What my children are reading...

One of our favorite things to do together is to cuddle on the couch and read books together.  Marcus sits on one side of me and Sophia sits on the other.  As I finish one book, Sophia will jump off the couch and go and pick out another one.  (Marcus leaves it to her to choose the books we read.) 

These are just some of the titles that Sophia brought for us to read this week. 


I am using these blog posts to help us keep track of the memories we create while reading and snuggling together.  I also hope that these book lists will help you to find some wonderful books to add to your home library.  I enjoy reading all of these titles as much as my children enjoy hearing them.  They are all high quality children's books...and as I always say:  Life is too short to read cruddy books! 


You may see some of the titles repeated from week to week.  As Sophia and Marcus like to hear some stories over and over again.  Remember, they are picking the titles listed here.  Not me!  So essentially, these are books recommended by Sophia (2) and Marcus (3). 


We Help Mommy*
by Jean Cushman

This little golden book was mine when I was a child.  It is illustrated by Eloise Wilkin who is one of my favorite children's book illustrators.  In fact, we even framed prints from this book to display in the kid's play kitchen room.  This is a very cute and nostalgic book.  Plus I love the "help mommy clean" propaganda message.  ;) 





A Child's Garden of Verses*
by Robert Louis Stevenson

We also read some selected poems from this book.  We have the copy illustrated by Eloise Wilkin.   

The Berenstain Bears and the Spooky Old Tree by Stan and Jan Berenstain*

This was by far the most popular book with the kids this week.  I am not exaggerating when I say that I read this book 15 times in just one day!  They just kept asking for it over and over again. 

This book is great because it has rhythmic and repetitive text.  It tells a very cute story and definitely keeps the children's interest.



The Berenstain Bears Get the Noisies
by Stan and Jan Berenstain
This was a book the kids checked out of the library.  They saw the Berenstain Bears on the cover and got excited.  I didn't enjoy this book near as much as the one listed above.  However, the kids thought that it was really funny and asked to have it read to them over and over again.  They seem to really enjoy books where the kids are being "bad".  They think they are hilarious.  




Tikki Tikki Tembo Retold by Arlene Mosel
This is the story of two brothers.  The youngest son's name is Chang which according to the story means "little or nothing."  But the first and most honored son's name is Tikki Tikki tembo-no sa rembo-chari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo which according to the story means "the most wonderful thing in the whole wide world".  However, Tikki Tikki tembo-no sa rembo-chari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo's name gets him in trouble when he falls into a well.  It takes so long to say his name that it is a long while before any help is able to get there.   This story is told under the guise of being an ancient Chinese folk tale.  However, the story is much more similar to the Japanese folktale Jugemu.  Regardless of its original origins, the story makes a delightful read aloud.  The kids giggled delightfully as I said the ridiculously long name over and over again. 

The Teeny-Tiny Woman by Paul Galdone
Oh, how I love books by Paul Galdone.  I love how he has taken so many classic stories, fables, and folktales and given them new life through his illustrations.  His illustrations are so full of detail that a child is sure to find some new thing every time they read the story.  However, what I like best about his books is that he keeps the stories true to their original form.   He doesn't try to modernize them or make them more politically correct. This particular story is a VERY fun read aloud.  It is an old English ghost tale, but it is much more funny than it is scary.  It would be a great book to bring out around Halloween.  However, Marcus is very fascinated with things that are scary but not too scary.  :)  So he enjoyed this story very much. 

Poems and Prayers for the Very Young Selected and Edited by Martha Alexander*

This is a very sweet book for little children full of beautiful verses and prayers.  You will probably be very familiar with many of the poems collected in this book.  It includes classics from Ralph Waldo Emerson and Robert Browning.  It also includes many more moderns poems that are sure to be enjoyed by young children.





Pooh Goes Visiting by A.A. Milne, Illustrated by Ernest H. Shepard

Sophia loves Winnie the Pooh.  I am  not sure she gets all of the humor.  However, she enjoys the illustrations and the stories.   This is the story where Pooh visits Rabbit and eats so much that he can't fit out Rabbit's door.  So  he must wait until he gets thin again. 










Harry the Dirty Dog by Gene Zion*

This is the story of a little dog who doesn't like to take baths.  So one day when he hears the water running in the bath tub, he hides the scrub brush and runs away from home.  He becomes so








First Tomato:  Voyage to the Bunny Planet Book by Rosemary Wells*

This is a very cute book.  We read this in honor of harvesting our first ripe tomato from our garden.  If you have never enjoyed a "bunny planet" book, I highly recommend that you check them out.  In the book, Claire the bunny has a very bad day:  She only is able to eat three spoons of corn flakes before spilling the bowl; she gets snow in her shoes; and she is the only girl at school who can't do a cartwheel.   So she escapes to a place called "bunny planet."  Bunny planet is a place where you can go and live the day as it should have been.  There she spends a summer day with her mother in the garden.  She picks the first ripe tomato from the garden.  Rosemary Wells does a wonderful job of describing the what it is like to pick the first ripe tomato from the garden:

"It smells of rain and steamy earth and hot June sun.

In the whole of the tomato garden it's the only ripe one.

I close my eyes and breathe in its fat, red smell.

I wish that I could eat it now and never, never tell."

Sophia also brought me these books and "read" them to Marcus and me.  Although she can't read yet, she has heard them so many times that she is able to tell her version of the story.  

Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown*, **

and

Corduroy by Don Freeman **

* indicates a title that is part of the Sonlight P3/P4 reading list.

** indicates a title that is part of the Before Five in A Row (BFIAR) reading list.

For more ideas on books for children, check out: