A Mother's Day Post

I have two other books lined up to review (The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman and The Fault in Our Stars by John Green), both of which I liked, but I wanted to share with you some of the books that are important to me as a mother.  These books are important to me because my children want to hear them consistently during our pre-bed story reading time.  None of them are ground-breaking.  All of them are geared toward toddlers.  All of them can be recited verbatim - or close enough - by my children.  Carrie reads anything in the English language; books, magazines, deodorant labels, that sort of thing, and as an aunt of the Highest Order of Aunthood she has passed a number of great books to my kids as well as Amy's.  Amy reads books to know what her kids are reading and Chanin reads books to keep up with her boys too.  So, I thought I'd share the books that I read to keep up with my kids.  Sweet Girl and Little Man give all of the following three stars (out of three: we have to use the same rating system as Angry Birds, duh) and I hope that they continue to love books throughout their lives.  That would be an excellent Mother's Day present.

1.  Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site by Sherri Duskey Rinker and Tom Lichtenheld

Probably not how the moon gets up there

If you have a kid that loves the big trucks and machines that dig, bulldoze, dump, haul, and lift, then this is an excellent choice.  It's the end of the day and the construction site is shutting down to go to bed.  Each machine/truck gets a chance to star as one-by-one they settle down to sleep.  The illustrations are cute but not overly so.  Little Man loves him some trucks, and he's got the first two set of verses memorized.  Sweet Girl is also a fan, and I will forever remember exactly what an excavator does now. {Scooping gravel, dirt, and sand, Excavator shapes the land.  He digs and lifts throughout the day, But now it's time to end his play.}

2.  The Mine-O-Saur by Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen

Dinosaurs not to scale

This book actually came to us in the mail through Dolly Parton's Imagination Library.  It's a program through United Way that sends a book a month to families with children.  Honestly, I don't remember how we got signed up and I don't know if they still do the program, but it's a great idea and this is a pretty awesome book.  It's time for school and all the dinosaurs are having a good time, but the Mine-O-Saur is wrecking everyone's fun by taking everything.  He takes the toys in the schoolyard before the bell rings.  He takes the snacks at snack time.  And then at recess he takes all the blocks and builds an amazing tower.  But by then no one wants to have anything to do with the Mine-O-Saur.  He soon realizes that it's not fun to have things but not friends and so he returns everything he can and apologizes.  Everything ends well.  It's a good message and though Little Man still has Mine-O-Saur issues, I did hear him telling his sister "Good sharing!" as he took her jump rope away from her.  Eh....we're working on it.

Check out that blanket

3.  Llama Llama Red Pajama by Anna Dewdney
Llama llama has a popular series of books.  This is our favorite.  I believe it has something to do with my dramatic interpretation of: "Llama llama red pajama hollers loudly for his mama.  Baby llama stomps and pouts.  Baby llama jumps and shouts."  I am an excellent stomper and pouter.  Sweet Girl also happens to like Baby Llama's blanket, and she knows blankets.  She sleeps with seven of them herself.  This book covers Baby Llama going to bed and then feeling anxious without Mama Llama.  Things escalate (stomping, pouting, shouting, I think we've covered that) but Mama Llama comes up to reassure Baby Llama.  We have some pretty big anxieties in this house, so I appreciated the fact that it was addressed in a straight forward manner.  However, if your child learns bad behaviors from examples of bad behaviors then steer clear.  Unless of course you like stomping, pouting, shouting, etc.

4.  Fuzzy Fuzzy Fuzzy by Sandra Boynton

Udder-ly awesome

If you don't own or have never read any Sandra Boynton books, you are missing out.  These books are seriously awesome.  The illustrations are cute, the rhymes are fun, and Ms. Boynton does more for the cow than Chick-Fil-A.  We have a lot of her books.  We love Snuggle Puppy, Barnyard Dance, Lets Dance, Little Pookie, Pajama Time, the list goes on.  This books is actually a touch and tickle book.  There's not much in terms of plot; illustrations and a couple of words throughout.  But the best part, for us anyway, is the last page asks if the reader would like to start over with the fuzzy fuzzy guy then you lift the flaps on two eggs.  One egg is cranky and says "No!" while the other egg says "Yes!"  One night, after having read this a couple of times before, Little Man decided this was the funniest book EVER.  I had to read it ten times before we could move, and he literally had tears rolling down his face from laughing so hard at the eggs at the end.  He would get so excited about the No! and Yes! part that he would start giggling two pages before we got there.  He doesn't go into hysterics about it anymore, but I recorded him today reading the book.  You can hear him "reading" along and his sister's feet make a cameo.  I already loved Sandra Boynton, but I would have loved her just for hearing his little voice try to say "Incredibly Soft."  Enjoy! We sure have.

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