Thursday, August 23rd, 2007

Little Golden Shoes

posted by lizzie    « 13 Comments »    tied to Uncategorized   

I put these little golden booties on Simon today because it has been a little chilly out. They reminded of a book we had at my house growing up called The Country Bunny and the Little Golden Shoes.Which in turn reminded me about an article I read the other day about language acquisition and the importance of reading to your child. Now, I read to Simon a lot, but I don’t know that Northanger Abbey is the key to teaching my baby English (although it is an excellent English novel). And this reminded me of something I’ve been meaning to do for a little while now, which is to ask for some recommendations for children’s books. Simon’s portion of our library consists of exactly seven books at the moment and I would like to increase that number, but I would also like to own books that are truly worth owning. Along with quantity, I am looking for quality. If any of you have books that were your favorites growing up because of great stories or great illustrations (or both!), or if you have some that are your kids favorites, please help me get started on making a Wish List of books to get for our children’s library.Let’s fill this little brain with good things.

Comments

  1. Stephanie says:
    August 23, 2007 at 3:18 am

    I love children’s books. Some of the books I remember most from growing up are Goodnight Moon, What Was That!, Harold and the Purple Crayon, Hop on Pop, and The Poky Little Puppy. Also, I can’t remember the title, but we had a big book of fairy tales and nursery rhymes with great illustrations that my little sister and I would beg our oldest sister to read to us at night.

  2. Jodie says:
    August 23, 2007 at 7:34 pm

    I don’t have a lot of titles to give (there are too many for me to think of any right now) BUT I will suggest you check out your library’s book sales. That’s where most of our stash has come from. True, most are well used but you can’t beat paying 50 cents a book! Our library also has a sale twice a year where they clearance out a lot of their older books and they sell them cheaper as the week goes on, then by the end of the week the books are free. Just a suggestion…

  3. Bente says:
    August 23, 2007 at 7:39 pm

    Several months ago, I went through our children’s book shelf and realized that we had a TON of books, but a lot of them were just junk or fluff. After I made a renewed committment to only own that which is worth owning, I purged like crazy. Here is the beginning of a list of what we now have on our shelves:
    BOARD BOOKS–
    DK’s My First Colors(and several other “My Firsts”)
    The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry, and The Big Hungry Bear
    Goodnight Moon
    OTHER BOOKS–
    Dr. Suess’s ABC
    Gramps and the Fire Dragon
    Stellaluna
    Tikki Tikki Tembo
    One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish
    Chicka Chicka Boom Boom
    Green Eggs and Ham
    Bedtime for Frances
    Katy and the Big Snow
    The Very Hungry Caterpillar
    The Rainbow Fish
    Are You My Mother?
    Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
    Where the Wild Things Are
    Make Way for Ducklings
    Tillie and the Wall
    The Very Busy Spider

  4. Rachel says:
    August 24, 2007 at 12:29 am

    I don’t have any kids but the one book that I remember from when I was a kid is “Hello Moon.” It’s a good one. I’ll let you know if I think of any other ones.

  5. jenerekfamily says:
    August 24, 2007 at 9:40 pm

    I like “Llama Llama Red Pajama” and “Over in the Meadow” both very sing-songy.

  6. Missy says:
    August 25, 2007 at 2:03 am

    Sorry in advance. This is going to be a long one…

    I have to second all the ones mentioned, and add that some series that were favorites for me were the Little Golden Books Classics (includes Poky Little Puppy, The Little Engine that Could, and several other well-knowns), The Serendipity Books (more for early readers, but I also loved hearing them read aloud), and Dr. Seuss’ classics. Individual favorites: “Danny and the Dinosaur” by Syd Hoff, and “Caps for sale: a tale of a peddler, some monkeys, and their monkey business” by Esphyr Slobdokina. One of my very favorites is very obscure and out of print: “Ultra Violet Catastrophe! Or, The Unexpected Walk with Great-Uncle Magnus Pringle” by Margaret Mahy (Stay tuned, we’ll send your our audio CD of us reading this and other favorites soon!)

    Max Lucado’s work is wonderful, as well as Jan Brett and Janell Cannon’s. I’ve recently added new favorites such as “The Quilter’s Gift” and “The Quilter’s Journey,” and for older kids we’ve loved Roald Dahl’s work as well as “The Magic Treehouse” series.

    I have to say, however, that you never know. Your favorites as a child may hold little magic for your kids. I LOVED reading Dr. Seuss so really stocked our shelves well with those, and although Neils likes it, it’s not his favorite. Sometimes their favorite library books are ones that I would call “lame.” Like “Mice Squeak but I Speak” by Tomi Paoli. But I read them anyway of course. You just never know.

  7. Melissa says:
    August 25, 2007 at 5:32 am

    The booties look super cute on your super cute boy!
    I always loved Eric Carle books–such as the The Very Hungry Caterpillar, I have a cardboard book version. Kaiya likes it cause the pages have holes in it, and the pictures are really bright and colorful.
    I love priddybooks because they’re fun for the babies but are teaching books also. You can check out everything they have at http://www.priddybooks.com/–definitely check those out.

  8. Mom B says:
    August 26, 2007 at 10:49 pm

    Liz,
    For Simon’s age grouping, I like the thick board books. They have a nice one of “The Little Engline that Could” some with songs like “Eesie, Weensie, Spider,” and “The Bear Went Over the Mountain.” etc. “The Three Little Pigs,” “The Three Billy Goats Gruff,” “The Three Little Kittens” and “The Little Red Hen,” are all very good for reading aloud. The Little Bear books by Minarik are also good. You might look into versions of Bible stories like Noah’s Ark by Spier or The parables of Jesus illustrated, I think, by Paul Galdone. Of course I love Marc Brown, Mercer Meyer, Rosemary Wells, Aubrey Woods, Brian Wildsmith, Beatrix Potter, James Marshall, Helen Lester, William Steig, Arnold Lobel, Leo Lioni, Dr. Seuss, and Disney versions of the fairy tales. You’ve touched on a subject near and dear to my heart. I am at the library a lot quizzing the librarian in the children’s section for books appropriate for nursery. I hope this gives you some ideas. Happy book shopping!
    Mom

  9. Dad B says:
    August 27, 2007 at 1:36 am

    Random suggestion:
    “Drummer Hoff Fired It Off” for rhyming and repetition.

  10. Stephanie J. Robertson says:
    August 31, 2007 at 11:09 pm

    off topic: did katie speed give you that blanket? we just may have the very same one. :)

  11. lizzie says:
    September 2, 2007 at 10:20 pm

    Katie did give us the blanket. I love it and Simon loves it. We couldn’t be happier about it. :)

  12. Edaline says:
    October 29, 2008 at 10:28 am

    Good words.

  13. Justin Boots says:
    April 6, 2010 at 7:10 am

    I think that a child feel more comfortable in this shoes. It looks like very lite to wear. Other shoes are rubber based but this is good to wear and also we can wash it.

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