Books My Son Loves: Kitten's First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes

For the baby shower for my son, my hostesses implored that people include a book with their gift.  Most people gave me classics, but a few who knew me well gave me books about cats.  Clearly the person who knew me best got me this Caldecott Medal winner.

This is an adorably illustrated and sweet story of a kitten that just wants the bowl of milk sitting in the sky.  My son loves this story because I infuse it with a lot of emotions.  When kitten can't get the milk, I make it sad and I frown.  When she gets hurt, I touch him on his head or ear to indicate where she got a little banged up.  When she gets her milk, I smile and cheer. 

Though he appears to be getting over this book (my son now has a love for slightly longer books) it remains one of my own favorites, and I only highlight books that both my son and I both love in this series.  Otherwise, I'd be writing on my fifth Curious George post by now or I'd be detailing the horrible soccer story I just got from the library which he is obsessed with. 

I will note that my son is always happy to go back to this story and that it's been a favorite since he's been younger than one.  He was highly obsessed with the moon (third or fourth word), so take that with a grain of salt.  Of course, if your child is also obsessed with the moon, it might be a nice break from Goodnight, Moon.

Books My Son Loves: Snow by Uri Shulevitz

I've decided to introduce a new feature (again) to the blog!  I have a very young child (two and a half years) and we've been reading together a lot recently and borrowing books from the library.  I want to highlight some of the books he loves for our memories and for your edification.  I plan to try and post these on Wednesdays.

The first book I plan to start with is Snow by Uri Shulevitz, a book that I had thought that my son would not like.  It turns out that the Caldecott committee that decides which books are noteworthy are vastly better at figuring out my child's interests than I am! 

This story is about a young boy with a dog who notices some flakes of snow and his enthusiasm for the snow even in the face of everyone's disbelief of the snow lasting.  After the snow really starts to fall, the boy and his dog play and dance in the snow while it swirls around them.

I'm going to tell the truth and say I was not impressed by either the illustrations or story in the beginning.  I read it tentatively to my son, and he so enjoyed the beginning of it that I have read it several times since.  While he tends to lose interest at the point that the snow falls heavily (my favorite part), he loves the early parts where a certain number of snowflakes fall.  He likes to count the snowflakes and point them out to me.  This makes the reading last a little longer which is nice. 

All in all, my son rates this pretty highly.  From his enthusiasm, I'm going to rate it around a seven for him.