You know the saying “Don’t judge a book by it’s cover”. We definitely picked these books based on their covers. And just about every single one of these books from our latest library haul have been repeated requests by Fox and Mountain Goat. You stare at shelves and shelves of picture books. Sometimes, you get the really good ones because their covers draw you right in.
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Little Honeybee – The most darling (and sneaky) counting book we’ve read. Each page has you hunting for honeybees and looking behind cleverly placed flaps. Not only do these beautiful illustrations take you all the way up to 10, but the seasons slowly change too. This is one of those books Fox can look through by herself or we can read together and help count. I absolutely love the design.
Now You See Me, Now You Don’t: A Minibombo Book – Oh, this books is another clever one. Of all the children’s books in this stack, this one tricked me for a minute. There is a horde of animals, all of different colors. The background on each page changes, masking one animal. It’s a great memory game to see if your child can remember which animal has gone missing (save for a little pair of eyes). The catch? There’s also a chameleon! So, you can guess who ends up going missing on each page.
Tree: A Peek-Through Picture Book – “Ooh, another seasons book!”, were the first words out of Fox’s mouth. This was the book she looked through the entire ride home from the library. And then as we rode around doing errands. The illustrations are lively and bright and it’s fun to see all the different animals out and about and in the tree. We love the simple cutouts too. I could hear Fox in her room (while she was supposed to be napping) talking through all the different animals she saw. As far as kids books go, this is a keeper.
Journey – Speaking of keepers, this is a breathtaking first book in Becker’s trilogy of wordless picture books. What I love about this wordless book is asking Fox about what she sees in the pictures. “There’s a girl. She has a marker”. She’s drawing a boat”. The world Becker created is one I’d love to visit. Take some time to check out this one, Quest
and the soon-to-be released Return
and give your child a chance to tell you the story for a change. I cannot recommend these books enough.
Flyaway: Lift the flaps to set the bird free – The Princess has a songbird that sings to her every day. Except one day, the Princess leaves the cage unlocked and the bird escapes! Each full spread page is a delightful scene with lords, ladies, chefs, maids, cats and more telling the bird to “fly, birdie! Fly away!”. The princess eventually catches her bird, but the singing has stopped. She realizes her bird will sing again if he is free to be with the other birds. A tough choice, but she is serenaded by a chorus of birds who visit her every evening. Each page also prompts you to search for hidden items – like 10 keys, 10 butterflies, or 10 stars.
The Odd One Out – I picked out this one for the illustrations and the idea is a very clever one. Teckentrup nails it again with her stylistic illustrations. On each page she asks the reader to find the one that’s different, the flamingo that’s only standing on one foot, the penguin with a fledgling under its wing. It’s really very clever. The only problem was that it was a little too clever for the eyes of a 3-year old (and even me when reading with the attention span of a preschooler). We also checked out Where’s the Pair?
, also illustrated by Teckentrup (you can sense a theme now, can’t you). Both of these books are darling, but I’d save them for children a little older 4-5 years old, who have the attention to sit and really search out the pages for themselves. We’ll be getting these again when Fox is older.
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