For My Readers who Read

I haven’t posted about our favorite reads around the this house for a LONG time!  There’s a lot of reading going on.  YaYa goes through spurts of being a truly voracious reader, especially when she gets caught up in a series of books she really likes or a certain novel that she really relates to.  Mr. SP is getting to be a more independent reader every day, and is learning to read in some very unique ways, such as listening to certain talking stories so many times that he memorizes them.  Then he follows along in the actual book and correlates the printed word with what he hears.  It wasn’t what I expected, but he loves it.  We also do a lot of reading together.  He reads a chapter of one of his books out loud to me, and then I read a chapter of a more difficult chapter book out loud to him.  We could go on forever, but the guy does have to sleep a little bit at night.  The Banana loves picture books and has just started asking me to read some shorter chapter books out loud to her, and of course, there are board books galore to read to Mr. Trouble on Feet, who doesn’t sit very long but is getting the hang of the idea.  I love to get lost in a good book after a long day all by myself, too.  Our library reading history list is long, and every trip our bag is bursting at the seems.  Here are some of our recent favorites:

Children’s Picture Books

• Press Here by Herve Tullet:  Everyone in the family LOVES this book that we recently found at our library.  It’s interactive and delightful.  Simple and engaging.  We love it so much we bought a copy for ourselves and many more copies to give to all the little people in our lives who need presents.
• A Sick Day for Amos McGee by Philip C. Stead:  This won the Calcedot medal, so it’s gotten lots of attention, but it truly is just a wonderful children’s book.  The Banana loves it, and I love reading it out loud.  It makes me feel calm and lovely.
• Clever Jack by Candace Flemming:  This was a completely random find at the library, but quickly became so well loved around here by both Mr. SP and The Banana that we had to get our own copy, which gets read out loud nearly every day.  It’s just a plain good story, and it involves a princess, a loud troll, a yummy cake, and there are a few subtle references to fairty tales and nursery rhymes.  What could be better than that?
• Brontorina by James Howe:  Yet another book that just got checked out from the library so much in the past few months that we decided to get our own copy.  Brontorina is a dinosaur who wants to dance. She doesn’t have the right shoes and she is a bit clumsy.  I bet you can guess who loves this book.  The text is also witty and the characters are delightful.

Books for Early Readers

• The Elephant and Piggie books by Mo Willems:  I know I’ve written before about how much we love them, and now Mr. SP is reading much more difficult things, but we STILL love to grab our basket of elephant and Piggie books and read through them.  In addition to their hilarious pictures and the amazing use of body language to show what is happening in the story, we love how these books can be read with two or three voices in dialog.  Mr. SP loves to read what Gerald says.  I read what piggie says.  And we read expressively.  It’s almost like reader’s theater.
• Good Night, Good Knight by Jennifer Piecas:  This is a funny story, and it’s perfect for Mr. SP who loves all things involving knights, castles, and dragons.  We love it.
• The Fly Guy Books by Tedd Arnold:  Mr. SP loves reading every single one of these.
• The Mercy Watson books by Kate Dicamillo:  I’ve always loved them, and so does The Banana.  The Banana loves having “toast with a great deal of butter on it” for a snack in honor of Mercy Watson.

Books for Kids About Art and Inspiration

• The Scribble Book by Herve Tullet:  The Banana and Mr. SP have been having so much fun with this book.  There are some very inspiring, creative pages to “scribble” on.  The book is literally about scribbling to create art.
• My First Art Book Usborne Publishing:  This is The Banana’s go to book for art inspiration.  It’s colorful and has great ideas.
• 365 Things to Draw and Paint Usborne Publishing:  This is a very open ended book about using all sorts of different art techniques.  It is a favorite of Mr. SP, and it’s been amazing to see my child who is not very interested in pencils, paper, or art become immersed in some of these projects and ideas.
• The LEGO Idea Book DK Publishing:  This book is hot off the press, and the kidlets have been very inspired by it.  The LEGO box is a busy place these days.
• Rip the Page by Karen Benke:  This book is FULL of inspiring writing projects and ideas.  I wanted to do more of these with YaYa over the summer, but it didn’t happen do to many different circumstances.  The ideas are so great I want to just write about them myself.

Juvenile Chapter Books

• The Spiderwick Chronicles by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi:  We have owned the first series of these books since long before we even had kids.  Dr. Peds thought they were excellent long ago.  I wasn’t initially that impressed, BUT after reading them out loud to Mr. SP, who has just become obsessed with them, I have changed my mind.  If you could only see HOW immersed my boy becomes in these stories.  It’s amazing.  He’s kind of like a kid watching a movie who thinks he’s part of the movie.  One day I was reading, and Mr. SP jumped off the couch and started to sword fight imaginary goblins in the middle of the living room, just like the heros of the book.  Right now we are working our way through Beyond the Spiderwick Chronicles, and we have checked out the field guide and the guide on how to care for sprites from the library.  Mr. SP is all about anything to do with the Spiderwicks, and he loves pretending to look for magical creatures when we go to the forest.
• Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick:  It’s new!  And I had to buy my copy right away!  We loved this author’s enormous graphic novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret, and this book is in the same style.  The story is great, and part of it is even set on the Gunflint Trail in the Boundary Waters.  For a bit the protagonist is even admitted to the children’s hospital in Duluth (where, I guess Dr. Peds would have taken care of him!  Dr. Peds doesn’t make it into the book, and actually it’s set in 1977, so it’s a too long ago) The story is excellent, and it’s so fun to see how the illustrations tell such and important part of the story. I highly recommend it.
• True . . . Sort of. by Katherine Hannigan.  I really love this author for middle grade novels, and both YaYa and I really, really enjoyed this book.  It was so engaging, and so well written.  I just couldn’t stop reading.  The characters were so real.
• Books by Roald Dahl:  I don’t think there is one that the kidlets haven’t completely enjoyed.  The stories are so outlandish, and the word choice so delightful.
• Dragon Rider by Cornelia Funke:  This book is LONG.  I read it out loud to Mr. SP and it took us weeks and weeks.  Actually, he got it at the school book fair last year as a prize for a contest at school, and it took us until we were well into the summer before we actually finished it.  He loved it, and I think we might be getting the very long audio book version very soon.  It’s all about dragons, magical creatures, and a long and dangerous journey.

YA Books

• The Mostly True Story of Jack by Kelly Regan Barnill:  It might not have been my first pick for personal reading, but wow, it was so well done!  And the plot was very adventurous and engaging.  I think this will really appeal to my magical loving kidlets when they are a bit older.
• Heart of a Samurai by Margi Preus:  This was a Newberry Honor book, and the author is from Duluth!  I wasn’t sure I would like the book, but I ended up really, really enjoying it.

Grown Up Books

• Good Poems, American Places edited by Garrison Keillor.  I’ve loved all of Garrison Keillor’s poetry anthologies, and this one is also excellent.  He has good taste in poetry.