What we're reading #3

The third in a series… I worried a bit that we hardly read to MZ when she was tiny. It was beyond boring to read to an infant. Fortunately she loves being read to now, and has very specific tastes that continue to develop. Some books, like Itsy Bitsy Spider, remain favorites, but overall I’m surprised at how frequently her preferences have changed since her first reading list.

What with a general lack of time, I completely missed blogging on her Books from the 70s with Collage Illustrations phase, which started during the high fever of her roseola outbreak and lasted several weeks. But during that time, her favorites were Eric Carle’s The Greedy Python and Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you See?, Ezra Jack Keats’s Whistle for Willie, and Leo Lionni’s A Color of His Own. Trippy. But she’s already on to other things…

Come Here, Cleo MZ loves this book about an orange cat, she can name something on virtually every page, from the cars on the boy’s draperies to the slide in the backyard to the captivatingly drawn Cleo.

Chunky Pets: Cat Again, she can name something on most of these chunky wooden pages, even details we don’t notice, like the toy car on a dresser.

Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! This is her first picture book since Wynken, Blynken & Nod (great edition, btw), which we read to her when she was tiny. This book cracks her up, which is interesting since I don’t think she knows most of the words, but the illustrations seem to carry the day.

The City/La Ciudad We all love the simple collage illustrations of city life, although the typo mid-way drives R. and me nuts. It's a first-words book, how tough could it be to spellcheck?!

Buenos Dias, Baby! I think originally she was drawn to this book’s diminutive size, but now she brings it to me and declares what she’d like to see: bottle, puppy, hat, shoes…

My First Words This cheapo book came with one of those crazy gift baskets from China – the kind where you end up throwing half of the contents away because they aren’t even baby-safe. It actually came with a pink gingham bib that said Mommy loves me, but I digress. The pages are super-busy, yet she LOVES this book, she skootches over with it, announcing what she wants to see: Ba-na (banana), boon-boon (balloon), monkey, puppy, car, ball, baby, quack quack -- the list gets longer every week.

Secret Seahorse This is the newest addition to her library, and perhaps not quite a true favorite yet. But the beautiful illustrations – photographs of a carefully detailed underwater tapestry – captivate her, she touches the pages and murmurs fish fish fish as we read. The final page is delightful.