![\"Children's](\"images\/20100823-1.jpg\")
<\/p>\nI don’t often get a chance to read my library selections aloud to youngsters. Instead, I read most of my picture books silently, by myself. <\/p>\n
As a result, most of my reviews of children’s picture books are based on, well, my own<\/i> opinion of the books and how I think<\/i> youngsters might respond.<\/p>\n
But this last week, I had an opportunity to babysit for a couple of my favorite little ones–avid readers at age 4 and 2. <\/p>\n
I brought along a selection of library books and we started reading them one by one. We’d gotten about halfway through my stack when they started asking for repeats (instead of continuing through.) <\/p>\n
These three titles by Jim Aylesworth were the ones they wanted to hear again:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Country Crossing<\/i> tells the simple story of a railroad crossing in the nighttime country. All is quiet except for crickets chirping and an owl hooting. But the a car drives up and is stopped at the tracks. The train approaches and departs. The car starts up again and drives away. And the country returns to its quiet activity. <\/p>\n
What makes this story unique and repeat read-aloud-able is its use of onomatopoeia and rhythmic language to give the listener a feel for the activity occurring as the car and then the train approach and recede. The illustrations by Ted Rand are old-timey and fairly realistic. I enjoyed reading this one out loud–and the children enjoyed listening and perusing its pages.<\/p>\n
Little Bitty Mouse<\/i> is an understated alphabet book that describes how a little mouse snuck into a house and explored a variety of the house’s contents. Every few pages, the story repeats the refrain<\/p>\n Tip-tip tippy tippy The story is enjoyable, with a nice rhyme scheme and an unobtrusive alphabet element.<\/p>\n But the part that probably endeared it to the kids was the very end when the little bitty mousie hears a “ZZZZ” and goes to investigate. What she finds–a cat sleeping–frightens her, and she lets out a “Squeak!” (The four year old jumped every time I turned the page to see the cat and let out my own shrill pitched “Squeak!”) <\/p>\n Sweet Little Bitty Mousie, Jim Aylesworth’s Book of Bedtime Stories<\/i> is a compilation of four stories. We started to read these a second time, but didn’t get all the way through due to the kids’ Mommy arriving home. So I’m not sure exactly what appealed; but, like the other two stories, these stories featured a pleasant rhythm and rhyme structure, fun onomatopoeia, and simple but engaging story lines.<\/p>\n These stories were a hit with a couple of kids–and this reader wasn’t complaining about the repeats!<\/p>\n I don’t often get a chance to read my library selections aloud to youngsters. Instead, I read most of my picture books silently, by myself. As a result, most of my reviews of children’s picture books are based on, well, my own opinion of the books and how I think youngsters might respond. But this … Read more Read-Aloud Favorites<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[19],"tags":[288,611,612,699,836,869,930],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4456"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4456\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nWent her little mousie toes.
\nSniff-sniff sniffy sniffy
\nWent her little mousie nose<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nJust as scared as scared can be,
\nWent run run run run running!
\nThat was all she cared to see!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n![\"Reading](\"images\/buttons\/reading-my-library.gif\")
<\/a>For more comments on children’s books, see the rest of my Reading My Library posts<\/a> or check out Carrie’s blog Reading My Library<\/a>, which chronicles her and her children’s trip through the children’s section of their local library.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"