Calvin's Favorite Books

When I was pregnant Quinn and I visited the Banks Street Book Store in NYC. I was looking at the little cardboard books, but Quinn didn't want to get a bunch of cardboard books. He wanted the big fancy picture books for our little precious. Little did he know what these people are like....

Reading a big fancy picture book to a baby is a challenge because he just wants to grab it and rip it and chew it. It could be enough to make you give up, but there are so many books out there that are designed to appeal to babies (Geez, this sounds so duh now that I've written it out....oh well). A few in particular:

I see a Monster: It starts out "I see a monster, hairy and red. Where is he hiding?"...and you fold the flap and see a huge red fuzzy monster "Under the bed!"
Calvin loves this book because it's touch and feel and because it's full of monsters.

Any book by Matthew Van Fleet: He has a book with the letters of the alphabet, and the animals that begin with those letters. Van fleet books are so full of flaps and textures and moving parts and scratch and sniff that we'll spend five minutes looking at one page. The letters of the alphabet book came with a free poster with flaps for each letter (Calvin loved it but he's already ripped it to shreds). There's also a dog book with fur that you can touch and tails and different breeds doing awesome things. And today I just got a book about tails. All the books have tons of unusual animals to learn about. Calvin loves them because they're mega stimulating.

Sandra Boynton books are great because they're short, funny and nearly indestructible. My favorites are the Belly Button Book and Hippos go Berserk. I said that I would be listing Calvin's favorites, but since I read them out loud to him it makes a difference if I think it's funny.

David Shannon Books: I just got "No David" and we also have a couple of others. It's nice because it's mainly pictures of David doing crazy boy things that Calvin does. He gets into lots of trouble but at the end we see that his mommy loves him. I get a kick out of them.

Llama Llama Mad at Mama, by Anna Dewdney. I just got this through a book club but I love it. The baby llama has to go shopping with his mom and she's dragging him through the store until he has a temper tantrum. The pictures are great and it's rhyme and meter are very good.

There you have it. Calvin's favorites.