Friday's Book Basket

Ok, so I'm posting this a bit late this week, but I haven't done one the past couple of weeks and we read a few really neat books that I wanted to share with you!

We love Jan Brett books around here.  I had a few when I was little and my Mom got some for E a while back.  This week we read Annie and the Wild Animals.  Annie can't find her cat anywhere, so she is looking for a new pet.  She makes corn cakes and leaves them at the edge of the forest.  A moose, a bear, and other forest animals come to eat the corn cakes, but Annie doesn't want them for a pet.  E loved this story.  She kept asking to read about the corn cakes.  Jan Brett uses the border illustrations to tell you what is coming up next, so I showed that to E and tried to get her to guess what animal Annie would meet next.

Another favorite this week was Max's Dragon by Kate Banks.  Max is looking for rhyming words, which E loves to do.  His wagon becomes his dragon and then it takes of into the sky as a cloud.  After reading this book we went outside and looked at the clouds.  Finding pictures in the clouds is a fun activity that really helps to develop imagination.  After that, E has been finding pictures in everything: leaves, her dinner, dust bunnies . . .

The last book I have to share with you is There Was an Old Monster by Rebecca and Adrian Emberly.  This is such a cute book, in the style of "There Was an Old Woman Who Swallowed a Fly."  E wasn't sure she wanted to read a monster book, but once we got going and read about how she swallowed ants that had him "dancing in his pants" she was hooked.  I think there is a musical version of this book as well, but we haven't checked it out yet.

Happy Reading!

Friday's Book Basket

I have three gems to share with you today! 

First up, an old favorite.  Every week on Monday I ask E what kinds of books she wants to look for at the library.  We go to the library on Tuesdays.  This week she wanted pony stories and Elmer.  Elmer by David McKee is such a cute book.  Elmer doesn't look like all the other elephants and decides to paint himself elephant color to fit in.  E loves the last couple of pages where all the other elephants paint themselves up like Elmer!  Be on the lookout for a stART project soon using this book!

Another favorite this week was Inch by Inch  by Leo Lionni.  We love Lionni books at our house.  This one is about a clever inchworm who escapes being eaten by several different birds.  Inch by Inch was our book for our letter I playdate this week.  We made inchworm breadsticks for a snack and made our letter I for ice cream picture a la No Time For Flashcards.

E's favorite book this week was Sylvie by Jennifer Sattler.  This was a new one for us!  Sylvie the flamingo asks her mom why flamingos are pink.  Her mom tells her it's because of all the little pink shrimp they eat.  This gets Sylvie thinking . . . what if she ate something else?  E especially loved the page with the paisley swimming suit (of course). 

Do you have any favorite books to share this week?  Leave a comment!

Friday's Book Basket

Welcome to week two of Friday's Book Basket!  This week, we have a lovely version of The Ugly Duckling to share with you!  Retold and illustrated by Rachel Isadora, it is set in Africa.  E and I loved looking at all the different animals that lived on the farm - giraffe, lizzard, meerkat, monkeys.  The Ugly Duckling grows up to be a black swan!  I always loved looking at the black swans at the zoo when I was a kid.  The illustrations are very colorful and remind me of Eric Carle.  We've had some good conversations about speaking nicely to other people, and how it feels to get your feelings hurt as a result of this book. 

One of E's favorite books this week was Rainbow Fish and the Big Blue Whale by Marcus Pfister.  We love the Rainbow Fish books around here.  Yesterday, E told me Rainbow Fish was one of her favorite things in the whole world!  I guess that's a pretty good endorsement.  If you haven't happened to read any of these books yet, start out with The Rainbow Fish.  After that, there are a bunch of adventure stories featuring the same characters, and this is one of them.  I love that the author uses lots of different words.  The fish were terrified of the whale, they ate krill, when they were angry they spoke hostile words (the book is about an argument).

 
Babies by David Bedford and Leonie Worthington is a cute, simple lift-the-flap book.  We got it because of the meerkats on the cover.  E has a thing for meerkats.  It's a simple poem about what different baby animals do.  E loved to pretend to dress herself in the meerkat's swimming suit (does anybody else's kids do this?  Hillarious!) and play the fox babies' maracas and tambourine.  This week we just read the book and enjoyed the pictures, but I can see it as a good jumping-off point to learn about these different animals (especially the turtle babies, who "know the way back").

Friday's Book Basket

I'd like to start a new regular feature around here: Friday's Book Basket.  We read SO many books each week, and E is really starting to request her favorites.  Although, sometimes it takes some deciphering to figure out which book she wants.  This morning she wanted the "deer book" (actually about a couple of dogs - no idea where she got the deer from), and the "cat book with the butterfly" (about a cat who travels in a box to an alien, who didn't want a pet, he wanted a remote-control butterfly).  I'd love to be able to share some of our favorite books with you all!  And I hope to get E's input on them as well.

Boris and the Snoozebox by Leigh Hodgkinson is a cute book about a cat who just wants to take a nap.  He crawls into a packing box to snooze, and finds himself transported all over the place to people who want ANYTHING but a cat.  This is the "cat book with the butterfly" as mentioned above.  This morning alone, I have read it three times.  The illustrations are really neat mixed media!

Mabel Dancing by Amy Hest is a beautifully told story about a girl named Mabel who is supposed to be sleeping during her Mama and Papa's dancing party.  I love the language in this book, very descriptive.  It made me think of the ball in The Sound of Music.  E loved that they talked about fancy ball gowns and dancing.  She's such a girly-girl!

A Pair of Socks by Stuart J. Murphy was a book I liked more than E.  A blue and red sock goes looking about the house for his match.  E did like telling me that the socks didn't match, but other than that it didn't really hold her attention.