I Took the Moon for a Walk by Carolyn Curtis and Alison Jay

"I took the Moon for a walk last night.  It followed behind like a still summer kite, though there wasn't a string or a tail in sight when I took the Moon for a walk."

This is how the adventure starts for a young boy telling the tale of his moonlit walk the night before.  The boy and the Moon walk together through the neighborhood visiting the dogs, swinging together and crossing a bridge (had a great discussion about reflections with Jack on this page).

The sing-songiness (spell check tells me that this is not a word) of the writing makes this an excellent bedtime book.

Colin loves this book - he says "moon" at every page and giggles at the Moon's red shoes.  =)

Jack also loves this book but his favorite part is the last couple of pages after the story ends where the author has illustrations of the different phases of the moon (Jack loves being quizzed on waxing versus waning) as well as animals and flowers that are nocturnal.

Oh, the illustrations!  They are beyond beautiful.  I read on the book jacket that Alison Jay uses alkyd oil paint on paper with a crackling varnish, which gives her illustrations an antique, nostalgic quality.  The illustrations are truly unique and add so much to the character of the story.  I plan to seek out other books with her illustrations for sure.

I should mention that according to Amazon (here), this book is aimed at ages 4-8, but it easily held the attention of my 4 year old and almost 3 year old.  =)

This book gets a definite thumbs up from us!

This week's library haul

I only let the kids take out 5 books this week (and two movies).  It looks like they picked some good ones though!

Hieronymus Betts and his Unusual Pets

Hieronymus Betts does have unusual pets, including Gobbler the sabre-toothed rhino toad, Cuddles the porcupython and Oojamaflip the whatchamacallit. But no matter how greedy, scary or strange his pets are, Heironymus knows somebody even greedier, even scarier and even stranger...his little brother!

Jack & Colin both love this book! Out of all of the books in the house, they have chosen this as their bedtime story three nights this week. Their absolute favorite page is the one in which the little brother is being compared to the "fierce grizzly hare" and is biting the back of the big brother's pants. This just cracks the kids up!

The illustrations in the book are bright & engaging.  Some of the creatures are a bit fierce-looking, but didn't seem to bother Colin at all.  The writing is also engaging---and a bit suspenseful for the little ones.

The only difficulty I came across was pronouncing some of the creature names, but no biggie, I made it up. That's the great thing about reading to kids that can't read yet - they don't criticize your pronunciation!

We will miss this book when it gets returned to the library next week!

The recommended ages (on Amazon) is 4-8 years, but it easily held the attention of my two year old.

This week's library haul

Jack went with me this week and it was difficult to get him to pare down!  Once Upon a Potty is for Colin who is in the midst of learning to use the potty.  

I'm looking forward to sharing our reviews this week!

First post!

I've loved to read ever since I learned how.  

I remember going to the library and checking out a huge stack of books.  Hiding books under the table at dinner.  Reading whenever I got the chance.

As I got older I still loved to read, but I had other things get in the way.  College, wedding, working in public accounting, studying for the CPA exam (almost done with that one!) having two boys within 21 months of each other.  In other words, life.

With both boys, I started reading to them as infants.  Even though they didn't understand the story, I'm convinced that they were soothed by the flow of the words and mama's (and daddy's) voice.

Now that the boys are older, they really love to be read to and picking out their favorites as well as new books to try.  A new library has opened up in our neighborhood which has really picked up their interest.  It has a great reading room and all of the books are new!  

My hope with this blog is to share our love of reading with you and inspire you to pick up a book today!