We are finished with week #2 of the picture book challenge hosted by Child-Led Chaos. While we read a ton of books, I’m finding the process a tad challenging because my 6 year old is going through a phase where she refuses to read or listen to picture books. She only wants to read Land of Stories or Harry Potter. She doesn’t even want me reading to her at bedtime right now because we have book 2 of Land of Stories on audiobooks. My 3 year old more than makes up for it, but there was a day of a pile of board books, which I’m somewhat torn about posting.
The whole thing pains me because I have found some absolutely fabulous picture books lately at the library. I’m going to have to go against my general notion of what I planned for this blog to be and write about a few of those during this period of her reading such long books. There are just so many outstanding books out there!
Anyway, back to the challenge. We are at 45 books read. I have a feeling we will be climbing higher than 300. My younger daughter and I went to a bookstore this week and she handed me book after book to read. This is a section of what we read this week:
Highlights from what we read…..
The Three Cabritos by Eric Kimmell is a retelling of The Three Billy Goats Gruff set in Texas where the three goats must cross a bridge over the Rio Grande in order to get into Mexico for a party. We have a soft spot for Eric Kimmell and this story didn’t disappoint.
Wangari’s Trees of Peace by Jeanette Winter was a wonderful book that we read as part of our challenge to read more non-fiction picture books. I wrote more about it last week at this post.
Dancing With Degas by Julie Merberg and Suzanne Bober- This is one of my favorite board books. You get placed into Degas’ world of ballerinas with simple poetry and those stunning paintings. It is a great way to bring in the beauty of ballet to your child as well as introducing them to one of the great artists.
Stick Man by Julia Donaldson – I went looking for Monkey Puzzle after reading Claire’s post from last week’s link-up. I did find a copy at my local library, although it is called Where’s My Mom? in America. While there, I looked through her other books for ones we hadn’t read yet and found Stick Man. The Goodreads synopsis reads “Stick Man lives in the family tree with his Stick Lady Love and their stick children three. But it’s dangerous being a Stick Man. A dog wants to play with him, a swan builds her nest with him. He even ends up on a fire! Join Stick Man on his troublesome journey back to the family tree.” It was a cute story, though I wouldn’t say it was my favorite of hers (loved A Gold Star for Zog).
Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs by Mo Willems – Loved this book. If you missed it, I wrote about it here.
Surprise in the Kitchen by Mary Lee – We downloaded this for free on the Kindle at some point in the past and my three year old loves it. It is a sweet story about a little girl named Mia who loves it when her mom cooks for her and wants to show her mom how much she loves her by making her breakfast in bed. Unfortunately, Mia does not like to cook and is too small to reach some items in the kitchen. She winds up making more of a mess than anything else, but sometimes it is truly the thought that counts.
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs #3: Planet of the Pies by Judi Barrett – I don’t generally write negative reviews if I can help it, but I did not like this book. I think it was a tie in with the 2nd movie and in my mind they should have left it at that. The first Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is one of my all time favorites and the sequel to that was decent. Don’t let this book color your judgement on a classic tale.
Daddy Kisses by Anne Gutman – This is such a fun book to read with a small child. Each animal daddy kisses his child in various places – on the nose, the neck, the paw…And then my daddy kisses me all over. Even as a mom reading it to her child, it is so fun to shower your child with kisses all over at the end of the story and it is a great way to have really little ones learn various body parts.
I’m glad my post inspired you to seek out a new book, we love monkey puzzle. I’m on the look out for stickman in our library too. I love the sound of surprise in the kitchen and daddy kisses.
We love Stick Man and Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs 🙂
I think you’re doing great with 45, that’s more than we’ve managed so far. It’s not so easy when you’re also reading chapter books.
What a wonderful selection, I’ll have to try to get some of those from the library, they sound great. I have exactly the same problem with my two, the six (almost seven) year old will not listen at all, so I’m only reading to the four year old, who will listen to anything. I include board books because I also include early reader chapter books so the very short to the quite long averages out somewhere! Make your own rules up 😉 Thank-you for linking.