Ian Recommends…

Back in March, I posted an article on Ian’s favorite books. It’s been a few months and while he still really enjoys those novels, he has added a few to the list.

Right now, Ian is not at the stage where he’ll read on his own, however, he’s all about being read too. He still brings a book and want to sit in my lap so we can read it together; in fact, today, he dragged me into his room so we could sit in his rocker and read. We’ve just started reading to him as part of his bedtime routine and he seems to be really enjoying it. I know he’s going to sleep without any noises (aside from a few jabbering) and that’s just one more step towards a big boy bed. Right now, Jesse is reading him Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales, so hopefully he doesn’t get any disturbing dreams.

Ian is still loving the Usborne Touchy-Feely Board books (That’s Not My Dragon by Fiona Watt and Rachel Wells) and if you haven’t found these yet, then you need to. They are awesome and they have a whole variety of topics – pirates, penguins, puppy, kitty, lion, trains, dinosaurs, monsters, etc. He still really enjoys Goodnight Baby by Ibaby. Since the previous post, we also we out and bought On the Go by Ibaby as well and that has been just as well received.

Lately, he’s really been into this one book from the library, Cars: rushing! honking! zooming! by Patricia Hubbell, Megan Halsey, and Sean Addy and I went out and got the other two like it, Trucks: Whizz! zoom! rumble! and Trains: steaming! pulling! huffing!, but he’s all about the cars. These books are actually really good because they really don’t tell a story, but they tell everything about cars. What they can do, the sounds they make, how people interact with them. There’s really no plot, but it has a lot of rhyming and the illustrations are awesome. It also has a great page layout since not all the pages face the same direction. There’s a couple of pages strewn throughout where you have to hold the book the longwise in order to read. I like this aspect since it makes you move a bit more and it tends to get Ian’s attention.

He’s a huge fan of Boynton, but we’ve been going with the One, Two, Three and Oh My! Oh My! Oh Dinosaurs!. We also have Your Personal Penguin and with all three of these books, he’ll sit still in my lap and look at the illustrations. Granted, there really isn’t much to her books, but what is there is perfect. She has just enough material on each page to keep Ian’s focus and doesn’t allow him to wander off.

I will be honest, since the move we haven’t really been reading to him as much since most of his books have been packed away. We’ve been keeping up our weekly trips to the library (yes, I’m still driving all the way back to RH…it’s so worth it) and we’ve had books home, but I just haven’t been able to find any others that he gravitates to. He’s coming up to 18 months and I really would like to hear him talking a little more, so if anyone has any novels that their kids love, all my ears are open.