babee tales

Sunday, 22 February 2009

Inspired by my mummy friend, I am attempting to do a reading list/book review on things that nat reads. Good platform for sharing as I found my friend's review very useful. Enjoy.

If You Give A Mouse A Cookie & More Treasury - Laura Numeroff
I first heard of this author through some book discussion on children's books in the motherhood forum. Later, I took a look at the book in Borders and decided to buy it. Good decision as nat adores it. A must-read before bedtime. It is a good book for learning new words and is really quite creative as it gets the child thinking what happens next? I have read it to nat so many times, she knows exactly what the mouse is going to do next even before I get to that page. Buy it at Borders when they have their sale coupon, it's more worth it then. Her fave is still the Mouse & Cookie but recently she doesn't mind the Pig & Pancake either.

Hop on Pop - Dr Suess
I brought nat to the library yesterday. It's quite a difference from half a year ago. Then, she ran around the library and played hide and seek with me. This time round, she did not mind sitting down at one of the lanes and taking out books to read. She would choose a book, shove it to me and say "Mummy, read me". I borrowed this book because it is quite catchy and full of rhymes, like "hop on pop", "mouse on house". There is a lot of repetition of words and after a few reads, nat can remember some of the words . The pictures are not super exciting but overall, still a book worth reading.

Little Miss Series - Roger Hargreaves
I have always loved this series, ever since I was young, so I introduced this book to nat very early on. To date, she has read Little Miss Stubborn, Little Miss Shy, Little Miss Tidy. The text is a bit complex for pre-school kids and she loses interest towards the end. So instead of reading all the text, I kind of make up the stories based on the pictures as the cartoon is quite well drawn.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar - Eric Carle
Nat's absolute favourite author, and one of the first books we started reading on a regular basis. It's about a caterpillar and his eating adventures over a week, after which he transforms into a beautiful butterfly. Cartoon is very well drawn with lots of colours and the sentences are not too long. Even teaches the days of the week. A very good read for young kids. Nat can flip through the book on her own and she half babbles the story to herself.

Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? - Eric Carle
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? - Eric Carle
The first book features different animals like leopard, flamingo, hippopotamus and the sounds they make. The second one is also on animals but more focused on colours. We had this initial fear before that nat is colour blind as everything was red to her. But after reading this book numerous times, she is now familiar with all the colours. Phew! Again, I think the drawings are great and you can even sing a tune to the text. Youtube it and you will be able to find the tune somewhere.

From Head to Toe - Eric Carle
A very interactive book. The animals are made to do an action like a gorilla raising its shoulders, a donkey kicking. Then a question is posed to the kids on whether they can do it? Nat likes to show me the action when I ask her Can You Do it?

The Very Busy Spider - Eric Carle
This book is about a spider spinning her web and as different animals approach her, she is not distracted and keeps to her task. The spider is kind of small in the book so I love to ask nat to spot the spider on each of the pages.

I will do a review of some Chinese books in the next update, so do look out for it.