Aug 22: Kids Books

Sort of following up with my post about Truman sleeping on the floor/parenting style/not pushing a rigid school setting at age 3....have you read this post before, called 'What Should a 4 Year Old Know'? I really love it. Especially the part when it says the biggest predictor of high academic achievement and high ACT scores is reading to children. Cool! We love to read to our kids and I love hunting for fun children's books out there. When Truman and I go to Barnes and Noble so he can play with the train table and the Legos, I love to peek around at the kids' books. Especially some of the 'bigger kids' books out there----so many neat titles and illustrations and stories!

Also, our current routine is to go to the library and pick out about 8 books to bring home. Truman likes to pick a lot of the same ones over and over again, despite me trying to persuade him on a few more interesting titles. Nate is the primary one that reads to Truman each night, but I used to do it back in the day so a lot of these are still familiar for me, too. I thought I'd list out a few of our favorite non-board books here, in case anyone has a 3.5 year old who loves books as much as T. I tried to steer clear of most of the 'classics' since everyone loves those already, Truman included. But maybe these are a few you haven't read yet?

1. Truck Driver Tom by Monica Wellington

We bought this one for Truman a few Christmases ago and he still loves it. All of the cute little trucks scattered across each page are fun, and the last two pages have every truck listed with their names. Truman loves that page the best as we talk about which ones are our favorites.

2. Train Trip by Deanna Caswell

Truman actually knows this one by heart and the words are really adorably paired/rhymed. I had a video of him reciting the first 5 pages but I can't find that video anywhere now!

3. The Goodnight Train by June Sobel

This is Nate's favorite of the train books. I couldn't tell you the plot but apparently it's a winner according to daddy!


4. Freight Train by Donald Crews

Kind of obsessed with the illustrations on this one. I don't think Truman or Nate really care about it, but I love it.

5.  Chugga Chugga Choo Choo by Kevin Lewis

I like this one because it's catchy and and Truman likes it because it's about.....get this: Trains! ;)

6. The Grizzly Bear with the Frizzly Hair by Sean Taylor

Truman loves this one and demands to check it out a LOT from the library. Sigh. I don't get it and Nate says it's really really long, but whatever. It's a fave for Truman currently.

7. How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight? by Jane Yolen

Another one of Truman's repeat offenders for our library list. Pretty cute illustrations although I hope this friendly dino isn't partly to blame for Truman's 'scared' phase right now.

I'm sure I could list plenty of other books but that should do it for now. Any others you recommend we check out from the library?