Favorite Books

(30 Months)

I love that we'll frequently find Wild One sitting somewhere "reading" a book.  Sometimes he's reading out loud for all of us to enjoy.  Other times, he's quietly sitting reading to himself.  It amazes me that a boy with as much energy as he's got (always running, jumping, galloping), can sit still for 15+ minutes and "read".  I hope he always loves to read.

When it comes to reading, they definitely have their favorites.  Right now, they are:



This is a Mo Willems classic.  Wild One and Little Miss LOVE the various inflections of Elephant and Piggy's voices.  They laugh hysterically as Elephant and Piggy are laughing.  Another Mo Willems favorite of theirs is The Duckling Gets a Cookie.  These are just as fun for the parent, as they are for the child.

 

I love how this story has rough tough little girl pirates with their own pirate ship.  The kidabunks love the repetition and were "reading" the first few pages to us as we would read the story aloud to them "Down, down, down the dark, dark, street they came..."

I love this version!  The font is large.  There are pictures to help the pre readers identify which animal comes next.  When Wild One picks up this book, he really looks like he's reading it (even though, I know he has it memorized).  I love watching him read this story aloud to us, he holds it up the way I would as he reads.  When he finishes a page, if we don't clap, he says "claps" and then of course he receives thunderous applause.

I have searched and searched and searched for the version that tells the Piggies to always work hard at what you do and not to take the easy way out.  However, in every version that I have been able to get my hands on, it's vaguely alluded to.  This version is the nicest one that I've found so far.  We made stick puppets for the kidabunks to use when we read this story.  They love retelling this story.  In fact, now before they knock a toy over they say "I'm the big bad wolf.  I huff and puff."

My incredible cousin bought this one for the kids and they completely surprised us when they started reading along side us.  They memorized another story!  We change the characters names in almost all of our books to their names, and at the end of the story when the little brother yells "Pinkaboo"Wild One excitedly says "that's me!".

We've been reading this story to the kids since they were itty bitty newborns. We know this story line by line, page by page.  For the first year and a half, we read this story every night.  I'm not sure if they now ask for this book because they like it, or because it's become a part of them.

The kids call this "the color book".  Little Miss says that the "Hacken Kracks are crying because they miss their Mommy and Daddy."  Wild One is always asking (on each page), "where did the boy go?"

I remember when my adorable nephew "read" this book to us.  I was so impressed that this little man of less than two years of age was able to "read" the entire story.  We started reading this story to our kidabunks and one day they started "reading" it to us.  I love the looks in their eyes as they "read" the story.

We didn't check this one out of the library until the kids were 26 months old.  I wish I knew about this book before though. There's hardly any words in the story.  However, the pictures detail beautifully what is happening and allows the "reader" to create her own story, make predictions and retell the story.





Sadly Brown Bear, and Ten Fat Turkeys (favorites from a year ago) have been sitting on the shelf.  Hopefully, they will get noticed again soon.  Still, it's sad when a favorite doesn't get picked.