N's favourite books

N took instant likings to some books and would want me to read them over and over again. (Think 4-5 times at one sitting) Some books he won't even finish reading it at first glance. I do try to get him to read them at least once before I return them. Thank God we have excellent library here.

Below are his current favourites. The first one is called No, David! If it were up to me, I won't choose this book, mainly because I think the drawing did not appeal to me. But what do I know, it appeals to N! He took an instant liking to the book!!! It has pictures of little David getting into trouble on every page and you can guess it, most pages read, NO, David or Come back here, David. It did end positively with Come here David, and I love you David. After the first reading, he could remember all the pictures in it. He would ask me to find, "David reaching for cookie jar", "David making lots of noise" , "David dirtying the carpet with his muddy shoes" and so on and so forth.
After this book, whenever he misbehaves, we usually asked if he remembers David, what happened to him.

Next book was recommended by my colleague who was trained as an early childhood teacher. It is called Avocado Baby by John Burmingham. John Burmingham wrote many children's books but this one appears to be most elementary ie contains least word so it appeals to little kids. One thing that I was not very used to was the author called the avocado fruit AVOCADO PEAR in the book. It is a little confusing. N really enjoyed the storyline. It's about a family, the Hargraves who are expecting a new baby. The family is very thin and not very strong. One day the mother fed the fussy baby avocado and he grew strong. So strong that he could lift piano, groceries etc He even threw the bullies into the pond.

Third book is Lauren Child's Charlie and Lola I will be especially very careful. We have never seen the show but both N and I love her books. The book usually has mixture of drawings and real pictures in it. I usually read it aloud to him. He really enjoys the story. What have you been reading lately?

What does N read?

For those of you with kids, how do you go about choosing books for your littlies?

For me, it's pretty random. I picked up the book and looked through the pictures. If I liked the pictures I would borrow them. I usually try to borrow 2 from the same author. I find that if N likes one of the book, he would like the other one.

I recently discovered Judith Donaldson and Nick Sharratt in their books Toddle Waddle and One Mole Digging a Hole.

Took him a few days of getting used to. Now he would recite some of the contents when he sees the book.


Toddle waddle has minimum words but allow lots of interaction between N and myself. He would even comment that the daschund dog in the book looks like Prada (my brother's dog).
In a page where everyone is busy doing something at the beach, he spotted that an auntie is eating an apple, a boy is drinking orange juice, there's a red crab on the beach etc...



One Mole Digging a Hole is hilarious. I think I liked it more than N.
One page has a number plus the description of the picture next page. Eg
One Mole digging a hole. Two snakes with garden rakes, Three bears picking pears ....and so on..
In between reading the book, he would ask, what colour is that (point to the flower or butterfly)
I also picked up a version that comes with the audio cd. It's pretty fun to hear while we are inside the car.