Reading with Little L: Two Years Old

I can’t believe how the time has flown by.  Little L turns two today!

I’ve loved watching him grow and learn – even though I’ve worked with children most of my life, it is truly different having a child of your own.

He’s also my little guinea pig when it comes to trying out books for toddlers.  It’s been fascinating, and even perplexing at times,  to see what books he’s drawn to and which ones he doesn’t have an interest in at all.  I know I can’t judge a book solely by his opinion, but his “insight” can be a valuable additional piece of information.

Here’s a sample of his favorite books these days:

Llama Llama Red Pajama by Anna Dewdney; illustrated by author

I first read this to Little L because it was the selection for Jumpstart’s Read for the Record program this year.  It quickly became one of his favorites, and now he loves the whole series.  He even went to bed holding one of the Llama Llama books last night (although he calls the title character “Mama Jama”).

Thomas’ Big Storybook by Rev. W. Awdry

Little L has become fairly obsessed with Thomas  and his engine friends these days.   Thanks to two older male cousins and some generous friends he already has multiple DVD’s, toys, and an impressive library of Thomas books.  This particular title was given to us by one of my mom’s coworkers whose son had outgrown it.  It has about twenty or so stories, and we’ve probably read each of them at least a dozen times.  I will say, at least it gives me some variety when I’m reading rather than having to read the same book over and over!

How Do Dinosaurs Say Good Night? by Jane Yolen, illustrated by Mark Teague

We actually also  received a couple of the books in this series from the same coworker of my mom’s who gave us the Thomas books.   Little L really fell in love with the series though when we checked out one of the new Playaway Views from our library that had a couple of the stories on it along with other dinosaur stories.  He’s been in love ever since!  (As a little side note, we are loving the Views at our library.  As a parent, I can say that we’ve been glad to have a View with us on a long car trip and at other outings when we’ve needed to keep Little L occupied.  My favorite feature is that you can lock the player so that little fingers can’t mess anything up by pushing buttons.  As a librarian, it’s been nice to see such a positive response from our patrons since we started carrying them.)

If You See a Kitten by John Butler; illustrated by author

This has always been one of my favorite books to read aloud in baby and toddler storytimes.  It has such beautiful illustrations, and is a great interactive book.  If you’re not familiar with it, on each page an animal is introduced (kitten, elephant, crocodile, etc.) and the text suggests sounds to make when you see that particular animal (“ahhh”, “wow”, “help!”, respectively).  I love the reaction that you can get from kids when you read this book – laughter, surprise – and nothing has been better than the belly laughs and echoes of the sounds I’ve gotten from Little L.  He especially loves the picture of the crocodile at the end.  Sometimes he growls when he sees it and other times he’ll echo my “Help!” or even just scream.  So hilarious!

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