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6 Spring Books


1.  Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell, first published 1982
We've started a tradition of going to the zoo during Spring Break time. Thus when Spring comes around, we read books and do puzzles with zoo animals. This book has been a favorite. Last year when she was 10 and 11 months old was when we first read it. She enjoyed hearing me read it and liked the picture of the dog on the last page. This year she loves the book! She enjoys opening all the flaps and making all the animal sounds and signing the animals that she knows the signs for. This book was first published 41 years ago and is just as popular now as it was. The idea for putting animals in crates is so brilliant and believable and it tells a story of why each animal isn't right and then finally the puppy was perfect, hooray!




2. Spring Babies by Kathryn Galbraith, published 2019
Babies love to see pictures of other babies. Our daughter at 11 months loved reading this book! Bright pages, cute pictures, diverse population of babies, short rhyming text, showing a love of the outdoors, real-world story: all a win-win-win. 




3. What Will Hatch? by Jennifer Ward, published 2013
We checked this one out before Easter this year. Although it's not a book geared for an almost-two-year-old, our daughter let me read the book to her a couple of times. The illustrations are just great and the peek-through holes are so clever! The descriptions that ask you to guess the animal are rhyming short text with adjectives that our daughter hasn't been exposed to like "jiggly" and "squiggly." The facts in the back of the book were fun for us adults to read through and this will be a one will we want to come back to in future years. 




4. Worm Weather by Jean Taft, published 2015
This is another one that we will enjoy reading year after year. I love reading the text; the rhyming poem words are fun to read out loud. The words flow off your tongue and lips as you say them and they sound like what they are describing; onomatopoeia words are used so well in this book. Our daughter loved flipping through the pages and could relate to the puddles as she loves to stomping through puddles!





5. Spring in the Forest by Rusty Finch, published 2019
This is a sturdy board book with thick durable flaps. Cottage Door Press publishes some really good books and this is no exception. We love the pictures, especially the deer as there are so many deer where we live. This book is marked as 18 month plus, however I read it with my daughter last Spring when she was 11 months old and she enjoyed it so I would say it was more off a 12 months plus book. 
 



6. Goodbye Winter, Hello Spring by Kenard Pak, published 2020
I was turned on to this series of books through a Montessori blog. I love the watercolor illustrations and the descriptions of how the seasons gradually change from one season to another. Our daughter is still too young to appreciate this book but we love showing her the pictures and we will read the book again next year and the year after. I think these books might be good for ages 4-7. Besides the other three seasons books, we have also read How to Count 1 to 5 in Five Languages by Kenard Pak, Flowers are Calling and Have You Heard The Nesting Bird? both by Rita Gray and illustrated by Kanard Pak. These books are also highly recommended. 

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