Library Book of the Week: Knuffle Bunny

Mo Willems doesn't need any promotional help from the likes of me, but we just read Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale for the first time, and oh! We both like it so much. I find it more personable than the Pigeon books, although of course I love them too. There's so much to act out here, and Jackson loves it when I say "Aggle flaggle klabble" and "snerp" and doing the "Trixie bawled" and "Trixie went boneless" parts. By the time we read it a second time, he was mumbling "Knuffle...knuffle" as I turned the first page. And I'm pretty sure if I were to take him into a laundromat in the near future he would immediately know what it is.

Runner-Up: When I Was Young in the Mountains by Cynthia Rylant, illustrated by Diana Goode, was an impulse grab this week, based on the feeling I'd seen it recommended somewhere on the Well-Trained Mind forums, and it's lovely. We've been reading Tikki Tikki Tembo as part of an extension of China Week, wherein of course the two brothers fall down a well, and Jackson immediately recognized the word when it came up in this very different book! When I Was Young in the Mountains seems like it ought to be for older and/or more sophisticated kids, but somehow the images and the language really connected with the kiddo.

Dud of the Week: A Very Special House by Ruth Krauss, illustrated by Maurice Sendak. Gibberish, and not  even fun gibberish. I adore the Krauss-Sendak collaboration A Hole Is to Dig, but this (and the A Hole Is To Dig sequel Open House for Butterflies) are nonsensical and disappointing.

Library Book of the Week: Counting Birds

So after I put together my "baby reference library" box, I decided to expand on the theme box idea and put together boxes for the alphabet and numbers. In addition to alphabet and counting books, I included foam letters and numbers, links for counting, etc. I quickly same that there is a strong household bias toward alphabet books instead of counting books, so I made a point to get some more counting books when we visited the Culver City branch of the County of Los Angeles Library (not to be confused with the city of Los Angeles Public Library system) this weekend.

Anyway, I found this lovely British book published by the Tate Gallery in England called Counting Birds. It's veddy veddy British, but I love the whimsy (some of the birds are birds in a baby's mobile or birds on the pot of afternoon tea), and Alice Melvin's illustration style. In particular, her geese remind me of my beloved Provensens. Long story short, Jackson and I both really liked these. Jackson told me that crows say "caw-caw" while we were looking at it tonight, which is the first time that he's revealed he knows this information (he learned it from Good-Night Owl! by Pat Hutchins, not to mention our local, very active murder of crows). He also liked looking for extra objects, like a picture of an owl or a cat sleeping on a couch. In addition to the great textured illusrations, I loved the lyricis, which makes it fun for me to read in between counting, counting, counting. (I count from one to whatever number is on every page, so there's a lot of good repetition.

Anyway, I'm going to look for more storybooks that count to 20, because I read somewhere that the way the "teens" are set up can be confusing to kids for a while (the number names become regular after 20), and I hope I find more books like this!

Library Book of the Week: Llama Llama Red Pajama

I picked up Llama Llama Red Pajama at the library last week and it is easily Jackson's favorite book since, well, everything by Leslie Patricelli. J made me read Llama Llama Red Pajama to him about 12 times in a row today and his enthusiasm for the story is endearing and hilarious. He repeats the last word of several of the stanzas (including "moan..." and "The end."), he looks extremely concerned when Baby Llama is having his meltdown (the little guy's eyes get all big and fearful), and he laughs like a bandit when Mama Llama says "tizzy."

Regarding other library books we read this week, Jackson gave middling reviews to Clifford, the Big Red Dog, while Dr. Suess' My Many-Colored Days was a definite thumbs-down (but Mama Llama liked it quite well thank you).

On Monday we'll visit the Brentwood Branch of the LAPL to look for Richard Scarry's Best ABC Video Ever and Richard Scarry's Best Counting Video Ever, which were recommended by someone on the Well-Trained Mind forums. For now Jackson's TV is restricted to Baby Signing Time! once a day (which he loves) or regular Signing Time! (which he pretty much refuses to watch, although he does love Leah and learned her name sign today), but he basically seems to not yet have the attention span for a regular TV show, so this hunt for Richard Scarry videos is more of a research mission on my part.

Overall, our curriculum (at 16 months) is lots and lots of read-alouds, including ideally a daily poem or two from Sing a Song of Popcorn, a daily reading from D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths*, some outside time, some music either in the car or at mealtime, and some attempt at taking about colors, numbers, shapes or letters, be that in the form of a shape sorter toy, counting while eating, reading an alphabet book or talking about colors.

Jackson just learned the sign for the word color, but I'm not sure he really gets the concept of colors yet. I'm hoping to establish a more regular schedule for playdates and "field trip" days so we can have both have some structure, and once that's in place, hopefully draw more activities from First Art, that Gymboree book and Teaching Montessori in the Home: Preschool Years, all of which I still need to, ahem, read.

*We're up to the story of Cadmus and the founding of Thebes. I try to get in at least a fragment of a story when I bring this book down, but Jackson really just likes to look at the pictures of his favorite "moo" (page 108, Zeus disguised as a white cow so he can carry off Europa) and his favorite "nay-nay" (page 128, Bellerophon fighting monsters from the back of Pegasus). Before D'Aulaire's I read him Aesop's Fables and once we're done we'll start working through the Golden Bible.