twinutero

Ten Seeds. By Ruth Brown. Children learn to count backwards from ten while also learning how a seed becomes a plant, how a plant makes new seeds – and how some seeds and plants are lost to hungry garden critters in between. Beautifully simple.

The Carrot Seed. Written by Ruth Kraus; illustrated by Crockett Johnson. Written in the 1945 (and looking very ’40s), this is a short story of a boy with faith – about a carrot seed.

Le Livre des Bruits. By Soledad et Bravi. A basic picture book with accompanying French sounds: “Les pompiers, ils font pin pon pin pon.” We borrowed it from the library and will have to pay for extensive repairs as this book has been dragged from room to room and held up in a plea to read too many times.

Owl Moon. Written by Jan Yolen; illustrated by John Schoenherr. A girl and her father go owling late one night. It’s poetically written and elegantly illustrated. My two-year-old is captivated.

The Bear Snores On. By Karma Wilson and Jane Chapman. Forest animals party while a bear hibernates in his den. A bedtime story with a twist. (Thanks for the tip Shelley!)

The Rattletrap Car. By Phyllis Root and Jill Barton. My only quibble with this otherwise brilliant book is all the car parts scattered across the countryside as the Rattletrap Car breaks down and is fixed by an inventive family. A gas tank left in the duck pond?

Monster Mama. Written by Liz Rosenberg; illustrated by Stephen Gammell. I’m hesitant to recommend this book because I don’t think I would ever read it to a child. The story, even though it’s about a mother’s love, is odd and probably frightening to anyone under ten. The illustrations, however, are fantastic. If an older child wants inspiration to paint, here it is. Okay, I admit, I was also pretty amused by the description of Monster Mama: “Her bad moods terrified the neighborhood.” Errrr…