Thursday, September 21, 2006

The Kathryn and Whitney Journals (7): A Few of our Favorite Books!

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Having been a kindergarten teacher for several years, I had the privilege of being exposed to many wonderful children's books and authors. In fact, one of my favorite components of teaching was literature. Buying books, discovering new authors and illustrators, and reading as much as possible to the children. Knowing that our daughter Whitney was coming home, I decided to stock her bookshelf with some of my very favorite titles. Although Whitney is just 19 months old, we have over 50 books for her collection. We are in the process of collecting many of the Caldecott and Newberry Medal books.

My list can be broken down in so many different ways. The best place to start is my favorite adoption related books. Just about any book by Karen Katz is worth owning! Her colorful illustrations feature children of all different races. We own most of her books and Whitney especially likes the "lift the flap" books. Her books, My First Chinese New Year and Over the Moon: An Adoption Tale , are truly worth owning. When Whitney is a little older, we will read her I Love You Like Crazy Cakes (Rose Lewis), Tell Me Again about the Night I was Born (Jaime Lee Curtis), Shaoey and Dot: Bug Meets Bundle (Mary Beth and Steven Curtis Chapman), I Don't Have Your Eyes (Carrie Kitze), Families are Forever (Craig Shemin), The Day We Met You (Phoebe Koehler), The White Swan Express (Jean Davies Okimoto), and A Mother for Choco (Keiko Kasza). There are many, many, many more books but these are what we have for now.

Anything by Sandra Boynton! Her stories are silly and the illustrations are fun. Whitney can't get enough of these books. We read them over and over and over again. Also, DK Publishing has a really sturdy "lift the flap" boards books that can't be ripped by tiny hands. We particularly like the Peek-a-Boo series and Baby Fun series (Old MacDonald, Five in the Bed, Humpty Dumpty, One Little Duck, and Twinkle, Twinkle). The color photographs are so engaging and Whitney tends to prefer these books to any other on her shelf.

Whitney has a true love for ducks. Perhaps this can be traced back to our hotel in Chongqing. The Marriott gave each adopting family a set of ducks for the bath tub. Whitney's first English word was duck, she will be dressed as a duck for Halloween, she has many, many rubber ducks and she has numerous books about ducks. The following photo is a picture of Whitney "reading" Five Little Ducks (Raffi) to all of her duck friends (please excuse the outfit :0):

















A great source for books for children and adults is through Adoptive Families magazine. The following link will take you right to their impressive collection of titles and reviews:
http://adoptivefamilies.com/books.php?j=7178393&e=lebonchien@aol.com&l=752862_HTML&u=89479270&mid=26987

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