Thursday, September 3, 2009

Books We Love

Reading is so important but I'm sure we've all heard that.
I grew up in a house full of books with easy access to the city and school libraries. In Tokyo though I find it harder to get my hands on the books that I want. I have a difficult time finding good books in the variety of languages that I'd like to share with the little guy.
So, as I'm always looking for good book recommendations I thought I'd share some of the books that we love!
いろいろかくれんぼ」のシリズ by いしかわこうじ
This series of books draws in children with a plain page and a riddle followed by a page with a hole in it that when turned creates a picture and the answer to the riddle. An additional point of interest is that the color and the name (answer) to the riddle are given in English.
We started with こどもものしりずかん―にほんご+えいご (単行本) by 永岡書店編集部 and quickly got hooked on the series. I think we have 3, maybe 4 of these books. While they overlap a lot there are also enough individual differences between books to keep a kid interested. The little guy loves to point and ask us what the various pictures are.
I like the bilingual ones as they help build my vocabulary and the little guy can ask anyone to read them to him.

Fahr, Auto, fahr von Gregoire Solotareff

This is a book I've had since high school. I bought it on one of my trips to Germany. I also have another book from the same series. They are easy to read, have simple pictures and use fun action words.

Mein Finger-Nachfahr-Buch. Durch die Natur von Johanna Fritz

Can I just say that I love European books? The colors and ideas are great. This one is has an indented path on each page for the child to follow with his finger. It's great for pre-writing practice!

While I've seen the same book in English this is by far more fun to read in German. With the "lift the flap" parts and various animal sounds you can make, any kid could get drawn in!
On to the English books... Each of these is just one book from a great series.
Dry Bones by Kate Edmunds - from the series Books with Holes
Pat-a-Cake by Tom Brannon- from the series Sesame Beginnings
My Train - from a dollar store series
Things I Do in Church by Kathy Mitter- from the CPH Things I _____ series

Here are some of the miscellaneous favorites.

Drummer Hoff - a classic Caldecott Medal winner

Lisa's Airplane Trip - the perfect preparation and take-along book for long flights with small kids!
Last but not least - The Wiggles Wake Up Jeff! I found this on sale at the grocery store when I went home last summer. I'm probably the only person in the small town who knew who the Wiggles were... but what a deal! The clock hands move so we can talk about the time of the activity on each page!

As you can probably tell I LOVE books! I've always got my eye open for great ones.
Honestly though, how did people survive before Amazon? With Amazon.jp I can get just about any book I want from anywhere in the whole world in just a few weeks!!!

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