Birthday books and bedtime reading routines

Dear Aunt Debbie,

Oh, how I wish we could get you to open up a bookstore near us!  We're overdue for a DC and Child's Play visit.

Isabel turns one this coming weekend (I still can't quite believe it -- this year has gone so fast), and I've been putting away books to give her for her birthday.  In addition to the favorites I've mentioned before (Doggies and  Cat top the list), she is currently obsessed with another great Sandra Boynton book:  Moo, Baa, La La La!  She's big on animals and animal noises, and has started referring to most animals, including pigeons, by her dog noise ("Fwoof").

Our pre-bedtime reading ritual has gotten a little more complicated since Isabel started to be just as interested in books as she is in milk.  Eleanor, of course, wants us to read her nice long books.  But as soon as Isabel is done with her bottle, she squirms off my lap, finds one of her board books, picks it up and shoves it at me.  Often, one of us will read Doggies again for the umpteenth time while the other finishes Eleanor's current library book.  On nights when Jeff works late, however, I find myself doing double duty: pausing in the middle of a dramatic scene to direct a "Moo" or a "Woof" at a delighted Isabel.

I remember that your girls had an elaborate routine that involved each having her own book read by a parent, plus having a common book you all read together -- am I getting that right?  I'm starting to wonder how old my girls will have to be before we can all read the same book together and all get real enjoyment out of it.  Not to say that I'm not enjoying this stage, too.  I am.

Two books are hidden on my closet shelf right now.  Dog, of course, is a companion book to Cat.  Pretty sure that will be a hit.  The other is a recommendation from my dear friend Cyd: Maisy's Amazing Big Book of Words.  Cyd's oldest daughter, Rebekah, loved her copy to destruction and they had to get another for Rebekah's sister Ellie.

I'm not the biggest fan of the Maisy books in general.  Maisy herself is a fine character -- she's a mouse, and not too girly, and Lucy Cousins's paintings are bright and appealing.  I like the way she outlines everything in black, making it feel at once childlike and sturdy.  Truth is, though, they're kind of boring.  Maisy does things -- goes to the hospital, bakes gingerbread, makes Valentines, goes to preschool, celebrates pretty much any holiday you can think of -- and nothing very interesting happens, and everyone is fine.  Okay.  Eleanor really likes them, of course, but they are difficult to reread.

Maisy's Amazing Big Book of Words, however, is pretty awesome.  It capitalizes on what Cousins does best, in page after page of bold drawings and words, without being hampered by a plot.  Each 2-page spread has a picture of Maisy doing something on the left (playing the piano, driving a police car, watering plants), often with a lift-the-flap piece, and a series of illustrations of thematically-linked words on the right.  For "Rainy Days," the words are "frog, lightning, ducklings, umbrella, boots, worm, puddle, snail."  There's a page on dress-up, a page on fish in the sea, a page on noisy things, etc.  I'm looking forward to obsessive reading on the part of both girls.  Let's hope I'm right!

Love, Annie

Touching and feeling (dinos and cats)

Dear Aunt Debbie,

I'm going to have to outsource some of the research on this subject -- I've asked a couple of friends with dino-mad sons to give me their recommendations, too.

The only other dinosaur book we own is a pretty amazing 3-D one meant for ages 8 and up: Uncover A T. Rex, by Dennis Schatz.  It falls into the second of your dino categories, the books which focus on facts and conveying scientific information.  The book contains a plastic model of a T. Rex, and each page focuses on one of its systems: skeletal, cardiopulmonary, etc.  It's written in factoid form, with lots of questions and answers and bullet points ("How fast did T. Rex run?"  "What was T. Rex's posture like?")  As you turn each page, the system described lifts up to reveal the next system below: the nervous system disappears to reveal the muscles.  Eleanor is still too young for it, but she likes to  look at the model parts inside, and I'm hoping it will prove useful in a few years.

In heavy rotation at the moment is the Matthew Van Fleet touch-and-feel spectacular Cat, which has recently become 10 1/2 month old Isabel's favorite book.  She pats and hits and tears at and touches the book intently, all the while saying "Ghat!"  I'm wary of ascribing language to a baby that young (though we are positive she is now saying "Hi!"), but when I took her to a friend's house a couple of days ago and she saw a couple of real cats, she perked right up, pointed at them, and said, "Ghat!"

It's a very engaging book, illustrated with photos (by Brian Stanton) of real cats in various positions, some with furry patches a baby can touch, others with a paw or tail that moves when you pull a lever.  Isabel has already pulled off one moving tail, crowing proudly.  (Eleanor objected, until I reminded her that she had pulled off the pig's tail with the same construction in Van Fleet's book Tails at about the same age.)  The text, in rhyming couplets, highlights concepts and opposites, and the pictures are great.

In my own reading life, I just picked up and sped through Rebecca Stead's When You Reach Me, which you wrote about a little while ago.  What a totally satisfying book.  Thanks for that one.

Love, Annie