MommaReads

I LOVE this book! It is SO sweet! Amos McGee works at the zoo. He is never late and he has a routine with the animals that he never misses. He plays chess with the elephant, he runs races with the tortoise, he reads books with owl and so on. When, one day, he doesn’t show up, the animals aren’t quite sure what to do with themselves, so they hop on the city bus and go to visit Amos who is sick in bed. The animals take care of him and reciprocate all of the niceness that he shows to them each day. This book will leave you smiling, or at least it did me.

I love Karma Wilson and I especially love all of her Bear stories. This one is no exception. Bear is not feeling well, so his friends do everything they can to help him feel better. They get him some herbs, they make some tea, they sing him lullabies…and it works. Bear wakes from his nap feeling great, but then his friends start not feeling well and it’s Bear’s turn to help out his friends.

Sam has a cough so his mom runs down the stairs to get him some cough syrup, but the spoon is too big and won’t go in his mouth (or maybe it just tastes yucky). Either way, the promise of snow coming soon coaxes Sam out of bed. He and his mom enjoy some nice warm tea with honey and wait for the snow. I love the illustrations in this book…have your little one look for the mice on each page.

Gilbert’s morning starts off with him waking up late, going to school with toothpaste all over his shirt, missing breakfast and getting to school late so that there is only one person left to be his partner on their field trip…Philip…Philip the tattle tale. Gilbert tries to lose Philip on their field trip and winds up getting himself locked in the bathroom. Guess who comes to his rescue? That’s right, Philip. It turns out that Gilbert ends up being thankful for Philip on his Thanksgiving-themed field trip and Gilbert also finds out that Philip can be a pretty good friend.

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.

Sid is walking to school one day when a funny feeling comes over him. He is so overcome by the feeling that his paws lift off the ground and he starts to fly. He is very excited when he gets to school and he tells his friends that he flew to school. No one believes him, not even his teacher, and Sid ends up having a very long day. When he gets home his dad notices that Sid is not being himself. When Sid explains that he is sad because dogs don’t fly, his dad has a little secret for him…it turns out Sid’s dad does and so does Sid.

Kitten sees the full moon and thinks it’s a big bowl of milk. She tries to lick it, but only ends up with a mouth full of bugs. She tries to jump up and grab it, but only ends up tumbling down the stairs. She even sees its reflection in a pond and ends up just being a wet (and still hungry) kitten. She drags herself back home and guess what’s sitting on the front porch for her. Yep, that’s right…a big bowl of milk.

This is the sweetest story about the friendship between an ornery little mouse and his cranky friend, Bear. Mouse shows up to spend the night at Bear’s house and they have a fun evening, but as it gets closer to bedtime, Bear lets Mouse know that he can’t sleep unless it is absolutely quiet. Well, Mouse has a hard time being absolutely quiet which leads to some cute dialogue and some adorable illustrations. In the end, however, Mouse ends up helping Bear overcome some nighttime fears and they both get a good night’s rest.

Fred and Belle have a beautiful garden and all of the neighbors want to know how they manage to have such gorgeous flowers and so many vegetables. Well, it all started when Fred insisted that they keep a little wild turkey chick that they found. Belle didn’t want it, but it turned out that the little turkey’s droppings are good for the garden, he eats insects that might hurt the garden and all of the scratching in the dirt he does is good for the garden, too. Well, would it be better to have hundreds of turkeys then? No, but when a hundred turkeys do show up in their yard, Fred is willing to share their secret if each of the neighbors takes one home. This is a cute book and I love the language the author uses. There are words like: infernal mess, took a gander, flitted, flourished, careened, smidge, dales and gangly.