What We Read This Week 8/21

Working in a library, I bring home new (to us) books pretty much every day. Even so, some books just don't hit the spot at home like you think they will when you're browsing at the library. Sometimes you just have to go back to your favorites, the books with worn spines that you've read time and time again.

That was this week for us.

Monsters Love Colors by Mike Austin. We got this book from the library over a year ago, and we both loved it so much I added it to our wishlist. We bought it recently with some Barnes and Noble ebook settlement credit (I still don't understand the whole thing, but I'll take it!) and have read it countless times since it arrived on our doorstep! My son calls every color "bah-loo" or "yallow" or "orange" - yeah, he can say orange perfectly, go figure! But anyway, I thought it would be a fun book to help him work on his colors, so I ask questions about the monsters and give him a chance to name the colors before the monster can. Don't get me wrong, though - we DO just read it for fun a lot! It's a super silly fun book about monsters dancing and wiggling as they play with colors. It's so bright and creative that you won't mind reading it aloud every night!

Do Cows Meow? by Salina Yoon. My brother, sister-in-law, and nephew gave this book to my son for his first Christmas, which means I literally can't count how many times we've read it. We read it a lot before he was really speaking because he loved animal noises, and could do them really well. Once he figured out how to lift the flaps, it was over! He asks for this book almost every night by saying "Cow one!" It's a good book to quiz your kid about animals - names and noises - just like Monsters Love Colors is good to help learn the colors. It's also just a fun book to read aloud, because you get to make animal noises with your kid!

Miss Spider's Tea Party by David Kirk. This is actually my copy of the book from when I was younger, but I didn't really remember the story too well. My son has been asking for it a lot lately, calling it "the yallow one" (because of the spine color) or "bird-day party!" (because of the tea party), and I don't mind reading it aloud often at all, because the rhymes are great, and it's a cute story, and my son loves pointing out the different bugs. 

Thomas and Friends Rolling Wheels. My son loves trains and Thomas, so when I saw this book at Target I had to grab it. It was his first "interactive" book, where he can press the buttons to play a sound clip at certain points in the story. I didn't initially realize that you also rolled the wheels along with parts of the story, so that's become my son's favorite thing to do. Who doesn't love being involved in the story?! The book is pretty short, and it's definitely aimed at fans of Thomas because it's not really a standalone book, it's pretty much just merchandise. That being said, it's not bad to read night after night because it's so short, and though there are only three buttons, there are nine sounds total so you don't hear the same thing over and over and over.

Goodnight Goodnight Construction Site by Sherri Duskey Rinker and Tom Lichtenheld. We have the interactive version of this book because my son loved the previously mentioned Thomas book so much. He loves construction sites and machines, so I thought the sounds would add a lot to the story for him. He really loves being able to push the buttons at the right parts in the story, and will carefully check out the icon on the page and match it up with the buttons on the right side, catching himself with a soft "nope" if his finger is hovering over the wrong button. He asks for it pretty much every night, and I have to say I get a little tired of reading it, just because it's a longer story, and sometimes my son isn't the quickest with pressing the right button, so the story drags on a big longer. It's a fun book, though, and I think the sounds add a lot to a story like this.

What We Read This Week 8/7

My graduate school days are dwindling away, and though I've recently started a new job, I'm excited by the idea of having *free time* on my hands for the first time in what seems like forever! No school? Seems like a luxury! So I wanted to introduce a new feature that I think will help me keep this blog active, since I got into a reviewing slump and was only posting podcast recaps for quite some time.

What We Read This Week is a weekly round-up of all the books my son read - the good, the bad, and the ugly. I'm going to write micro-reviews of the books we shared, and include all of our reactions in order to give a well-rounded idea of if you and your kids would like these books.

Here we go!

Ollie Forgot by Tedd Arnold. This book was fun to read aloud because of the repetition of the (few!) things Ollie remembered. My son LOVES repetition, so I actually repeated the lines a few more times than they were written, and the story didn't suffer for it. There's room for a lot of embellishment and interaction in this cute story about Ollie running an errand for his mother, and everyone he encounters along the way. We all enjoyed this book, and it will definitely be re-read.

Pigs and a Blanket by James Burks. This story of a brother and sister learning to share is told more in bright, inviting illustrations than words. It's a great interactive book because you can talk about the illustrations and have your little one chime in with what's going on. My son picked this one as his favorite book of the week when I asked, but he might be a little biased - he loves piggies!

Daddy Makes the Best Spaghetti by Anna Grossnickle Hines. Daddy read this one aloud, of course, because the daddy is the star of the show! It's a sweet story about a little boy running errands and helping Daddy around the house while Mommy works. It's a playful book so it's fun to read, but it also goes over routines done throughout the day and enforces that idea to the reader.

The Raven and the Loon by Rachel and Sean Qitsualik-Tinsley, illustrated by Kim Smith. This book is beautiful - the cover and illustrations are so gorgeous I had to bring it home when I saw it on the library shelf. This is one of those books that might be more for adults though - it's gorgeous, but I don't think kids would be sucked into the illustrations too much. The book is an origin story of how the raven and the loon came to look as they do, so it's better suited for older kids who can ask and understand "why", as well as appreciate the folklore aspect.

Fix This Mess by Tedd Arnold. Another favorite of the week - a cute story about a messy house and a pup who's too lazy to clean it himself. The puppy sends away for Robug, a cleaning robot machine. Except Robug doesn't so much CLEAN the mess as relocate it... will the house ever get cleaned? My son loves robots, so he loved Robug and keeps asking for it to be read again and again. This is a library book, but we might have to get our own copy since it's such a hit.

Call Me Ahnighito by Pam Conrad, pictures by Richard Egielski. My son is way too young for this book. He picked it off the library shelf himself, but he wasn't too interested in listening to it. The illustrations are very realistic and dark-colored, as well, so it wasn't too engaging. The story is pretty long; it's based on a true story of a meteorite that fell to earth, so it'd be better suited for older kids interested in rocks, space, and science.

Infinity and Me written by Kate Gosford, illustrations by Gabi Swiatkowska. This is another book that might be more for parents than children. The illustrations are gorgeous, and the story is very well done, but I think it would be over most kids' heads. Even when kids start to wonder how big the sky is, how many stars there are, and what infinity is, the book doesn't really answer the question too clearly. It's fine to wonder about things and have your question lead to other questions, but when it's trying to tie in a new pair of red shoes, it just doesn't really work for me. This might be better for older children, though I can't see those at the appropriate age wanting to read a picture book...