We Have a Reader

This week's big news is that Elise is starting to read. She was hinting at it by Sunday, and now she's working on reading just about everything in sight. It's wonderful! Not a lot of new things to choose from as we picked a few old favorites, but we have a few new favorites to share.

This week's reading material:

Lilly's Big Day
by Kevin Henkes
We were so excited to see this book at the library, because Grandpa Karl had just sent Elise Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse in the mail. We like Lily. I like Henkes in general because he creates characters that my kiddo really "gets." In this story, Lilly wants nothing more than to be the flower girl in the wedding of her favorite teacher. Things don't work out quite as she'd hoped, but they go pretty well. Dealing with disappointed expectations is a real problem for our girl, and she was mostly stressed out about Lilly's predicament. It got her thinking that life can potentially go on after a disappointment, though.

What Dads Can't Do
by Douglas Wood, illustrated by Doug Cushman
This is pretty much like What Moms Can't Do, a favorite of mine. I think Elise finds the humor in these a little strange, but I like 'em. The kids in these stories spend time "helping" their parents and reach some rather typical conclusions about what they can and can't do. A good one, just in time for Father's Day.

Last but not least:

Eddie the Raccoon
by Catherine Friend, illustrated by Wong Herbert Yee
This is the book that Elise has been enjoying reading. She and Andy worked on it together on Sunday before he had to catch a plane, and it's been a favorite of everyone here ever since. It's from a series called Brand New Readers. I like that it has a kid-friendly table of contents. Each of the stories in the book has an "introduction" which basically sums up the plot and gives the observant young reader some clues as to what some of the words in the story might be. I remember seeing a few more of these on the shelf, and you can bet we'll be checking them out.

In case you were wondering what one of these Eddie stories sounds like, Elise has provided the following dramatic reading. Enjoy!


We'll add more of these as they become available.