Hosting through P143: Our Favorite Books to Share

It’s no secret that around here we love Mo Willems’ Elephant and Piggie books.  In fact, at this point, I think we own every single Elephant and Piggie book that is in existence, along with the new books by other authors that are “friends” of Elephant and Piggie.  Even my big kids love Elephant and Piggie!  This books have been GREATLY loved by the three children we have hosted as well.  Our first host child was nine at the time she visited our family, and the girls that we hosted last Christmas were 8 and 11 years old when they visited.   Our first host daughter and the younger sister that visited last winter both loved to be read to  all of the time.  The older sister who stayed with us last winter was definitely a reluctant reader.  In fact, I think it’s safe to say that she was terrified of reading.  She was even terrified of being read aloud to.  She actually ran away from books on numerous occasions, so we worked really hard to include her in our family reading time.

Elephant and Piggie are so crazy!  It has been so fun to watch the delight on the girls’ faces when they hear these books read aloud with all the drama they deserve.  It doesn’t take long for them to laugh hysterically.  Kids from traumatic backgrounds have a lot of big feelings, and so do the characters in these books.  The stories are also easy to follow because of the wonderful illustrations.  The simple and concise text fits so well with the pictures, making these books pieces of children’s literature that literally translates across cultures and languages.

Last winter I literally read 10-15, or more of these books out loud every single day to our host children.  After about a week they were reading them out loud to me, sounding out all the words in English!  The dialog in the book works so well for readers to take turns speaking out loud, kind of like a play.  Even our older host daughter last winter  who was super fearful of reading even in her first language loved reading these books with us.  It was truly amazing to see her grab some of these books out of the basket and read out loud by herself in English near the end of the hosting period.