My Dad's the Coolest by Rosie Smith and Bruce Whatley

Since Father's Day is just around the corner in Australia, I thought I'd look at another one of our favourite Dad books: My Dad's the Coolest.

Maximilian gave this book to his Dad as a Father's Day present last year. I like to give picture books to adults as gifts because it creates a wonderful excuse and opportunity for parent and child to spend some time together. And it's always nice to receive presents that tell you how cool you are!!

Like Some Dads, each page of this book features a different animal Dad and child and simple text about why that Dad is the coolest. I like this book because of the great range of animals it features, from the obvious (brave lion) to the bizarre (funny puffer fish). It is also a great celebration of the father-child bond and of the fun that all different kinds of dads have with their children.

My Dad's the Coolest has plain coloured pages with just a few words of text and facing pages with animal illustrations, again on plain coloured background. This is a really simple book, which is a refreshing change from the really busy, detailed full page illustrations in many picture books. Bruce Whatley's illustrations are terrific, and each picture shines with the love between the dad and child. If you haven't seen this book, it really is worth a look. With only a very small amount of text, My Dad's the Coolest is also suitable for even the youngest baby to enjoy reading with their dad.

If you are keen to get this book as a gift for the cool Dad in your child's world, I have also just found this awesome gift pack which includes the book My Dad's the Coolest in a mini hardback edition and a drink cooler - how cool is that?!? (Thought I'd throw in a dad joke there to finish with!)

Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site by Sherri Duskey Rinker and Tom Lichtenheld

Set against a cityscape backdrop, Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site tells the story of five tough trucks working on a big construction site. It is the end of a hard day's work and the reader gets to learn a little bit about each truck and the work they do before saying goodnight to each of them.

The story is told in delightful rhyming text. There are lots of action words used, which provides wonderful opportunity to engage little ones - Maximilian loves to "reach and stretch and lift" like Crane Truck and, of course, the repetitive Shh...goodnight is nice to say together with "shushing". The language used also makes this a great read aloud book, as it's fun to crrrunch the gravel along with Dump Truck and rooaaar along with Bulldozer.  Like all good bedtime stories, there are also lots of opportunities throughout the story for parent and child to enjoy some good cuddles!

Lichtenheld's illustrations are just magnificent and really are works of art. The trucks and diggers manage to be both cartoonish and realistic, and their faces are filled with such personality. There is also incredible detail in every picture, and I've been amazed by how many things Maximilian sees in the pictures that I've missed - there is one page with a little owl that he spots every time! As he gets older and his vocabulary grows, I'm sure he'll notice and articulate even more of the details in the pictures.

The bedtime detail in the pictures is also really charming - Crane Truck has a teddy bear and night light while Cement Mixer has a little blankie. The night sky with the lovely sleepy moon illustration is featured on each goodnight page and the twilight blue is really striking and unusual and very engaging - as are the illustrations of the trucks and diggers.

Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site is a wonderful book that will always hold a special place in our hearts, because this is the book that taught Maximilian about bedtime!

We chose very gentle bedtime techniques with our babies. As a small baby, we always cuddled Maximilian to sleep before putting him in his cradle or cot. As he grew bigger, we would cuddle him on our bed before transferring him to his own cot once he was fast asleep. But, as I got bigger and bigger when I was pregnant with Walther and as Walther's arrival grew closer and closer, it became impossible - I simply couldn't bend over his cot to lift his 12kg sleeping body in any more!! It was time to help Maximilian learn to go to sleep in his own bed. 

We tried lots of different things - putting him in his bed awake and sitting nearby singing songs or reading books, patting him off to sleep, etc. We had moderate success and things were going quite well. Then, one night when Walther was only a few weeks old, Daddy had to be out at night and Mummy needed to do bedtime by herself. I knew I didn't have very long before Walther would need feeding, so it had to be a pretty quick bedtime routine. I cuddled Maximilian up in my feeding chair and read him Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site. As we said Shh...goodnight to each of the trucks in the book, Maximilian grew sleepier and sleepier. When we had finished the book, I carried him over to Walther's cot and he said Shh...goodnight to bubby, then Shh...goodnight to our parrots, then Shh...goodnight to ape (his favourite cuddly toy) etc. When I put him in his bed, I simply said Shh...goodnight Maximilian, tucked him in and left the room - and he went straight to sleep and didn't wake again until morning. It was magical! And it was the same night after night - the bedtime ritual and routine that this book gave us worked like a dream and we haven't looked back since.

Maximilian received Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site as a gift for his first Christmas. We fell in love with the beautiful artwork and delightful rhyming text immediately and tried reading it to him when he was a few months old. It is quite a long story though and didn't immediately catch his interest. We tried again a few months later and made it through a few of the trucks in the book, but it wasn't until he was around 14 months old that he started to really enjoy this book and sit through the whole story. Once this happened though, Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site was a firm favourite and the only book he wanted to read for several weeks!!

I really can't recommend this book highly enough. Great for any little person interested in trucks, diggers and construction equipment. This is a wonderful book to give as a gift - we have the hardcover edition. The story is most suitable for ages 2 and up, and there is also plenty to engage older readers.

This is our best bedtime story ever!

What is your favourite bedtime story to read with your children? I'd love to hear about it!

Our book shelf and reading corner - a personal post

This is our (very crowded) book shelf. We got it from Toys R Us after seeing the same one at our nephews' house and it is awesome. Now that our collection has expanded so much, I'm going to go back and get a second one - with all the books we receive as gifts and all the books I can't resist buying it too will be full in no time!!



We also have a tub of cloth and board books on the floor that Maximilian can choose books from.

This is great because the board books don't fit really well on the other book shelf and, being strong and hard wearing, tend to get thrown around a lot!

Our storage tub comes from Ikea and is part of the Trofast system, so can be stored easily in the matching shelving - although ours is permanently in the corner. We read so often there is little point in putting it away!

At our house, we've gotten into a great pattern of self directed reading. When Maximilian was very small and less mobile, we chose various books regularly to read with him. When he was around 9 months old, every night Daddy would read a story with him before cuddling him to sleep. We developed a great system where we would choose a story then read the same one for a week with him, which I think gave him a great sense of the books because he would remember them night after night. Of course, we chose books that were our favourites, perhaps from childhood or that we'd found recently and loved.

Now that Maximilian is older and physically able to choose his own books, we try really hard to encourage that. Every afternoon we read books together for about an hour - a terrific way to reconnect when I get home from work and he is tired and a little cranky. Having Maximilian choose his own books works fabulously, although it does sometimes means that Mummy gets to read "101 things that go" far more often that perhaps she'd like!! But it also means that we get a real sense of what interests him at any given moment and can build on that interest through other play activities. And what interests a toddler changes very quickly, so what is a favourite book one day is sometimes completely blah the next.

The other awesome and amazing thing that has happened a few times is when we ask Maximilian to choose a book, such as the one with the caterpillar or the one with Max in it, and he toddles off the book shelf and then returns with the book you asked for. This level of comprehension just blows me away and I am so proud that he is so engaged with his book collection that he can do this.

It's no surprise that one of the pleasures of a picture book is the pictures, and so it's also no surprise that seeing the covers displayed makes the books so much more attractive than displaying them spine out. So many children's books are so thin that the spines are lost on regular bookshelves, which is why a display system like this one works so well. The low fabric "shelves" are perfect for face out display of books and to engage your child with the eye catching, interesting, textured or brightly coloured book covers.

Children learn a love of reading by physically engaging with books, and that is where this book shelf and storage tub excels. The books are stored low to the ground, so really encourages children to engage with books because they are at their level. It also means that often Maximilian will "play with" his books as much as any other toy because they are so accessible to him.

Our house is very small and we don't have a lot of space to spare, but we have made sure that we've set up a small reading corner for Maximilian and Walther. As well as the low book shelf and board book tub, we included a fabulous little $20 couch from Kmart - perfect for snuggling up with a good book. I'd love to get some wall stickers as well - either the alphabet or maybe just spell out "read".

Here is the reading corner in action!

How are your children's books stored? Do you have a reading corner or nook at your place? I'd love to hear about your ideas for encouraging reading and making books accessible for your child!

Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers

Once there was a boy and one day he found a penguin at his door...

So begins Lost and Found: the story of an unlikely friendship between a young boy and a penguin. When the penguin turns up, the young boy assumes he is lost and tries to help the penguin find his home - with surprising and heart warming results.

Lost and Found is quite long for a picture book - I remember when Maximilian first chose it for us to read (when he was around 13 months of age) that I was surprised that he sat through the whole book. The story is told in narrative format with no rhyming text. A young child with a short attention span might not make it through the whole story initially, but there is lots of detail in the illustrations to help sustain their interest.

On the flip side, Lost and Found is definitely a picture book with lasting value - even primary school readers would find much of interest in the illustrations and parents could have some fascinating discussion with their older child about the story elements. It would also be a nice addition to a beginner readers collection - so often early reader books don't really have much of a story so Lost and Found would be a nice story to help children who are learning to read independently.

Maximilian was lucky enough to receive this gorgeous book as a gift from a dear friend. Lost and Found was the first Oliver Jeffers' book to make it into our picture book collection (although I do have a copy of The Heart and the Bottle that is in my own book collection that I bought some years ago - an amazing book about grief. Right up there with A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness.)

As I said in my post about Stuck, I love everything Oliver Jeffers creates and he is one of my favourite children's authors. He manages to create stories that are funny, interesting and completely engaging as well as books that are absolutely delightful and beautiful to look at. Jeffers is an amazingly talented artist - most of the artwork in his picture books could easily be framed and hung on the wall, and the illustrations in Lost and Found really are unique and beautiful. Jeffers' website has prints of images from his books for sale - I'm coveting this one of the cover of Lost and Found amongst others!

We have the board book edition of Lost and Found, but it is available in paperback as well. If you are buying this book as a gift, I'd definitely recommend the board book for any child aged 3 and under - it will be much more hard-wearing for those little hands that won't be able to resist turning pages and examining the illustrations. For an older child, the paperback version is a great choice as the illustrations look even better bigger!!

Lost and Found has won multiple awards and has also been made into an award winning short film, which I can't wait to watch! 

I highly recommend this book as an addition to any picture book collection, and it is a real keeper - so perfect as a gift for any child. Best suited for children aged 2 and up.

Dr Seuss's Seusscase by Dr Seuss

It's been a real Dr Seuss week in our house and this is largely due to the fantastic Dr Seuss Seusscase!

The Seusscase is a fantastic collection of ten Dr Seuss stories. It has all the popular hits: Green Eggs and Ham, The Cat in the Hat, Oh, the Places You'll Go!, The Lorax, Fox in Socks and One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish; plus a whole lot more less well known Seuss titles (well less known to me anyway!) like I Wish that I had Duck Feet, Dr Seuss's ABC, etc.....

And the best part is all the books are packed together into a fantastic little suitcase (or Seusscase!) There is nothing cuter than Maximilian grabbing his little Seusscase and coming up to me saying "book, book!"

Maximilian received this great compendium of Dr Seuss books as a gift for his first Christmas, but it is only very recently that he has started to sit through and enjoy books by Dr Seuss. I hadn't remembered just how long many of the stories are but now, at 20 months, Maximilian quite happily sits through over 40 pages of Dr Seuss, which is pretty impressive I think.

The back of the books in the Seusscase are also colour coded: blue for sharing with your child, green for children just beginning to read on their own and yellow for fluent readers to enjoy. Dr Seuss books are full of rhyme and repetition to help early readers recognise the words and are also full of crazy nonsense words which are just plain fun to read aloud!

Maximilian loves to open his Seusscase and choose a book for us to read together. His first favourite was Oh! The Places You'll Go! - which I'm sorry to say I didn't know very well before but now adore. Green Eggs and Ham is also a huge hit and, this weeks favourite read by a long way, Fox in Socks - although I, like Mr Knox, have trouble reading the tongue twisters aloud! He has also just started to enjoy One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, which was a childhood favourite of mine.

If you're looking for a book gift for a child, you could do far worse than a Dr Seuss book and you probably can't do better than a whole box of them!! We love our Seusscase!

Green Eggs and Ham by Dr Seuss

The story of Sam's quest to get a grouch to eat green eggs and ham is a well deserved classic of children's literature and has always been one of my favourite Dr Seuss books.

This is such a funny book. Who doesn't love the interplay between Sam and the grouch?! The way the grouch gets more and more exasperated and the way that Sam's suggestions get more and more outrageous is nothing short of hilarious!

The fantastic rhyming, rhythmic repetitive text in Green Eggs and Ham makes this a terrific story for kids learning to read independently.

This is also a perfect book for parents to read aloud to their child. Unlike some Dr Seuss books, this one is easy to read, with simple plain language and no real tongue twisters!

I've used Green Eggs and Ham as a library storytime book lots of times and the kids always love it. It is especially good for reading out loud with a partner as you can have so much fun as either the increasingly grumpy grouch or the wheedling pleading Sam.

I've also been surprised when rereading Dr Seuss just how many themes and morals are contained within these simple stories - the moral in Green Eggs and Ham being try new things even if you think you don't like them as you may just be surprised! And what a great book for parents to quote to their child during those wonderful dinner time discussions about eating one vegetable or another - try it and you might like it :-)

It wasn't until I started reading Dr Seuss with Maximilian that I realised just how long the books actually are. We tried One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish a few times but he hasn't taken to it at all yet (although it is my childhood fave). Green Eggs and Ham though was a hit from the first reading and we now read it every other day! In fact, Sam is the second book character that Maximilian now recognizes and knows by name - the first was Max from Where the Wild Things Are.

At 20 months, Maximilian doesn't truly understand the humour in this book. It is lovely though how he earnestly shakes his head and says "No" along with the grouches refusal to eat the green eggs and ham and how he claps at the end when he tries and likes them! And the rhythmic text keeps him totally riveted through the whole book.

Green Eggs and Ham would be a great addition to a food themed storytime session - team it with I will not ever never eat a tomato by Lauren Child, and you are guaranteed to have lots of fun!!

Two Little Bugs by Mark and Rowan Sommerset

 Two Little Bugs tells the story of friends Little Bug Red and Little Bug Blue.

Little Bug Red lives on top of the leaf while Little Bug Blue lives underneath. Little Bug Blue would like to move to the top of the leaf but lacks the courage and confidence to do so, despite Little Bug Red's offers of help.

Each page follows the dialogue between the two bugs as Little Bug Red munches away at their shared leaf. The pages feature really interesting die cut holes and cutaways to illustrate Little Bug Red's appetite and this makes Two Little Bugs a beautiful and unique book.

The artwork is very unusual and quite lovely. I like the bug illustrations very much and they are very expressive. The use of colour is understated and works well, although probably isn't interesting enough to engage young children.

Two Little Bugs is the first book published by New Zealand husband and wife team Mark and Rowan Sommerset and is dedicated to their son. I was not surprised to read that Two Little Bugs won the Best Children's Book in the 2012 New Zealand Book Design Awards. The judges said "this wonderful book looks as if it was fun to design. In other words... it is a work of wonderful charm and considerable skill" and I really have to agree - it is one of the most unusual and most well-produced children's books I've come across. 

The problem I have with this book is the depressing and defeatist attitude of Little Bug Blue. All he does for the whole book is sit around complaining about poor little him and how hard his life is. It's downright infuriating!! And the ending, where he flies away with Little Bug Red only adds to my frustration because if he could fly the whole time what was he complaining about?!? Aargh!!

Most children's books with morals and values have a good message and I'm just not sure what this one says. I guess as Maximilian gets older we can discuss life choices and how to be positive and make something of yourself.

Putting that aside, this is a lovely little book and Maximilian often chooses it for us to read so it definitely has appeal for him. It will certainly be a book he'll grow into even more as he is older and can enjoy the lovely page cut outs (without fear of ruining it).

If you want to find out more about this great book, you'll find an excellent review of Two Little Bugs by someone who doesn't want to squash Little Bug Blue here on mylittlebookcase.

I like the way this book shows the lifecycle of a caterpillar while telling another story altogether - it is almost a story within a story. Two Little Bugs could be used well in conjunction with other books about caterpillars or bugs for a themed story time or science curriculum.

This really is a beautifully produced book with really interesting and unusual die cut pages - too interesting unfortunately for an 18 month old. We've had many near misses with this lovely little book so I'd recommend it for older picture book readers, ages 3 and up.

Some Dads... by Nick Bland

This is one of the best books about Dads that I've come across.

Sadly, many Dad books feature crude humour like farting and burping or narrow gender stereotypes like sports and cars, which I find pretty offensive really.

Some Dads... is different, and I love it. Each page features an animal dad and child engaging in an activity of some kind, such as skiing, swimming, playing Wii, or throwing water bombs.

The back of the book says this book "brilliantly captures the simple joys all dads bring to everyday life" and I couldn't agree more.

There is a real sense of fun throughout this book, with dads and their children enjoying each other's company. My personal favourite is the rocking Rhino dad Elvis impersonator with baby rhino banging on pots and pans!!

The text in Some Dads... is really very short - each page has only one sentence of text, so the whole book is only a few paragraphs. This makes it a really quick book to read aloud, but rhyme is used to good effect.

The painted illustrations are just marvellous and the double spread artwork rewards close inspection as there is so much detail in the pictures. There is also humour and surprises to be found in the illustrations that both parents and children will enjoy, so the illustrations are a great discussion point whilst reading with your child.

At the heart of this book is the love between a dad and their child and the fun and pride they share - it is a really nice message told in a way that is sincere and fun without being schmaltzy.

This means Some Dads... would be a terrific book to give to a Dad for Father's Day - Maximilian's dad has had many hours enjoyment reading this one with him, and I think there is a special thrill when your child chooses a book for you to read which is about you!

Mr McGee by Pamela Allen

This was the first installment in the classic and popular Pamela Allen stories about Mr McGee. These stories about the funny little man in a bowler hat who lives under a tree are great fun for kids of all ages.

I love these books! They are fantastic to read aloud, perfect for any age to enjoy and Pamela Allen's illustrations are excellent - simple and detailed at the same time, colourful and often hilarious.

The language in Mr McGee is simple and clear and would be great for children learning to read. The rhyming text is fun to read aloud - the Mr McGee books are a favourite choice for my library story time sessions and toddlers aged 2 to 4 love these stories.

Maximilian has really enjoyed this story. He laughs when the bird pecks Mr McGee and likes to chime in with the words he knows. The story is also the perfect length for the attention span of a wriggly 18 month old - this is a great book for when I'm looking for a quick story to fill in some time.

There is always an element of humour in the Mr McGee stories, which engages both the children and adult reader. He often gets himself into trouble of one kind or another, mostly through poor decision making, which children find funny (and probably relate to!!) Humour can also often be found in the illustrations - details such as Mr McGee's bright yellow underpants will have kids of all ages chuckling!

Pamela Allen is an absolute classic in Australian children's publishing and Mr McGee, like all her books, shows why.

If you are ever looking for a picture book to enjoy or to buy as a gift for someone, you simply can't go wrong with a book by Pamela Allen!