activities for kids on that Randy Kazandy website at www.RandyKazandy.com which is a fun page to bookmark for kids who wear glasses.
For parents of all the Randy Kazandys out there, this storybook definitely hits the mark.
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Recommended:
Yes
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marytara
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