babee tales

Tuesday, 3 March 2009

It's really not easy finding books that interest kids. In fact, kids are often in a world of their own. Sometimes, you think that a certain book is "suitable" for them, in reality, they do not even give it a second glance. One such book I had that experience with is Goodnight Moon. I first heard one of the teachers read it to the kids at nat's Julia Gabriel Playnest class. Even then, I thought it was quite a good book, relatively engaging in getting the kids to say goodbye to every item in the big green room. When I saw it at the library recently, I quickly borrowed it for nat. My conclusion - she hates it, in fact, didn't even last through 3 pages before she got bored.

Another book we read recently was Mister SeaHorse by Eric Carle. Had been having quite good luck with this author and nat generally likes his books. This book is interesting because it has a page that is printed on transparency paper and it hides the fish. When you flip the page, the colourful fishes including leaf fish, lion fish and stone fish are revealed. Again, nat was just obsessed with flipping the page and finding the lion fish.

I Want My Mum by Tony Ross. Nat is fond of this book, it's about a little princess who is always looking for her mummy, when she falls down and skins her knee, when it's bedtime and she is scared of the monster under her bed, mummy is always there to reassure her. Nat especially likes the part when mummy kisses the princess's knee and makes it all better. She always wants me to do the same.

I first got introduced to Peppa Pig on Jim Jam. I kind of like the characters, Peppa Pig (girl) and her little brother, George. The story is usually quite simple, nothing too exciting but the illustrations are very colourful . Nat likes reading this as she sits on her potty.

I also promised a Chinese Book review, so here goes:

This range of Chinese readers is really quite suitable for pre-school kids. Short sentences, repetition, exciting sound effects. I first posted a review on the spider title in the series. I have read it so much to nat that she is now familiar with the whole insect family in Mandarin, ranging from flies to mosquitoes to cockroaches. We have since gone on to other titles like this crocodile one. Nat gets really tickled whenever I make the sound effect of the crocodile snapping his jaws.