Books

So, I'm wanting to keep track of some of the super wonderful books we have been reading lately. There have been way to many to list, but here are a few, and I'll be adding more as we find particularly good ones:

We just finished the original Pinnochio book. Boy, is that one strange book! Okay, I don't know that I'd recommend it, it is well written, but I'm not sure what the guy was smoking when he wrote it. Truly one of the strangest stories I've ever read. Highly creepy! Nick loved it though, so we did read the whole thing.

Before that we read several of the Dr. Doolittle books. These were great fun for the whole family. The first book had beautiful pictures which was a double bonus, but the second and third just had simple line drawings. These are definitely a family favorite. I've read the original one a couple of times. These are really good for a read aloud, because there are a few areas where the terms they use for people are less than PC, so reading it aloud allows for some mild term editing.

At the beginning of the year, we read the original Winnie the Pooh series. Another fun set. I'd actually never read them and they were fantastic. Nick especially loved them.

During the day this week, we've been reading "Adventures in the Big Thicket" by Ken Gire, which is a delightful series of stories, all with a moral lesson. Lots of fun and quite enjoyable.

That reminds me, we recently read a collection of stories called "The Children's Book of Virtues" wow, that is an incredible selection of poems and stories. We loved it! There are a few more in the series, but this one was aimed at young kids Nick's age and a bit older / younger.

So, back to this week, a few more books we read:
Bentley and Egg - I love this one, we've read it a couple of times. It's about a frog whose best friend is a duck. The duck lays an egg... frog gets jealous of the egg, but in the end the frog ends up saving the egg from a young boy. A great story, and would be fantastic for sibling jealousy as it deals with similar emotions.

Zoom at Sea - This was a good story, but a bit weird. Nick loved it, so perhaps it just required more imagination than I had this morning. The story is about a cat who goes sailing on the ocean, which is in someone's living room... at least that's what it sounded like. Still, a very well written book. If you figure out what the deal with the ocean is, I'd love to hear!

Flat Stanley - We read this in preparation for our Flat Stanley project. A decent, easily read book. Definitely a "quick" read. Not the best written book, but it's rather amusing to think of what it would be like to be flat.

Harald and the Great Stag - we read this one tonight for family story time (every night we have a story that we all share right before bed). It's a great story with wonderful illustrations. In the story Harald risks getting into a lot of trouble by saving a Stag that is being hunted, and in the process gets to see what it feels like to be hunted. Probably not a story you want to read if you want your kids to be hunters. Harald (yes, this is really how he spells it) is a loving, courageous, intelligent young boy.