Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Miss M's semi-annual reading round-up

Blog, blog, blog. Awards, awards, awards. You will recall a time when my mother wrote this blog FOR ME and ABOUT ME. AS IT SHOULD BE. It's time I took over this hobby horse to bring just a bit of the FAMILY back to this so-called family blog. All you mommies and daddies had better get set for a trip to the library with your kidlets because here is my list of the 100 books that tickled my fancy in the last 6 months. By the way, I am almost 3.

I'm still a cultural nationalist in training. The + means the writer and or picture maker is from Canada. I didn't list all the picture makers but some of them I liked a lot. Bossy Mommy decided to use a different colour for the 25 books that we both liked best. If only I could type myself!

Aylesworth, Jim
(retold by). Aunt Pitty Patty's Piggy. Illustrated by Barbara McClintock
Aylesworth, Jim (retold by). The Gingerbread Man. Illustrated by Barbara McClintock
Baker, Tanya and Carlton Holm. Harvey the Hiccupping Hippopotamus
Bang, Molly. When Sophie Gets Angry. Really, Really Angry
+Bogart, Jo Ellen. Gifts. Illustrated by Barbara Reid
Two Too Many
+Bourgeous, Paulette. Franklin Goes to School
Franklin is Messy
Franklin's Class Trip
Hurry Up, Franklin
Brett, Jan. Annie and the Wild Animals
Armadillo Rodeo

Berlioz the Bear

Comet's Nine Lives
Fritz and the Beautiful Horses

The Mitten

Town Mouse, Country Mouse
Trouble with Trolls
Carle, Eric. The Very Lonely Firefly
The Very Quiet Cricket
Child, Lauren. My School Play: Sticker Stories (Mom keeps promising me more Charlie and Lola books from the library but they're always checked out.)
Cooper, Helen. The Baby Who Wouldn't Go To Sleep
Delicious, A Pumpkin Soup Story
A Pipkin of Pepper for the Pumpkin Soup (but you really have to start with the original Pumpkin Soup if you haven't read it. It made my first book list. And don't forget Tatty Ratty!)
+Downey, Shirley. Mud Muddelicious Mud: Verse for the Very Young
+Drawson, Blair. Mary Margaret's Tree
Eastman, P. D. Are You My Mother?
+Edwards, Wallace. Mixed Beasts. Verses by Kenyon Cox
+Gagnon, Cecil. A New House. Translated by Patricia Claxton
+Gilman, Phoebe. The Balloon Tree
Hawkes, Kevin. His Royal Buckliness
Healey, Tim. Bear in a Chair
The Cat with Two Homes
Mouse's Magic Paints
Posey's Patterns
Skiddle-dee-daddle (a first book of noises)
Hill, Eric. Spot's Playtime Story book (Mommy cannot bear Spot. She uses the word sycophant but I don't know what that means yet. I think it just might mean that Spot is really, really nice.)
Holmelund Minarik, Else. Father Bear Comes Home
Hughes, Shirley. Helpers
+Hutchins, Hazel. Katie's Babbling Brother
Juster, Norton. The Hello, Goodbye Window Illustrated by Chris Raschka
Lobel, Arnold. Mouse Soup
Mayer, Mercer. All By Myself
I'm Sorry
Just a Mess
Just a Toy
Just For You
Just Going to the Dentist
McCloskey, Robert. Blueberries for Sal
Moss, Lloyd. Zin!, Zin!, Zin!: A Violin
Murphy, Jill. All in One Piece
+Oppel, Kenneth. Peg and the Yeti (There's nothing like a good Newfoundland yarn especially when it features pork scruncheons.)
Oxenbury, Helen. A Bit of Dancing
The Helen Oxenbury Nursery Collection (Ha! I knew I was right. Red Riding Hood talked to strangers and she got eaten up. I knew it. I just knew it would happen.)
Pooley, Sarah. A Day of Rhymes
Reid, Barbara. The Subway Mouse
Rey, H.A. and Margaret. Curious George

Daddy busts a gut at this image

Curious George takes a Job
My Mommy, on the other hand, is fond of the page that includes this

Curious George Rides a Bike
Curious George George Gets a Medal
Curious George Flies a Kite

Curious George Learns the Alphabet
Curious George Goes to the Hospital

Curious George's First Day of School

Curious George's Dinosaur Discovery

Reynolds, Adrian. Pete and Polo's Big School Adventure
Silverstein, Shel. Where the Sidewalk Ends
+Simard, Rémy. My Dog is an Elephant
Sims, Lesley (retold by). How Elephants Got their Wings
+Spinelli, Eileen. City Angel
+Van Laan, Nancy. Busy, Busy Moose
Viorst, Judith. Super Completely and Totally the Messiest
Ward, Cindy. Cookie's Week
Wells, Rosemary. Emily's First 100 Days of School
Noisy Nora
Ruby's Magic Act
Max is it (Santa put these two books in my stocking. I love them. They're really short and they tell the stories of two of my favourite TV episodes. When Mommy saw the Canada Council for the Arts logo in the back of the books, I saw fire blow from her ears. I heard her say something to Daddy about why theatre is a dying art.)
Whybrow, Ian. Bella Gets her Skates On
Willems, Mo. Knufflebunny
There is a Bird on Your Head
Winnie the Pooh: Sing along Songs (Mommy says there is no author for this one, whatsoever. Only the word she used was, uh, bastardized. I don't know what that means exactly but I love pushing the buttons and singing the songs.)

Hallowe'en Books
Bond, Felicia. The Halloween Play
Cuyler, Margery. Skeleton Hiccups
Donaldson, Julia. Room on the Broom
Herman, R.A. The Littlest Pumpkin
Metzger, Steve. Five Spooky Ghosts Playing Tricks at School
Minor, Wendell. Pumpkin Heads
Slater, Teddy. The Spookiest Halloween Ever

Christmas Books
Brett, Jan. Who's That Knocking on Christmas Eve?
The Wild Christmas Reindeer

Burmingham, John. Harvey Slumfenburger's Christmas Present
Dewan, Ted. Crispin: The Pig Who Had it All
+Little, Jean. Pippin the Christmas Pig
Meyer, Mercer. Merry Christmas Mom and Dad
Moore, Clement. The Night Before Christmas (we have 3 editions of it--you can never have too many.)
The Mother Goose Book of Christmas Carols
Roberts, Bethany. Christmas Mice!
Speirs, John. The Best Christmas Hunt Ever
Wood, Don and Audrey. Merry Christmas, Big Hungry Bear

I've also been reading quite a few Chirp magazines that my oh-so-mature friend Alison gave me last fall. They were hers 8 years ago! When Mommy saw how much I liked them, she bought an entire subscription. Lucky for us, Alison's school was selling them.

If you are new to my book lists, there are three more. You can find them on the side bar. I try not to repeat any titles but I sometimes slip up.

Oh, Mommy wants me to remind you all to vote for the people she nominated in the Canadian Blog Awards. Just read the next post to find out who and then vote. And you know, she is my mommy so maybe you could vote for her too while you're there.

24 comments:

Melanie D. said...

Wow we read a lot of Curious George, I had no idea we've been missing out on the dark side! Seriously, he takes a job? Wins a medal? Our compilation "treasury" is missing so much! Thanks for the great list!

crazymumma said...

I always loved the ether page.

you can imagine.

painted maypole said...

MQ got a curious george book for Xmas, so we've been reading lots of him, too, and the pictures are some of the best parts!

Girlplustwo said...

tell your mama i've already voted for her and all the other peeps too.

kittenpie said...

I see we share a lot of current reading material... Some stuff is just always good.

And a strange thing - I has Wallace Edwards visit my library once and you know how he has this great sense of humour that comes out in his books, and you'd expect him to be kind of fun, and maybe be able to talk about his lovely artwork, since he's all talented and whatnot? In person, exactly NONE of that came through. It was terrible, watching these kids getting bored by someone so stellar on paper. Gah!

Run ANC said...

Hey - we just got a Chirp subscription too! The Boy loves it.

The Little Guy and I adore the first book of poems that you and Kittenpie suggested for the shower, and the Boy is loving Max & Ruby's Bunny Cakes.

thordora said...

I LOATHE Franklin. I cannot stand those books.

Mine aren't really into the storybooks lately. It's all about the bugs and the dinosaurs and the creatures which is cool and all, but it makes a bedtime story interesting when you're talking about the mating habits of the praying mantis.

And My Little Pony. Ros is obsessed.

Beck said...

"George is SLEEPING!" The Baby yelled when I scrolled down your page. Uh, yes.
We do love us some Chirp.
We have Spot on VIDEO - and you think he's boring in books? Oh, golly. We call it the Coma Tape.

Anonymous said...

Ah, Miss M., with this list you've gotten to most of our favorites. But Curious George? For some reason, my kids can't handle his mischief. It's terribly upsetting to think of the calamity and consequences. If only they were so concerned about their own behavior.

Anonymous said...

We're huge George fans in our house.

And we just got Knuffle Bunny Too (plus some of the Elephant and Piggie) books under our tree at Christmas. More Mo Willems fun!

OhTheJoys said...

I love when you do this. I trust you so completely and I go directly to my online library request form with your list.

Thank you.

J

Julie Pippert said...

Great list! Thank you!!

We love When Sophie Gets Angry. Oh and one my sister just gave us, Sisters.

Patience loves the line that says basically: And no leaf pile was safe when those sisters were around!

She giggles and Persistence giggles and then they are listing all the things not safe when they are around. Then Mom giggles because, dude, I need a sense of humor about that.

And this time of year Olive, My Love, of course, although it's sort of "Sgt. Pepper goes to the Strawberry Fields Forever to meet Lucy in the Sky and share some Diamonds" weird.

Jenifer said...

Thanks Miss M! Tell Mom we are off to reserve as many as we can online from the library.

Magpie said...

Nice list, kiddo - tell your mom that we're not too fond of sycophantic Spot either.

Gwen said...

I'm feeling all warm and fuzzy that our library has so many of your library's books in it! (not Spot though, oh no).

Anonymous said...

Miss M, that's a treasure trove of a list there and I've spotted some of our family favories among those too. Happy reading for 2008!

karengreeners said...

Great list Ms M, except for the Rosemary Wells part. This mom just can't handle her.

Anonymous said...

The first time he saw that picture of George smoking a pipe, my husband said "Boy, times have changed, haven't they?"

Anonymous said...

Great list! We heart Curious George too. I just make up or skip the stuff about the pipe. Kind of like when we read the newspaper comics in the morning and I have to make up age-appropriate dialogue....

Anonymous said...

Frances and I have really been liking another Mo Willems book: Edwina, the Dinosaur Who Didn't Know She Was Extinct. I haven't read through the other book lists for a while but if you haven't checked that one out yet, it is good.

Emily said...

Thanks for this list.

We're having a literary bday for my turning 2 year old (also known as my BABY!!!)

With your permission, I'd like to print out your list and include it in the invitation.

Also, do you know who wrote the Sister's book that Julie Pippert described?

neko and the crocodile said...

Thank you for this list. We have an avid reader who already insists on telling us the story.

Do you know, are there any good ninja books for toddlers? Seriously, the kid is obsessed with ninjas. And well, the older stuff is, kind of older.

*putting it out there in the literary world there needs to be a good toddler ninja book*

The naughty ninja?
The sneaky ninja?

It could be really good.

Anyway. Hi love your blog. Bye.

mo-wo said...

I sure do love these lists. Was a bit surprised to find Knufflebunny after all -- got redeemed, eh? We enjoy it as another good "Oh Dad!" book.

We enjoy -- of course -- Noisy Nora and a bunch of the others on your list.

But really.. no Scarry? May we suggest Best House Ever? Things that go?

ps.. do you have any connections to Sheree Fitch? I am totally desperate to buy a copy of Sleeping Dragons All Around.

Anonymous said...

A friend found your blog and bought our daughter Ella the Elephant as a result - a total hit. We also both like Eve Bunting's "Little Bear's Little Boat" right now. She loves Richard Scarry, I don't love the prose or stories but I do like the detail in the illustrations. I am starting to see the appeal as well of the classics: Goldilocks, Red Riding Hood, etc.