Hi!  It’s Luke (age three and a half).

Every once in awhile, Mama and I do very well at the library. We come home with several books that I end up really enjoying. Three weeks ago was one of those trips, and here are four books that I have been requesting over and over again since then.  Enjoy!

   The Farmer and the Clown by Marla Frazee: If you haven’t read any books by Marla Frazee yet, then let this one be your first and you will be hooked.  It’s a wordless picture book about a little clown boy who falls from his clown train car and ends up staying with a sour, lonely farmer.  The farmer wants to make the sad, lost little clown happy, so he does all kinds of things for the boy that seem quite out of character.  By the end of the book when the clown is reunited with his funny family, both the farmer and the boy are happy.  Not only is the message a good one, but the illustrations are beautiful.  If you like this book (Frazee’s most recent), try Boot and Shoe next–it’s one of my all-time favorite books!

   Peep!: A Little Book About Taking a Leap by Maria van Lieshout:  Recently, I’ve had to take some huge leaps out of my comfort zone, and this book helped me feel a lot better about them.  It’s about a little chick who has to screw up his courage to take a huge leap off of a curb in order to follow his mother and sisters.  Despite a few (very accurate and humorous) attempts at avoidance and with some encouragement from his mama and siblings, he finally takes the leap.  “I DID IT!” he shouts.  Since reading this book, “I DID IT!” has become my mantra.  Very simple text and spare illustrations make this book easy to read and digest.

   One Duck Stuck by Phyllis Root and Jane Chapman:  A counting book with jaunty rhythm, rhyme, and repetition that keep me engaged and tapping along with the beat!  A poor duck gets stuck in the muck, down by the deep green marsh, and he pleads for help from his fellow marsh dwellers who cheerfully answer the call.  Skunks, fish, moose, dragonflies–all work together to push an unlikely stick closer and closer to the stuck duck’s free foot.  I LOVE this book!  If you are looking for a 1-10 counting book, check out this one!

   The Baby Beebee Bird by Diane Redfield Massie and Steven Kellogg:  Bee bee bobbi bobbi!  Bee bee bobbi bobbi!  The call of the baby bee bee bird will be lodged in your head for days after reading this book.  A new arrival at the zoo, the baby beebee bird, keeps the other residents up all night long with his singing.  As day breaks and the bird decides to finally take a nap, the other animals plot their revenge.  They gang up on the baby and chorus their own “bee bee bobbis!” all day long.  The baby bee bee bird can’t sleep, of course, so when night falls, everyone finally gets some rest. Not only is this book funny for kids because we love books with animal sounds and other strange sounds in them, but adults will also enjoy the parallels with their own comical efforts to wrestle babies (and toddlers and preschoolers) into a normal sleep schedule.  A great book!

Hope you enjoy these books!  I certainly did!

Happy reading!

–Luke (blog co-author, age 3.5)

Clicking on the book will take you to Amazon.com, and if you decide to buy the book, a portion of your purchase comes back to me.  I, in turn, will use the profits to purchase books for our local library or for a children’s literacy project.