Reporting In

After my post on Margaret Wise Brown, I did go to Amazon and buy a couple of her books.  Imagine my joy at finding a book about trains, which my two-year-old loves.

This book has the same cadence as Goodnight Moon and The Big Red Barn.  At times, it nearly rhymes.  From what I can gather, after MWB passed away, she left the rights to her unpublished novels to her sister, who has since published some of them.  I think this book is one of them.  The illustrations are well-done although Caleb has asked what several of the pictures are, so maybe they are not that clear to a two-year-old.  The book shows the travel of two trains side by side - one an actual streamlined train, the other a wooden toy train.  One is going through the countryside, the other going through the house.  The comparison between the trains on each page is creatively illustrated.  We've already read this book about two dozen times and I'm not sick of it yet, and needless to say, neither is Caleb.

I also ordered  The Fathers Are Coming Home, thinking it might be a good one to have on hand when we start reading books about homecomings when my husband's deployment is over.  This one is cute, but not as interesting as the other book.  The text is simple.  The pictures are more cartoon-like.  There really isn't a storyline, just a series of animal daddies coming home to their babies, and then a sailor daddy coming home to his little boy.  The one thing that bugs me about the book (and others commented on it in their reviews), is that one line is about the lion daddy who lives alone and comes home to himself.  That just seemed weird to me, given the point of the book.  Overall, though, it's a pretty cute book and I think will be one I'll pull out when the time comes to read our other homecoming books.

In order to get free shipping, I also ordered this boxed set, which was an incredibly good deal.  I had checked out Mommy Hugs and Daddy Kisses from the library and my son had loved both books.  The additional two books in this set aren't quite as good, but still really cute.  The illustrations in this series are adorable.  The animals look lovable and somehow convey quite a bit of emotion.  These books work well as an avenue of expressing love to your child.  As I read them to Caleb, he always has a big smile on his face and if I act them out (Mommy monkey hugs her baby with a pat), I always get a happy giggle.  This would make a great baby shower gift, or just a collection into your board book library.  I don't foresee these books being entertaining beyond the toddler years but we are sure enjoying them now.