Books My Son Loves: Happy Lion by Louise Fatio

"Bonjour, Happy Lion!"  Oh, how funny this whole book is.  It's fun for both my son and I because he gets to hear the story of the lion and I get to use a faux French accent while reading it.  This silly story of a lion who accidentally escapes the zoo of his French town is another of my son's favorites. 

The pictures in the book are cute and provide my son with plenty to discuss with me, especially the picture of the lion in the zoo and the picture of the fire engine getting ready to try to get the lion into a truck to be taken back to the zoo.  (Though my husband did ask when he saw it, "Are they really going to hose down the lion?  This is horrible!")

The resolution is sweet and very happy.  I can't recommend it enough to those with children who like silly accents and big cats!

Books My Son Loves: Kisses For Daddy by Frances Watts

From the author's page:  "It’s time for bed, but Baby Bear is grumbly.
‘What about a big bear kiss for me?’ says Dad.
‘No!’ says Baby Bear. ‘No kiss for Daddy.’"

We have a number of "Mommy" and "Daddy" books in the house!  Many of them are sweet, but the majority are rather boring.  Luckily for my husband, the daddy ones are much more interesting, though I suspect this has something to do with the fact that I pick out quite a few for my husband for various occasions, but do not receive them back.  (Hint, hint, sweetie, I want some of the book I showed you.)

Anyway, that piece of Sunhi household trivia aside, this book is a treasure.  It's the story of a little baby boy bear who must get ready to go to sleep and the daddy who helps him by giving him a bath and putting him to bed.  During each step of the process, his daddy asks for a certain type of kiss such as a koala kiss or a giraffe kiss, and describes the type of kisses each animal gives.  The baby bear rejects each request, until the end in which he gives his daddy a big bear kiss.

The art is adorable and hidden in each scene are animal pictures that you could easily point out to your child.  For instance, while there is an obvious koala picture on the koala page, a railing post and wallpaper make the silhouette of a koala head, as well.  On the bat kiss page, a washcloth shadow gives the silhouette of a bat.  It actually took me three readings of the book to realize this!

The best part for my son is the fun way baby bear rejects the kisses.  He often imitates it when we read this story, and at the end of the book, kisses are given all around.

This is a great book for gifts for a father or for father's to read to their children.

Books My Son Loves: Little Gorilla by Ruth Bornstein

Little Gorilla is one of those rare books I don't discuss much in this series, the book my son loves much more than me.  I found the art to be a bit off-putting and gorillas are certainly not my favorite creatures, but for my son, this book was amazing. 

We will read it time and again and he is always fascinated by the beginning of the book.  Who loves little Gorilla, he'll ask me.  He wants a recitation of names and he superimposes his own life onto this book.  "Does Uncle E gorilla love the Nathie gorilla?" he begs of me, Nathie being his name for himself.  Does the mommy?  Does the other grandma?  How much do they love him?  Is that the baby's hand?  Is it reaching for his daddy? 

Then, we move into the animal section.  What animals are there?  What are they doing?  Do they love the Nathie gorilla?  While I get little joy from the illustrations, my son's thrill with the story tempers that and the story's gentle message that growing up doesn't cause love to fade makes me smile. 

Every time we read this, the story ends with my singing of Happy Birthday and the blowing out of the candles on the cake for Little Gorilla by my little son.  And every time we finish reading this, I remember how much, exactly, I love his reaction to it. 

Betsy-Tacy and Tib by Maud Hart Lovelace

From Amazon:  "Betsy and Tacy are best friends. Then Tib moves into the neighborhood and the three of them start to play together. The grown-ups think they will quarrel, but they don't. Sometimes they quarrel with Betsy's and Tacy's bossy big sisters, but they never quarrel among themselves.


They are not as good as they might be. They cook up awful messes in the kitchen, throw mud on each other and pretend to be beggars, and cut off each other's hair. But Betsy, Tacy, and Tib always manage to have a good time."


 After reading the first book,  I decided to immediately get the second book from the library.  While I'm happy that I've continued to read, I wasn't as into Betsy-Tacy and Tib.  I think with the addition of Tib, I realized something -- I didn't really enjoy Tacy as much as I adored Betsy and Tib!  Betsy's imaginative nature and Tib's pragmatic nature are extremes that play off well against each other and make them fun to read.  Tacy's defining trait of shyness isn't as enjoyable to read though I did identify with it!

But, to jump back, Betsy-Tacy and Tib takes place about three years after Betsy-Tacy and the change in age does a bit to refresh the story.  Now, the girls realize that growth is constantly coming at them, and they even see their first glimpses of mortality (which would have been more real to a child back then) in Tacy's prolonged illness.  While they react to these ideas childishly and humorously, it's still a change from the previous book in which growing up meant being as old as their sisters who were then eight.

As I said, part of the thrill of the story was off for me when I realized I was getting irate with Tacy's actions or when I found the section on the flying woman not to fit into the story, but at other times, such as when the group decided to cook everything pudding, I felt happy I had picked up the second book so quickly.

I will definitely be continuing on with this series!

Verdict:  6.  Not as charming as the first book, but I still enjoyed it. 

Thoughts:  How about that scene in which Betsy doesn't understand why Tib can't grow up to be an architect but must be a housewife?  Maud Hart Lovelace pointing out the injustice of it all back in the Forties from the viewpoint of a girl growing up in the Nineteen Hundreds! 

Betsy-Tacy Books 

1. Betsy-Tacy
2. Betsy-Tacy and Tib

Betsy-Tacy by Maud Hart Lovelace

From Amazon: "There are lots of children on Hill Street, but no little girls Betsy's age. So when a new family moves into the house across the street, Betsy hopes they will have a little girl she can play with. Sure enough, they do—a little girl named Tacy. And from the moment they meet at Betsy's fifth birthday party, Betsy and Tacy becoms such good friends that everyone starts to think of them as one person—Betsy-Tacy.

Betsy and Tacy have lots of fun together. They make a playhouse from a piano box, have a sand store, and dress up and go calling. And one day, they come home to a wonderful surprise—a new friend named Tib."

I  love classic children's stories, especially those about young girls, such as Heidi, Anne of Green Gables, The Secret Garden, and Little Women.  I'm always pleasantly surprised when I find a new series (as I recently did with Little House In The Big Woods) but these discoveries get rarer and rarer over time.  One day while cruising the Classics section, I came across an intriguing book titled Betsy Was a Junior and I excitedly almost picked it up before noting it was part of a series.  When I got home, I did some research and discovered the Betsy Tacy series, which starts with a children's book about two five year old girls!

I was thrilled.  The series seemed to have a following and it was based on a friendship.  After getting it from the library, I read it in minutes and then went to add Betsy-Tacy and Tib which is the next book to my library queue.

This is one of those rare, sweet stories that is aimed at children but pleasant to read as an adult.  The topics it touches on such as friendship, growing up, death, imagination, and going to school could be enjoyed by a very young girl AND a slightly older woman.  A friend mentioned that she planned to read these with her baby girl when she was old enough and I envied her.  This is exactly the type of book I'd love to share with a daughter.

It's full of the every day lives of a couple of girls from the turn of the century and it easily shows that imagination is timeless.  Betsy's ability to tell a story that creates a way to play for her and Tacy is fun and their little serious conversations on topics such as the death of a loved one are both heartwarming and amusing.

Verdict:  8.  I'm pleasantly surprised at how well it stood up for my reading.

Thoughts:  I have already started to continue with the series, but I'm quite excited for the later books in which Betsy is slightly more grown up and the story is less childish.

Betsy-Tacy Books 

1. Betsy-Tacy
2. Betsy-Tacy and Tib

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.

Friday Links: For The Children

I appreciate it when bloggers post links to articles and interesting finds on Friday because so many other bloggers just don't post on Fridays. I think I'm going to be following that format, such that when I do have links, I'll mention them on Fridays! Since this is an inaugural post for such a Friday, let's start it off small.

Many people I know who have read The Giving Tree tell me it is a hideous book. In this, a mom tries to convince her daughter of this fact with little success. This is great for the punchline at the end!

Want your child to read comics, but have no idea where to start? Put Down the Book has their girl review her favorites! I think my favorite part of it is the child's plaintive complaint, "Dad, this is like homework!"