But How the Witch Wailed and How the Cat Spat...

Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson

Illustrated by Axel Scheffler

This book has great rhythm, great rhyme -- it almost seems like it was written by a modern-day Romantic poet. The rhythm asserts itself the moment you start reading, and there is never a stumble.

Great for toddler participation.

Eliza has two parts she likes to say. First, as each new animal asks to get onboard the broom, the refrain is "Is there room on the broom for a dog like me?" And the next line is "Yes!". Well, Eliza is very excited to give her permission: "YES!" she says.

The next line she loves is: "The witch tapped the broomstick and WHOOSH! They were gone." She really gets into that "whoosh", let me tell you!

So, whether it's Halloween or not, this is a fun one.

The Best of Boynton

I feel very remiss not getting some Sandra Boynton recommendations up here sooner. She has earned herself a very respectable share of the real estate in the board book section at the bookstore. In fact, there are so many Boyntons, which ones should you choose?

In my opinion, every board book library should include at least these two:

The rhythm and rhyme work great in these two (some of the others are a little rougher, though still funny). Barnyard Dance sounds like a Square Dance caller, so you might find yourself adding a bit of Southern twang to it. It is really catchy. In fact, I think both Eliza and I have memorized it at this point.

We have also memorized Oh My Oh My Oh Dinosaurs. It's got colors, feelings, opposites in it... Lots of fun. Now that Eliza is talking more I will often leave off words in the rhyme, and she will fill them in. It starts off like this:

Dinosaurs happy.

Dinosaurs sad.

Dinosaurs good.

Dinosaurs bad.

And, later on, it gets funnier:

Dinosaurs early.

Dinosaurs later.

Dinosaurs crammed in an elevator.

There a few other Boyntons I particularly like, namely Moo Ba La La La and But Not the Hippopotamus:

So, anyway, those are our faves!

More Claus!

Okay, so it has been far too long. It's because I moved across the country, started going to graduate school, etc. But now I am back because I have a few recommendations that I really want to share.

As we head into the holiday season, if you are looking for a way to introduce Santa Claus to your little one, I have found a Christmas gem by Marla Frazee. Marla (who is a two-time Caldecott honoree and the illustrator of the popular Clementine series) has totally and wonderfully captured the fantasy of Santa Claus. We see Santa's warehouse full of toys on three-story-high shelves, his wall of wrapping paper, his tiny filing cabinets filled with post-it sized notes about children he will be choosing gifts for.... We see Santa testing the pogo stick and the bubbles... We see him in his giant billowing boxers shorts of all sorts of hilarious patterns... And, as my toddler likes to point out, his "Coffee cup!" is everywhere (it starts with one and by the end he has about twenty of them).

The text is actually not particularly stunning, but we can forgive that because we can have so much fun with the pictures. And hey, this text is introducing my toddler to the phrase "99.9% of the time" (this is how often Santa correctly matches the exactly right toy to the exactly right child).

This book is definitely a hit--- Eliza requested this book twice tonight, saying "More Claus!" the second time.

So, anyway, just wanted to recommend this one. I noticed it's on sale at Amazon for $12! Bargain!