DragonFly's Book Suggestions

 What's more exciting than reading a book once?  Reading a book twice! What's more exciting than reading a book multiple times? Well, reading a series of books with the same characters and by the same author!  Book series allows for more books to unpack what happens with the character your child loves. The familiar is comfy. Curling up by the fire with something known and something a mystery is what we all want. Book series are also like t.v. episodes instead of a movie. 2-year olds have short attention spans and need short books. They also know what they like. Our daughter loves animals and sounds so the following book series have been a hit for us.  1.) Biscuit Books      Our daughter was gifted a few Biscuit books from one of her Grandma's last Christmas when she was a year and a half. Now, we have read over 20 Biscuit books! She even got a Biscuit stuffed animal for her two-year old birthday. Whenever we go on trips we make sure to bring along a Bi...

  Hush, Little Baby  A folk song with Pictures by Marla Frazee; illustrations copyright 1999.  This book brings you into the folk song's origins of the Appalachian mountain area in West Virginia.  There is just something so captivating about this book! We've had it checked out from the library for two months and our daughter still wants it read and sung to her. She loves looking at the details in the illustration and screaming like the baby, blowing out the candle, signing "broke" for the looking glass, or signing "happy" for the baby and the end of the book. She likes looking at books with babies and puppies and this book has both. The peddler has a mandolin which is a nice connection with her dad. I had never thought about what storyline the folk song might have. In this rendition, an older sister is jealous of her younger baby and wakes the baby and then asks her Papa to buy her items from a peddler to make the baby stop crying. Each item seems to make th...

  What a cute book! Does A Cow Say Boo?  is written by Judy Hindley and illustrated by Brita Granstrom. The pictures are adorable and multicultural children are represented. I love the word choices of "Oh, no!" and "hullabaloo!" and of course the play on peek-a-"boo!" This book is perfect for 2-year-olds. 

Five Potty Training Books      Learning the social expectations of where to pee and poop, or any life change, can be explained in a book. Diapers are not forever. Everyone poops. We can sing a song about the big girls sitting on the potty. We can read about the proper place to go, such as "[s]hould you go in your diaper?" Before too long our babies can become big kid pros like the Super Pooper and the Whizz Kid. Here our top 5 children's books for the potty training season.  Diapers Are Not Forever  by Elizabeth Verdick, illustrated by Marieka Heinlen This informative book includes straight forward language on what to do and why, "Because...diapers are not forever." Our daughter liked the artwork of the dog and the cat, and on the last page the dog says, "Good for you!" Everyone Poops  by Taro Gomi This is a classic; it is humorous and our daughter loved it! As you would expect from the title, it is a book explaining that "all living things eat, s...

10 Bedtime Books We've Been Reading  Reading books helps create a routine before bedtime: hearing the comfort of a parent's voice with the lull of rhythmic reading, cuddling close to a slower heart-beat all reminds their bodies that it is time to fall asleep. I like having approximately 4-10 books near the child's bed that they can choose from. We typically read three different books plus our last book, which is our prayer book: Good Night, God.  We then sing our goodnight song "Jesus Loves Me" and turn off the light. Any book can become a bedtime book; however, books about sleeping, prayer or love can lend to better bedtime book choices. These are our favorite books for this age range, starting with the ones we first read that our daughter still loves, to the newest ones she most recently enjoys. 1. Good Night, God  by Ginger Swift, illustrated by Daniela Sosa. Cottage Door Press published 2018. Ages Newborn to 5 We were gifted this book twice, by two different f...

      At bedtime, I asked my daughter how to say "fish." She signed fish next to her mouth. I thought she had picked it up that way since we ate tuna fish from a can for lunch that day. The next day she pulled this book off the shelf again and I realized that she had signed fish next to her mouth because the bear had a fish in its mouth.      Two years ago when my husband and I visited Arches National Park we stopped in at the Visitor Center and this book caught my eye because of the beautiful pictures. Those same eye-catching pages are what draws and keeps my almost-two-year-old's attention. She loves finding the hidden animals on the pages and laughs at the squirrel on the very last page. This is a good book for "Where's the ____?" and "What's that called?" type questions. I like that the boy goes to the far reaches of the earth through different biomes and the pictures become full panoramic images when the boy starts seeing instead of only l...

How Do I Love You?  by Marion Dane Bauer and illustrated by Caroline Jayne Church, published in 2009.  This book was a gift from a friend. The friend had loved reading this book to her boys and decided to gift another copy of the book to us so we could also enjoy reading it with our little one. We have read this book thousands of times! It has mostly been a goodnight book. The words in this book are just the dearest love poem from parent to child and Caroline Jayne Church has illustrated bright pictures that are perfect to go along with the words. We have enjoyed looking at the pictures. Sometimes we point out body parts and sometimes we notice how the main character dresses in different weather. She points to the three dinosaurs and listens to me roar and then points to the bunny and watches me as I pretend I am the bunny scared of the dinosaurs and then points to the girl in the book and I pretend I am the girl and say "I love my dinosaurs!" This book helped our daughter le...