When Maymuna was born Ozayr's students pooled some money together and gave us a collection of classic children's books - Kipling and Seuss, Pooh and C.S. Lewis, and more. It was a great gift. What an amazing connection we have with the books and first novels that we read as children. I love getting books recommendations from people. I even got a lengthy list of books from a father-and-daughter co-passengers we met on our last flight back to Minneapolis.
I wonder too what those books say about us as individuals... Ozayr's favourites include Harold and the Purple Crayon (about a boy who draws his magical world of adventures)... While I don't exactly recall my favourite baby books, I do remember loving the Mr. Men series and Curious George books. The first short novels that I read as a girl were mostly Enid Blyton novels full of whimsical make-believe characters all living in a tree or girl-centered books about a group of friends, usually residing in an English boarding school. Hmm.
Onto our current favourites, in no particular order...
GOODNIGHT MOON. This is a no-brainer, lots of people love this book and had it read to them as children. I personally had never heard of it until Maymuna was born. I was initially turned off by the illustrations of this book, but the rhythm of the text is very soothing and delightful to read out loud. It took me maybe a year to realize that there is a tiny mouse hidden on each double page, fun to find!
GOODNIGHT GORILLA. This is a fun book about a cheeky gorilla who follows his zookeeper home, but not before he's let out a lion, giraffe, mouse, armidillo among others to keep him company. This is a sweet book, and doesn't have much text, so as your kids get older it's fun to talk about what's happening as they see it. When you are doing the bedtime story thing every night it's easy sometimes to just sit down and flatly read what's in front of us -- this book is a great cure for that.
FUZZY BEE/SQUISHY TURTLE AND FRIENDS. Roger Priddy is the "author" of countless children's books, especially picture books for babies. I think the man is pretty savvy AND very rich. After you have a few of his books you notice that alot of his images are recycled in book after book after book. This series, to me anyway, is unique. These are cloth books that each follow a particular theme (insects, or sea animals, or cold climate animals, etc.) The animal featured on each page is brightly coloured and textured differently, with two lines of rhymic, rhymed text at the bottom. These are the books that Maymuna loved when she first started to "read" and I remember that she was reading Fuzzy Bee & Friends when she turned the page by herself for the first time. We ended up collecting almost all of the books from this series, but these two are the best ones.
HUG. One of the sweetest books you'll ever read, it follows Bobo the monkey in search of his mommy's hug. He sees lots of different animals embracing, presumably mommies and babies but very easily changed to daddies and babies depending on who is doing the reading. Again, a simple book, I think the only text is the word "HUG" -- a great conversation starter with your little one, or if you are like Ozayr, a great way to fill in the story with lots of special details from your own imagination. Ozayr could take 10 minutes to read this short board book because he'd start off with what Bobo had for breakfast that day... and what he was thinking when he came upon the giraffe family... and on and on... to Maymuna's consistent delight...
FIRST EXPERIENCE BOOKS (Going to the Dentist, Going on a Plane, and more). My sister-in-law introduced me to this series when we began our move to Minneapolis. Maymuna loved it so much that I returned Paula's copy to her and bought the complete series of First Experiences. Each story follows a family through a particular experience that is presumably new to your child: going to the doctor, getting a new pet, going on an airplane, moving to a new house. The story is simple and just introduces them to the situation so that you can further discuss it with your child and prepare them for what to expect. Stephen Cartwright's illustrations are beautiful, I enjoy looking at them myself - every child on the page is in motion, so true of children, when are they every standing still?PETER PAN. Okay, no I have not read this to Maymuna, it is too old for her. I'm putting it up here as a personal favourite of mine... I am talking here about J.M. Barrie's novel Peter Pan, not the Disney film version!! This book is pure delight and whimsy. The film could never capture such wit and sweetness. My parents had a taped version of this book which we played in the car on long trips and I could recite probably the first 10 minutes of it by heart. One of my father's nicknames for me was Wendy. I always kind of hoped that Peter would come for me, too.
THE SECRET GARDEN. I didn't read this book as a youth, I read it for an english class in my undergraduate degree. I enjoyed it so much that I said to myself I would get it and read it to my children one day. I have already bought a copy for them, and read it myself once more since then. I suppose it is the classic transformation story of a girl, once disagreeable and unhappy, whose spirit is revived and renewed - through the discovery of a secret garden. It is delightful.
STELLA AND SAM BOOKS. I must admit that the text of these books doesn't blow me away - it's simple and conversational I guess, the musings of a little sister and brother team. It's the illustrations in this book that are absolutely stunning, all watercolour with vibrant colours and playful design. Simply gorgeous to look at.
The verdict is still out for me on the ROBERT MUNSCH books and CURIOUS GEORGE. I've noticed with our monkey friend that the stories aren't quite the way I remember them as a child... The plot is often disjointed and the ends almost always justifies a rather dubious means. I mean, just because George plays the bugle in the animal show, does that mean it's okay that he didn't deliver newspapers to half the people on his route and used them to make paper boats instead? (if you are confused as to the connection, that's my point) I find Robert Munsch highly amusing and his books are so imaginative - my only problem is in the language he sometimes uses. We don't call each other dumb or dirty or things like that in our house... so I can't really read those stories where those characters do, even if it's in a silly way.
Well that's it for me! Please feel free to email me a recommendation of YOUR favourite children's book for Hafsa or Maymuna, I'd love to hear about some more.
Goodnight Stella, goodnight Sam...
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