Loving These Lately: Board Books, Picture Books, and Audiobooks, Oh My!

While our library checkouts have been smaller in number lately, their readings have made up for it! We’ve been wearing the bindings on these with repeat readings at all hours of the day!

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The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear by Don & Audrey Wood. We picked up this 1982 classic after our strawberry picking adventure (from our Summer Bucket List, Booked Up), and have probably read it every day since. (Which is saying something as strawberry season is sadly far behind us!) Both of the kids adore it and laugh hysterically at the illustrations of the sweet little strawberry-picking mouse’s efforts to hide his prized fruit from the hungry bear. These is a great title for early inference skills as much is told through the illustrations that the text leaves unsaid. It’s also a quick read, making it a nice choice for the Two Minute Attention Span crowd.

Higher! Higher! and Faster! Faster! by Leslie Patricelli. We haven’t been huge Patricelli fans in the past, but these two titles are the hits of the moment around our house. I can see why she’s a beloved board book author. Toddler Bookworm and Preschool Bookworm enjoy these titles and their sparse wording for different reasons. TB loves the fast pace and identifying the animals and objects in the pictures. PB has been proud that “higher” and “faster” have become early sight words as they are repeated on nearly every page… just enough variety that he can identify them to read the text, and recognize when a different word is in its place.

Toys Go Out by Emily Jenkins. I have fond memories of sharing this as a read aloud with a fourth grade ELL student I was tutoring years ago; we both loved the sweet, insightful story and the unforgettable characters. I picked up the audiobook version for Preschool Bookworm, not quite sure if he was ready. Well, it’s been on continual repeat in the car AND on his bedroom CD player for weeks! The stories don’t necessarily need to be read in sequence, making it a great early audiobook choice. Preschool Bookworm is just getting into longer audiobooks (see my post here about how we introduced audiobooks), and I noticed it took a few read throughs before he was really comprehending the storyline. He wasn’t deterred in the least, begging for more from the start. But, I’ve noticed that he has begun retelling his favorite parts and connecting the plot to other experiences & books. Those characters do lodge in your brain. So endearing! (If you follow the amazon link, you’ll be amazed at the volume of accolades this book received!) Oh, and it’s part of a trilogy. Score!