Book Reviews!

Tuesday is Library Day for the girls and me. And do we ever look forward to Tuesdays! Becca & Miguel get to participate in Story Time, and Reese gets to join the class for older kids. We love the Library - the teachers, the songs, the acts, the puppet shows, and the coloring pages we get afterwards. Becca in particular has a sweet little crush on Mr. Dallin! She calls to him and gets all flustered when he responds; and Becca gets worried when he disappears to do the puppet show. I had to take a picture of Becca & Mr. Dallin in October during "H" Halloween Week. Despite the look on Becca's face, she is thrilled. Trust me, she is!

These are the books we checked out the end of January. I love children's books, and seem to never pass up a chance to snag one (or three) at Target, Walmart, Burlington Coat Factory, where ever! Remember this post? I was devastated that I wasn't reading enough to my littles, so I quickly changed that: 2 years ago I went on-line and won a bid on E-Bay for 110 books (oh, that was a sight!) and since then I've joined two on-line book clubs and haven't stopped collecting. I recently piggy-backed on my niece's Kindergarten class' book order and placed an order for me and my Kuties. We have quite the book collection. Most of the books we've purchased or checked-out from the library have been huge hits (we've been re-enacting Goldilocks and the Three Bears since October!), and eventhough there are thousands upon thousands of children's books, "greatest hits" might be hard to come by, so I'm going to share our greatest hits from last check-out.

Top L to R: The Zoo I Drew; Bathtime for Biscuit; Possum come-a-knockin;

Duck! Rabbit!; Supersister!; Do Pigs Have Stripes?; Duck on a Bike;

First the Egg; The Pencil.

The Zoo I Drew

Zoo animals from A - Z. There's even an animal for the letter "U" and "X." Fantastic rhyming, each animal has its own page, and a great way to remind your littles of their ASL signs for animals. R&MG liked to make-up the sounds for the animals (like Iguana). Mostly the sounds R&MG made were roaring and meowing. Does an Iguana meow?

Bathtime for Biscuit

We heart Biscuit! These are easy readers, or "my first reading" books. In this book Biscuit is silly and gets dirty with his friend, Puddles, instead of taking a bath. The pictures are simple, and the sentences are too. We have all the Biscuit books - all of them - Woof!

Possum come-a-knockin

A sneaky possum comes knocking on the front door and the whole family gets involved. Great rhythm with this book - I snapped my fingers as I read it to help the girls hear and feel the cadence of the book. Lots of repetition, and be sure to read in a super red-neck accent - it makes it more fun and silly. (Also check-out the author's other book - Cooties in my Hair - that one Rebecca requested every night while we had it checked out).

Duck! Rabbit!

This book was too "senior" for my 3-year olds, but Lovey & I liked it. The illustrations are a play on image on the front cover - do you see a Duck? or do you see a Rabbit? The story line follows that throughout the book, placing the same picture that's on the cover, in either a "Duck" scenario/landscape, or a "Rabbit" scenario/landscape.

Supersister!

This little girl is just SUPER when it comes to helping her mom. She even thinks of ways to hellp her mom while she's at school. Everything this little girl does is super. Rebecca is the ultimate SuperSister! (When you read "Supersister" throw in the music theme from "Batman" and it's perfect!)

Do Pigs have Stripes?

These are the types of questions throughout the book - helps your young reader think. The illustrator only draws a portion of the animal, and then the author asks a question. You have to check it out. After reading this book Rebecca commented on the striped shirt I was wearing and said, "You're not a pig - pigs don't have stripes!" Thanks Becca.

Duck on a Bike

That crazy David Shannon thinking a duck can ride a bike! This duck rides a bike through the farm showing off for the farm animals, and each animal craves a bike of their own to ride. It's fun to throw-in sound effects of the duck vroom-ing through the barn and the interpretation of each animal's voice as they respond to that "showy duck."

First the Egg

Are you sure it's not the Chicken that came first? Each page has a cut-out that "turns" into something else as you turn the page. Plus, it's a great book to encourage your child to think about the picture, and then finish the sentence based on what he/she sees. This is how we've always read books our girls, and once we've read the book a few times, our smarties will finish the sentences. Read this book!

The Pencil

Sweet little book. I need to buy it! This little pencil draws a family and then decides the family needs color, so the pencil draws a paintbrush, and then the pencil decides he drew too much and so he creates...an Eraser! Oh no! R&MG love anything about drawing, painting, coloring, so I knew this book would be a hit.

And lastly...

These 3 little mice have kept themselves hidden from the C-A-T, but when they see 3 giant bottles of paint, they decide to jump in! This books introduces the Primary colors and shows what can happen when you mix one color with another one. This book is a BIG BOOK - no really, it's a BIG BOOK!

We're off to the Library again this week to participate in StoryTime, see Mr. Dallin, and check out more books from my growing book list (sadly my work schedule cast a rainy shower on our Tuesday routine, and although we've been to Story Time @ the library, we haven't had time to check out books). I hope to add more "Book Reviews" later this week!