I had planned to post little reviews of all of the children’s books that we read each month. I had also planned to post every day, with pictures and anecdotes and all that jazz, but you can see how well that’s working out for us.
So, I have no in-depth analysis, and the list is by no means complete. Here are quick notes on some of our favorites from this month:
The Giant Jam Sandwich, by John Vernon Lord.
One hot summer in Itching Down, four million wasps flew into town…
This one is totally inappropriate for a baby, since it’s mostly text. It was one of my personal favorites when I was an itty-bitty kid, so Beth will have to like it if it kills her. Four million wasps invade the pleasant little village of Itching Down, and as there are no exterminators, the villagers build a trap in the form of a giant strawberry jam sandwich. They bake a loaf of bread as big as a building, slice it, shovel jam onto the bottom slice, send up six helicopters with the top slice, and wait…
This book is actually more fun to read now that I’m an adult – I had missed all sorts of amusing details in the illustrations back then. Kids who like this will probably also dig Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and Pickles to Pittsburgh.
Baby Cakes, by Karma Wilson.
Baby Cakes, Baby Cakes, I love you! Baby Cakes, Baby Cakes, yes I do!
The rhyme is distressingly saccharine, but the oil-pastel illustrations totally redeem this book. They show children acting out a little bedtime ritual with their teddy bears – kissing them, singing lullabies, and so on. We’ll probably give this book to Fetal Cousins #1 and #2 for Christmas.
Barnyard Dance, by Sandra Boynton.
Stomp your feet! Clap your hands! Everybody ready for a barnyard dance!
Beth loves this book. Show her the illustration of the square-dance caller – a cow with sunglasses and a fiddle – and she starts writhing with delight. The text is entirely square-dance calls, instructing you, for example, to “Bow to the horse! Bow to the cow! Twirl with the pig if you know how!” It is impossible to read this aloud without bouncing and clapping in time with the rhyme. Magnificent nonsense!
But Not the Hippopotamus, by Sandra Boynton.
A hog and a dog do a dance in the bog… but not the hippopotamus.
We checked out this book because Barnyard Dance was such a hit. It’s not nearly as fun to read, but that might be because it gets bogged down in Teaching a Lesson. The hippopotamus has to overcome her shyness in order to join a group of friends. While it might be useful when Beth’s old enough to get her feelings hurt by her horrible little peer group, right now we prefer to square-dance.
You and Me, Baby, by Lynn Reiser.
It’s you and me baby: looking at you, looking at me, looking at you, looking at me.
Confession time: I absolutely do judge books by their covers, although my longstanding distaste for meaningless subtitles like “: A Novel” is really a subject for an entirely separate post. I was prepared to dislike this book when I saw that it was written by Lynn Reiser, whom I imagined to be related to the immensely irritating Paul Reiser (n.b.: Wikipedia indicates she’s not).
Anyway, this book shows babies and their parents playing peek-a-boo, laughing at each other, etc. It’s cute without inducing a diabetic coma, and Beth loves the photos of babies. She carries on one-sided conversations with them.
The Foot Book and Dr Seuss’ A-B-C: an Amazing Alphabet Book by Dr Seuss.
Left foot, Left foot, Left foot, Right.
Big A. Little a. What begins with A? Aunt Annie’s alligator. A A A.
Both of these books have nice strong rhymes, which I like. There’s nothing duller than reading the new “educational” board books which have a single word on a page – for instance, “Cat” illustrated with… I’ll give you a hint… five of its six ends are pointy, and it isn’t a nutria…. I know the reader is supposed to make up a story about the cat, and maybe point out its ears and teeth to the sprog, but if I’m plunking down $5.99 for a book, then I want the author to make a bit of an effort.
Everyone likes Seuss. Everyone.
