Kid Lit Spotlight - Anne Rockwell

Hey Friends - what are you all up to this week? I'm guessing it involves pumpkins and costumes, just like at our house. Thankfully, Sarah agreed to paint hers instead of doing any cutting. While there were no injuries, it was a two bath kind of a day.

As part of our Monday series on children's books, my friend Emily has been nice enough to share a guest post with us! Without further ado - take it away Emily!

First of all I’d like to say that I feel a bit torn when thinking about suggesting picture books that I like. Should I write about books I like myself? Books my three year old son enjoys? Or books I knew about when I studied children’s literature and used them during storytimes while I worked as a children’s librarian? It doesn’t seem like there should be a difference between these categories, but there is!

I have found myself a mom with a son who has not wanted me to read any book that is new to him -- what a challenge when I feel like I know a lot of great children’s books that he might enjoy! We went through a stretch of at least a year where he wanted to read the same books over and over, and if I wanted to introduce a new one into the rotation, I could only sometimes manage it by sneakily picking it up while he was playing with toys and quickly show him the most interesting page in the book from across the room. Even then he was on to me! He’d usually run over and forcefully close the book. So after many weeks of taking home 20+ books from the public library, I finally learned to only take a couple because he just wasn’t looking at them! How frustrating for a mom who’s been a children’s librarian!

Now that he’s three and a half, he’s just starting to really explore books in a more open-minded way. It’s still hard to introduce a new one to him if he doesn’t show initial interest, but we’ve found if we leave the books in his room and let him look at them by himself during rest times, eventually he’ll ask us to read them to him. Hooray! I still have to control my impulses at the library to take home everything I can lay my hands on, but hopefully that will change as he gets older, and he’ll feel lucky to have a parent who lets him take home tons and tons of books!

The books I want to share with you today are kind of a mix of books I like, books my son likes, and books I used as a librarian -- picture books by Anne Rockwell. She has written a lot of simple books on all kinds of topics, seasons, and holidays. They are great for the very young (three and under) because they have a narrow focus and the illustrations are clear and usually not busy. 

Some favorites we've read here are In Our House (an older one, but really good - it was our son's favorite book for a month), At the Beach, Cars, and Bear Child's Book of Hours. There is also Fire Engines and At the Firehouse. We used the book Pots and Pans a lot at the library -- a personal favorite of mine!

Some good ones for this time of year are Apples and Pumpkins, Pumpkin Day Pumpkin Night, and Halloween Day.

{Many thanks to Emily for sharing her favorites with us today! Happy Halloween everyone! Oh, and BOO!}