What We Read...

When I think back on this summer I know I will remember much of it by what we read. Travis can remember entrees he ordered at resturants 10 years ago...not me, but I do remember the books: the spring of 9th grade - I remember being in long rehearsals for the school play, the unmatched angst of being fourteen, and reading To Kill a Mockingbird for English class; I read Wuthering Heights while on a family vacation to Puerto Rico right before senior year in high school and the summer before Sophia was born I was working in Atlanta, thought I was going to die of heat exhaustion, and read Gone with the Wind for the first time. So...here it is: the summer when they were 3 1/2, and 1 1/2, when Foo began speaking English, and Sophia became a protective older sister...we were reading:

A friend told me about Mo Willems last spring. We've enjoyed his "Pigeon" books but Knuffle Bunny is king. The second one, Knuffle Bunny Too, follows Trixie to preschool and Sophia really connects with it. So do I. Willems can sum up all that is parenting a three - year old in one cartoonish facial expression. He is brilliant. And he is about to release his third book in this series and is coming to our library to speak. Be still my heart.

There was a point this summer when we had two copies of this book checked out at once and Sophia would not go to sleep without both in her bed. They both love the rhythm and the numbers and the heroic ending...What's not to love?

This is an A to Z of "naughty" children. Warning: it's a long one. It almost pushed my mother in law over the edge at bedtime because Sophia knows it by heart so you can't miss a word. I have read it enough that I can get through it in record speed. I like it. In many a disciplinary moment we have referenced the particular child who acted wrongly and how that effects people. Think Book of Virtures - reversed.

Okay, it takes some energy to dodge the Disney books (fairies and princesses), the Dora books and (oh the horror) the Barbie books. I don't have a huge stance. These books often make their way home with us. I would just prefer Sophia and Olivia to aspire to be prime ministers or poet lauretes rather than princesses and I want to believe there's better literature out there than Barbie Loves Cheerleading (okay, really,it's just that those photographed pictures of real Barbies being posed amidst scenery really freak me out.) So we read Little Critter and Curious George and Max and Ruby. And we've read Angelina, and Eloise, and Fancy Nancy, and Ladybug Girl. And we like them all. But no one compares to Belinda. No one.

We have been checking these books out for over a year. Sophia knows where to find "Y" in the library and checks everytime we are there to see if there is one in. Olivia loves Belinda and the Glass Slipper and would request it along with Karen Katz books long before she spoke.These woeful tales of a Ballerina marginalized due to her very large feet have struck a cord in this family. And I like that Belinda, in her own way, is a survivor, a fighter, she has overcome.

Dear Amy Young - wherever you are: Please write another one in this series. Perhaps Belinda and the Bedtime Routine. That could really meet us where we are right now.

Love, Your Devoted Fans.

P.S. If you do write another one we promise to buy it and not just continually renew it from the library. We realize our system provides you with no increased revenue.