This Week's Reading List...

I have been a forgetful blogger lately! I overlooked my Flashback Friday last week (and currently have no idea what I plan to post for tomorrow) and we've had this week's library books for five days and haven't gotten around to posting our list. Ah well, there are more important things in life, right?

Last week's 1st place read:
Will's favorite book last week was probably Make Way For Ducklings by Robert McCloskey. (He also really liked Harold and the Purple Crayon and Mouse Paint.) I just really appreciate the older feel of Robert McCloskey's books. It's like you're stepping back in time when life moved a little slower and the black and white pictures, while detailed, leave room for the imagination to wander. I also love that we learned a new vocabulary word! It's a children's book and the author mentioned that Mr. & Mrs. Mallard were getting ready to "molt". I am so in favor of talking to children like adults and always looking for ways to expand the vocabulary even when it seems beyond their level of comprehension. Early exposure to advanced words never hurts! Moulting (or molting) is the routine sloughing or shedding of an outer layer or skin (i.e. feathers, hair, skin, exoskeleton) and, in the case of ducks, happens usually once a year after breeding but before winter (usually autumn). Also after reading this book and seeing Mrs. Mallard and her ducklings cross the street in single file, we had a good conversation about looking both ways and acting cautiously near streets, crossways, and parking lots! We then practiced this caution and looking both ways in the library parking lot and received compliments from an older couple who commended us for learning the importance of this behavior. :)

This week's library visit occurred immediately following our zoo race, so I was grateful to have requested and held several books earlier in the week, which were ready and waiting for us. Then we only needed to browse briefly for a couple others, including one of Will's choice. Also this week, I donated a cookbook I haven't ever used and they readily accepted it. Now I'm motivated to do a clean sweep of all our books and cookbooks to see if there are any others we'd like to donate. I love to have a good variety of books to own, and of course we would always keep the favorites and special ones, but there are definitely books we have acquired or bought that just aren't that great and are taking up limited shelf space. Now that I have a pretty good running (& growing!) list of books we've enjoyed that I'd like to purchase, I need to make room!

What else? Will continues to enjoy sitting at the tables to browse a magazine or book while I search for our weekly books, helping me scan the bar codes at check out, watching the automatic doors open for us as we approach (LOL) and chatting up a storm on our drive to and from the library. It's great (free!) fun and a good learning experience for us both. Oh also, he entertains himself often by going to get the library book bag we keep in his closet and spreading out all the books and just "reading" for quite awhile. I love it.

Here is what we borrowed this week:
1) Freight Train by Donald Crews - This one is in Will's top two for the week. It's very simple so he has it nearly memorized, but it involves trains and each train car has a different name (the type of car it is) so he knows and says "red caboose, orange tank, yellow hopper, green cattle car, blue gondola and purple box car". As they pick up speed, their colors blend.
2) Corduroy by Don Freeman - A classic. Always cute.
3) Smash! Crash! by Jon Scieszka - This was Will's pick from the new, display shelf this week and it's the other book in the his top two this week. Lots of pictures of different kinds of trucks and lots of smashing and crashing. He requests this one and Freight Train daily and constantly asks what each trucks name is, just like he did the train cars.
4) Gossie by Olivier Dunrea - There appears to be a whole bunch of similar books by this author so I'm looking forward to borrowing more because this one was probably my favorite. (There weren't really any that I just adored this week, but this one is very cute.) It's about a little gosling that has a favorite pair of red boots that he wears everywhere... sound like anyone we know? Will now wants red boots to go along with his favorite green ones. :) One day his boots come up missing and he becomes sad, but in the end makes a new friend and shares his boots.
5) Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile by Bernard Waber - I had higher hopes for this book. It just sounded like it would be better. It's a tad long for a bedtime book and it's just not my favorite, but whatever. Will liked it okay. Lyle lives with a human family and isn't very well loved by the neighbors, but becomes a hero when he saves them from a fire... plus a LOT of other unnecessary story line in between. There are also other Lyle books by this author.
6) & 7) In the Small, Small Pond & In the Tall, Tall Grass by Denise Fleming - This author lives in Toledo! Another set of very simple reads with very nice illustrations. Plus Will learned some new animals like a mole and a heron.
8) Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr - Amy, if you can believe it, I'd never read this one either. LOL :) We own Chicka Chicka 1,2,3 and like that one so I figured we'd like this one too. It's cute and, although Will doesn't request it, he enjoys "helping" me read it.
9) Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst - We've only read this once or twice and it's just not a favorite. It is kinda' funny but Will doesn't get it and ends up asking a lot of irrelevant questions. Plus it's just so negative. I don't like it.

This Saturday, we'll be looking for a bunch more Jan Brett books. Plus I requested one on farming and one on geometric solids to reinforce our recent shapes lesson.