Tales of Life with a Girl on the Go

We were glad to have Daddy back on the continent. We read:

• Franklin’s Valentines by Paulette Bourgeois;
• The Berenstain Bears’ New Baby by Stan and Jan Berenstein;
• Five Little Bunnies Hopping on a Hill by Steve Metzger;
• Snuggle Time (no author), with no words, this is a book that makes you work; and
• A Mouse in the House by Ellen Jareckie.

We read:

• Mouse’s First Spring by Lauren Thompson, despite the cold weather we were experiencing, it was nice to read about spring;
• What Moms Can’t Do by Douglas Wood, many times by Grandma Joyce and me;
• Mama Loves by Rebecca Kai Dotlich, the Scholastic book order just came in and the focus was on mothers, could you tell;
• The Best Gifts by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch, and it brought tears to my eyes again; and
• Mr. Cookie Baker by Monica Wellington, a story that describes the steps in baking cookies and even includes recipes.

With Grandma Joyce and Aunt Karin in town, there was lots of book reading being done:

• Franklin and Me: My first record fo favourite things, personal facts and special memories by Paul Bourgeois, which Grandma Joyce reported that Reid loved. We’ll have to fill it in since we picked it up at the church sale and it was blank;
• A Busy Day for a Good Grandmother by Margaret Mahy, Aunt Karin read this one, I chose it based on the image of the grandma on a dirt bike pictured on the cover;
• Boom, Baby, Boom, Boom! by Margaret Mahy, a book with a great message about losing yourself in music with lots of animals, too;
• Moo in the Morning by Barbara Maitland, a funny story about a city family longing for the quiet life on a farm but it turns out the farm has it’s own noises;
• The Maestro Plays by Bill Martin Jr (twice);
• Down in the Woods at Sleepytime by Carole Lexa Schaefer;
• The Fairytale Cake by Mark Sperring, a great book on the strength of all of the fairytale characters in the illustrations and the challenge it poses to me to figure out which fairytale the characters belong to and what the tale was;
• Once Upon a Banana by Jennifer Armstrong, a book that moves along principally based on the illustrations and the only text is on street signs
• Duck by David Lloyd, a book from the church sale that Aunt Karin and Reid liked but which I found to be depressing because the grandma only kisses the little boy when he says the right word. Aunt Karin says that I am melodramatic; and
• The Singing Chick by Victoria Stenmark, a book that has the potential to go very badly since it is about the chick being eaten by a fox and the fox being eaten by a bear and so on.

In the morning, we read:

• Machines at Work by Byron Barton;
• Freight Trains by Donald Crews; and
• My Car by Byron Barton.

I picked up the two books by Barton because they are not the sort of books that I would usually choose and I was trying to expose both of us to a new sort of book. We ended up with a book about dinosaurs one time for this same reason. This time, though, Reid really liked the books. My Car has a great ending because after the man tells us about his car at home and where he drives it, we learn (spoiler alert) that at work – he drives a bus. 

At bedtime, we read:

• Feathers for Lunch by Lois Ehlert, in which the jingles of the cat’s bell keep him from getting any of the birds that he tries for. All of the birds are shown life-size (except for the last two) and it made Reid think of the birds at Grandma Barb’s house; and
• Better Not Get Wet, Jesse Bear by Nancy White Carlstrom; and
• the day’s story from 365 Magical Stories.