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Hi all. My baby is....well, a toddler now. I must admit I have not read to him that much. He is 14 months and I want to get in a routine where I read to him everyday.
It probably doesn't matter what I read; I am doing it mostly for the bonding. In the small chance that book selection may affect his reading/verbal skills, I am soliciting advice for good children’s books.
Could you tell me what a good children’s book is and what age you started reading it to your little one?
Thank YOU!
btw, I got a pic of him I want to post. How do I do that again?
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(It was almost a cartoon movie, but Disney wanted the lead character to be white, and the author just would not budge)
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At this age, books that rhyme or have patterns to them are great. The cadence is entertaining to read and listen to.
It's not a small chance that reading to him regularly now will increase is reading/verbal skills, it's a virtual guarantee. It's also a virtual guarantee that it will be the single most popular activity you will enjoy with your son. He will begin to trail after you, asking you to read this book or that.
So I hope you enjoy it, because once you start, he's not going to want you to stop. Posts: 5948 | Registered: Jun 2001
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Boon
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If you'll email me your address, lem, I'll send you a few that we have duplicates of.
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For that age, one thing I like to to find books that can be sung. There are a number of books that simply take well-known lullabies or other tunes kids like and provide them with cool pictures. You can get into the reading habit and sing to your kid at the same time. I think both are very important for all parents to do, even if they don't sing well.
A 14-month-old is still in the perfect age range for board books. They're short, so they won't lose the kid's attention. They're easy to carry with you in a diaper bag. If the kid gets his/her hands on the book, the pages won't tear, although the binding might develop toothmarks.
Finally, at this age kids love repetition. Try a number of different books, but keep your eye open for what the kid likes best, and then read that over and over again. You probably won't have to do this on purpose, because the kid will demand it anyway. It's okay if you get sick of it, because it is still great for the kid.
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My daughter doesn't hold still for more than about 2-4 words on a page yet. The one exception is Danny the Duck, which we can now recite by heart. She also likes Moo, Baa, La-La-La by Sandra Boynton. The Helen Oxenbury books are a big hit with her. She expecially loves Tickle, Tickle.
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My advice: go to the library and let your kid pick out as many board books as he wants. Then figure out which ones he likes to look at alone, and which ones he actually likes you to read to him. That's how we found all our favorites.
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Oh, Ross has a great selection of the classic board books at pretty darned cheap prices. Especially look for slightly beat-up ones, you'll get them for 50 cents to a dollar, and the kids don't care.
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The illustrations are adorable. I loved this book so much that I made up a little tune for it and sang it to my daughters. I would try ordering it at a bookstore since it appears it's not available at Amazon. (Yeah, I know it may be out of print ... )
Posts: 2034 | Registered: Apr 2004
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If you want one that your kid won't get yet but guaranteed to make most mommies and daddies tear up, there's Love You Forever. *cries thinking of it*
I never got why my daddy cried when he read us that until I had a baby. *sniff*
I looked at Daddy's Girl by Garrison Keillor in the bookstore, and I absolutely loved it. It's a little much for my girl-- maybe another year or two-- and too expensive right now. But I want it.
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My 2 1/2 year old daughter loves nursery rhymes; again, the repetition and cadence works well. She now recites them to us with some frequency.
I'll also give my thumbs up to Dr. Seuss.
Be very careful that you get books that won't become irritating on the tenth or fiftieth repetition. My daughter went through a _Robert the Rose Horse_ phase, and I've never been so unspokenly happy when a book's pages got torn.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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Oh, the I Spy board books are wonderful too. They're among my daughter's favorites. She also loves the Veggie Tales books that Chick-Fil-A put out ages ago....I got a set on Ebay for ultra cheap.
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When my daughter was 14 months her favorite books were: Wheels on the Bus (generic nursery rhyme, with animals) If You're Happy and You Know It (same) Goodnight Moon (for bedtime) The Little Mouse, the Big Hungry Bear, and the Red Ripe Strawberry The Foot Book (Dr. Seuss)
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I second the Eric Carle books. They have a wonderful cadence and the collage work is great. Oh, and the kid will like them too. *smile*
"I Love You Forever" gets me every time. My seven year old still likes me to read it to him, but now he reads the last part to me. I think he likes to see me cry!
Chicka-chicka Boom-boom is very fun to read.
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Eric Carle, Sandra Boynton...basically anything. The act of reading with your child is more important that the substance of the book at this point...
Posts: 1480 | Registered: Dec 2004
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To have the pic hosted in Hatrack's section of foobonic, send a copy to me (email's in the profile) and I'll put it up for you. Posts: 5879 | Registered: Apr 2001
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By the way, all you Goodnight Moon fans, if you're ever in Greenville, SC. Stop by Main street downtown, where, if you are very keen you can spot the bronze mice which hide near the shops. Inspired by the mice in the book Goodnight Moon.
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I find "Love You Forever" to be really sweet until the slightly creepy part where the mother is sneaking into the house at night to rock her grown son.
The one that makes me sniffle is "The Giving Tree," but I think that's for a slightly older child. I definately second the Seuss and Carle recommendations; we've bought several new copies for the baby on the way.
lem, I think it's wonderful that you're making the commitment to read to your child! I began reading nightly to my son at the age of 8 months and my daughter from birth. They are now 10 and 7 and both love books and reading. My son sat still very well for entire stories at the age of 14 months; my daughter took a bit longer. I think the important thing is just to have fun and enjoy all those great opportunities for snuggling!
And now that I think about it, a tree getting chopped up is just as creepy as a mother rocking her grown son
and I love all the Eric Carle books as well. Faves are The Very Hungry Catapillar, The Very Busy Spider, The Very Quiet Cricket, and The Very Lonely Firefly. Now that she is a little older she loves The Tiny Seed.
Also I have to respectfully disagree that the Laura Numeroff books are too old for this age. My daughter LOVED them even before she was two. I read that reading the same book every night at bedtime made the baby sleepier since they didn't pay as much attention to ones they had already seen. Since we were having trouble getting her to sleep a year or so ago, I read her If You Give a Mouse a Cookie every night for about a month. It got to where I would leave off the last word fo each page and she would fill it in and she would go to sleep. Now we can read anything to get to her to go to bed, but she can still almost recite the entire book.
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I need to scan a more recent picture. He now looks like a little boy (not baby), but he is just as cute and happy!
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My bedtime stories as a kid were from the Odyssey and the Iliad. Of course, my dad is an english teacher...
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My dad read us the Odessey and the Iliad, too. From "The Children's Homer." We also read all kinds of other books-- The Secret Garden, The Giver (came out when I was in 3rd or 4th grade), The Little Prince, The House of Dies Drear, The Hound of the Baskervilles, all kinds of things, some his choice, some ours. That was when we were a bit older than 14 months, though. When we were old enough, we took turns reading. Our teachers were always impressed with "what expressive readers" we were. We just took our cue from our dad-- where to place emphasis, doing voices for different characters, all kinds of things. And he never criticized our reading, always praised whatever we managed to do. It was a wonderful experience. I still like to read out loud with him today. Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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On the issue of expressive reading (sorry, getting all tangential and stuff):
I was at my son's class today. I try to avoid going to his school because large groups of children scare me, but as his parent, it's probably important that I spend time in his class every now and then. Pray for me, people, I'm chaperoning second-graders on a field trip on the 14th [/tangent on tangent].
Anyway, I was in his class and his teacher was doing 'read aloud' time where she reads from a chapter book to the class. I was astounded at how inflectionless her reading was. I just wanted to go up there and volunteer to read it for her. She's a wonderful teacher, and a good person, but has No Drama.
Christopher, thankfully, has learned his reading-aloud skills from me. *preens* He and I are big ol' hambones.
I don't know how the children pay attention during read aloud time. Luckily, it was a fairly engrossing story.
[/actual tangent]
My husband also finds 'Love You Forever' creepy. He calls it the 'Scary Lady Climbing in the Window' book. He has an odd sense of humor. Heh.
I wish I had read Christopher non-picture books when he was little. I think it would have helped him concentrate on the story more. Then he would sit still for Harry Potter *now*. Oh well, at the rate he's going, he'll be reading HP on his own in a year! (got great feedback from his teacher today, made the horror of elementary school visiting bearable)
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I've never heard anyone else say they loved "The Little Mouse, the Big Hungry Bear, and the Red, Ripe Strawberry" before. That was my little sister's absolute favorite book when she was little. I'm not sure if she got the joke, but she sure thought it was funny.
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jexx, whatever you do, don't let the teacher assign you a group of all boys on the feild trip. When my son was in 2nd grade, I went on their field trip to the zoo, and the sadistic teacher assigned me a troop of 5 boys. One of the other mothers got two girls. She took pity on me and decided we'd make one big group, which is probably all that kept those boys alive. That trip was far more memorable than I would care to repeat.
Today I went to help during reading time in my son's class, which was pretty fun. I had a troop of 5 boys again, but they were fairly well behaved. I did have to please one boy to please shut his mouth, which apparently is a harsher phrase than I meant it to be, since the other boys laughed and teased him that he'd been told off. It was productive time though, as I had them look up the word 'contentedness' in the dictionary when they as a group were sure it meant longing, desire, wanting something.
[/tangent]
My son's two favorite stories were The Man Who Lost His Head and Burt Dow, Deep Water Man, both of which are great fun to read aloud.
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When we were old enough, we took turns reading. Our teachers were always impressed with "what expressive readers" we were. We just took our cue from our dad-- where to place emphasis, doing voices for different characters, all kinds of things. And he never criticized our reading, always praised whatever we managed to do. It was a wonderful experience. I still like to read out loud with him today. 
