MommaReads

A little break from our winter/Christmas-themed books….I found out about this book from a friend of a friend. She was raving about it so I had to check it out. This is a super cute board book that is perfect for the three and under set. It rhymes and it has animals…what’s not to like? 🙂 The little girl in the story talks about all of the animals she plays with…she and the rhino have tea, she plays in the dirt with the pig, she and the ape sing along to a tape to stay in shape, she and the giraffe blow bubbles in the bath, etc. This would be a great book to include with a baby shower gift.

Carl and his charge have a fun-filled adventure in the snow while the parents are at a party and the babysitter is watching TV. Carl books are great picks for little ones as they often come in board book form and they usually don’t have a lot of words. They are great books to look at and talk about the pictures and then there aren’t any words, the story can be a little different every time you “read” it.

This is a great Christmas book for the preschool and under set. It’s simple, it rhymes and it explains the Christmas story in a very basic way. The book introduces children to the donkey, the ram, the ox, the shepherds, the wise men, Mary, and baby Jesus. The illustrations in this book are fantastic as well. This is a perfect first Christmas book.

Baby is crying and mama is tired, so the rest of the family tells mama to go to bed…they’ll take care of baby. Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt, Uncle and Big Sister all think they know the trick to get Baby to stop crying, but every time they try something, Baby just ends up crying. It turns out that Brother knows what Baby wants. Baby falls asleep all night long and after all the work they put into getting Baby to sleep, the rest of the family falls asleep, too.

This is a very cute book written from the viewpoint of a new baby. The baby describes the things it likes to do during the day, where it likes to go, what makes it cry and what makes it happy. The baby talks about ALL the times of day it likes to eat and all the things it likes to look at. I love this book because it really does describe the day in the life of a baby…all of the feedings and late nights and all the things parents do with their baby during the day. I also like this book because it shows the mom nursing the baby in several illustrations and it also shows the dad giving the baby a bottle…it’s an equal opportunity baby. 🙂 This would be a GREAT book for siblings who are expecting a little baby brother or sister soon.

Toddlers will love this book that talks about how little they were when they were a baby and how they are starting to grow. The teacher in me also has to mention that if you are teaching your students about similes, this would be a great book to read to them. The book uses many, many, many similes to describe how they baby is growing.

When you were born,
you were as big as a cabbage,
your knee was as round as a radish,
your ear as wee as a sweet pea.

Then you grew as long as the lettuce patch,
your foot was as stubby as a beet,
your mouth as dainty as a strawberry.

A little girl writes a letter to her grandma telling her about how her cat had kittens and then at the end also lets her know, by the way, that she also has a new baby brother. Cute and simple story and shows that even though something may be super important to an adult that sometimes kids have their own priorities.

Little Chick goes exploring around the farm one day and comes home to his mom to tell her all of the different animal sounds he heard that day. This is the PERFECT book for the toddler set. It has animals, animal sounds AND it rhymes!

The title of this book sums up its content pretty well. It’s a cute rhyming tale of Boynton’s classic characters getting ready for bed and doing probably the same things your little ones do before they go to bed…taking a bath, brushing their teeth, picking out the pajamas. This is, as you may have guessed, a great bedtime book to help reinforce those nightly routines.

A rhyming Thai lullaby where a mother tries to keep all of the creatures quiet…from a mosquito to a cat to a monkey to a water buffalo to an elephant…so that her baby can sleep. All is quiet in the end and baby isn’t the only one who’s asleep.