Five Favorites: Gus’s Favorite Books

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This is my first 5 Favorites. I feel a little shy contributing to the link up here, but what the heck, why not? I want to get my writing and blogging juices flowing after taking an extended break while we bled money and fixed up a house. I’m afraid I’m not going into any cool beauty products today, because this topic was just so much easier. (And funner!)

So here are Gus’s (age 2.5) favorite books:

1. Where the Wild Things Are

6196EufH+uLWe have actually bought at least two copies of this book per child, it just gets so well loved. They carry it around, sleep with it, tear it apart, leave it outside. I can recite this whole book without any trouble, and I still think it is precious. To people who are offended by book damage, I am truly sorry. Just make sure you never lend me a book. I love books just as much as my kids do, and by love I mean I break the spines, underline, dog-ear, and everything else needed to just really enjoy the book. I allow my kids to do the same. “Where the Wild Things Are” has deserved every carefully applied piece of tape it has received. We will buy another copy soon, I am sure of it.

2. Pumpkin Soup

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This one surprised me. The copy we have was one we got for free somewhere, and it just got shoved onto our bookshelf and forgotten until Gus found it. This is a truly adorable book. The pictures are beautiful and the story is engaging, without too much focus on a moral. (It seems to me that children’s books have gotten entirely obsessed with teaching a moral in every story and have forgotten what a really good story can be.) The only moral to this story might be something along the lines of “Let your friend be a jerk sometimes”, but it’s still not a bad story.

3. Zed and the Monsters

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By Peggy Parish – you know, the one who wrote Amelia Bedelia? I have to admit, I am thoroughly tired of Amelia Bedelia, but this book is a nice change. It is a little on the long side for a bedtime read, but like Pumpkin Soup in #2, it has an actual story with a plot that goes beyond jamming a lesson down a child’s throat. You’re probably starting to think that I hate teaching my children morals at all, but that is not the case. I think children can learn from stories without having morals spelled out so carefully for them. Give the little buggers some credit! They are paying attention. Go ahead and try to tell me that your child hasn’t called you out on doing something wrong before. Leave the heavy handed morals in Aesop, where they fit so beautifully into an engaging story, and let the kids just fall in love with plain old stories too.

Anyway… Zed and the Monsters is about a lazy little boy, who runs out of money and goes to find a job. He stumbles upon a mayor with a monster problem and uses his wits to help him get rid of the monsters and get paid in the process. It’s a little gory in its ideas (one monster pokes his own eyes out) and it does have monsters who want to eat Zed, so a sensitive child might be bothered by it. But the illustrations are very cartoony and there is no blood, so if the child can handle Wile E. Coyote, he could handle Zed.

4. David and the Giant Goliath – Tess Fries

I don’t have a picture for this one, because it was a cheapy my husband picked up at Walgreen’s or something when he was out of town one time. It is cheap looking. But the adaptation isn’t terrible and it has swords in it, which are Gus’s favorite things. If he had a 5 Favorite list, he would probably list 5 different swords.

5. Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes

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Pete the Cat is a big favorite. This is another one we will have to replace soon. My personal favorite Pete story is “Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons” but Gus will have no other Pete book read to him now that he has discovered this one. There are predictable responses in all the Pete books, so the child can complete some sentences. When the book asks, “Did Pete Cry?” Gus loves to call out “Goodness, no!” The Pete books are just all around fun reads with good phonemic awareness and other goodies like counting or color recognition. See, I don’t hate ALL educational books.

And now, as a special bonus, Here is my sweetie-pie, Gus:

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Next time I promise to post some fun Mama goodies, my daughter works in cosmetics, so you can be sure they will be good ones!

Go see more Five Favorites at Mamaknowshoneychild.com!

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