The DFF book club
4 June 08
We love books. I love books. And my girls now love books.
I don’t believe you can ever have too many books, and I have been collecting an especially good library of children’s books. I browse secondhand shops for good titles, and when a special is offered, such as fill-a-bag-for-$3, I go crazy.
However, when you have so many books, it’s easy to lose track of the ones you want. So, slowly, slowly, I’ve been adding my books to an online library called LibraryThing.
LibraryThing allows me to add titles just by entering in the ISBN number, and I can add tags that makes it easy to find titles on a particular subject. You can browse my library anytime, and I’ll keep working my way through my books until all of them are catalogued. I’ve currently got 330 books online.
When reading books with the girls, I sometimes think, “Wow, this is a really good book. I wish everyone knew how good a book it is!” So I decided to add a book club feature to this blog to allow me to share the great titles we have in our collection.
I know when I discover a cool book on someone else’s blog, sometimes I have to track it down. Maybe I’ll inspire you to add to your collection too.
So, let me introduce you to
This first book is 1 one year old (Counting children 1 to 10).
I don’t intend to feature all the pages of all the books, but this is one exception. The pages show the appropriate number of children at the appropriate age doing something very typical for that age-group. Such a simple idea, and so interesting for kids to look at.
It’s fantastic! Have a look.
What a brilliant idea! OK, so now not only do I have to browse your library, I have to somehow find the computer time to join the book club. Particularly difficult over the summer when I tend not to be on or near a computer much. But how wonderful! I’ve wanted to do something like this.
4 June 2008, 21:45 #
OK, so I have to bring in some book suggestions now—I skimmed through your library. I’ll start with the young stuff—have you heard of Sandra Boynton? She writes the BEST board books—fun, silly stuff for little ones that parents don’t go nuts reading. My personal favorites are “Moo, Baa, La la la,” “But Not the Hippopotamus,” and “Personal Penguin.” Then there are books by Margaret Wise Brown, the most famous of which is “Goodnight Moon.” I personally love her other one, “Runaway Bunny,” which is for a slightly older level. What’s fun is that if you read those books enough, especially together, you’ll start seeing the connection between the two in the wonderful artwork…
Then there is the absolute classic “Where the Wild Things Are” by Maurice Sendek, which is all about imagination (and a naughty boy). And “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” by Judi and Ron Barrett, which is all about a country where the weather is made of food—and what happens when the weather runs amok!
Then if you are willing to go to Sesame Street despite the avoidance of pop culture (not that I like it these days—it’s been taken over by Elmo, whom I dislike), there is one absolutely delightful book that doesn’t really pander to the whole name brand thing: “The Monster at the End of this Book.” It’s wonderful, and you don’t have to know anything about Sesame Street to enjoy it (it involves Grover and Grover only, if you care).
Then for older readers, I have always loved “The Velveteen Rabbit” by Margery Williams. It’s about a stuffed toy rabbit who becomes Real because of its owner’s love—an older classic, and surprisingly mature in its dealing with loss and, indirectly, the concept of death and the afterlife (but not in a religious sense, really—these are toys, after all).
OK, I could go on and on. Do you have Paddington Bear? I made sure years ago, before I even was ever pregnant, that I had the full collections of both Pooh and Paddington Bears.
I LOVE the counting book, by the way, and am going to try to find it…
4 June 2008, 22:09 #
OK, can you tell this topic sparked something with me?!? :P Just had to mention that Ian loves books so much that he’ll even sleep with them, cuddling them like stuffed animals…We’ll come in before going to bed to check on them, and we’ll have to pry the books out from under his slumbering body! I love tucking him in and then hearing him “reading” to himself for the next ten or fifteen minutes. And of course he knows certain books so well that he basically “reads” along with us, particularly when I’m reading to Evan. I think he likes to feel like he’s the older, more experienced reader sharing the book with his little brother.
4 June 2008, 22:14 #