Barney Goes Night Night
It was a gift. It was terrible. 'Nuff said.
Snoozers - By Sandra Boynton
OK, technically I didn’t hide it. As a matter of fact I read this book to my daughter every single night for probably a year. The good thing is that it only took about 10 minutes to read it. The bad thing is that it was burned into my cranium. But then she learned to read it for herself.
Yesterday, my wife went to Borders, and came back with some books:
- Duck Rides a Bike
- Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See
- Puppy and Friends
We’re keeping 1 and 2 here to read to the children on Thursdays when spend the day at our house.
We took number 3 to their house yesterday and when we walked in there were the two babies at the door, so happy to see us. As soon as Saxton saw the Puppy book, he put his hands out for it, and immediately sat right down in his tracks to check it out.
Throughout our visit we spent lots and lots of time reading that book to the kids - a huge hit.
You open to the first spread and see puppies. You feel one’s fur, press the proper button and a puppy barks, then as you proceed through the book, a guinea pig squeaks, a kitten mews and la parrot squawks.
Great big smiles of delight, all the live long day.
The five little monkeys, and mama, can never drive far
In their rickety, rattletrap wreck of a car.
“I’ve had it!” says Mama, “Let’s sell this old heap!”
She makes a big sign that says “Car for sale - cheap!”
My toddler can recite the next 30 or so verses, and so can I.
From what book? 
Five Little Monkeys Wash the Car
There’s a whole series of them.
Sounds almost like our house, except Mom didn’t hide Fox In Socks, she just said “Why don’t we let Daddy read that one?” <grrrrr>
I always loved to read Green Eggs and Ham… but it has to be done like this. 
[QUOTE=Winston Smith]
[QUOTE=lorene]
Sometimes I send “Fox in Socks” to the Island of Misfit Books (top of our clothes dryer) because it makes me want to cry.
amazon wants to be your best friend…
…and maybe your wife’s worst enemy. 
Lynley Dodd rocks, though I’m more of a Slinky Malinki man:
Slinky Malinky was blacker than black,
a stalking and lurking
adventurous cat.
He had bright yellow eyes,
a warbling wail
and a kink at the end of his very long tail.
He was cheeky and cheerful,
friendly and fun,
he’d chase after leaves and he’d roll in the sun.
But at night he was wicked
and fiendish and sly.
Through moonlight and shadow
he’d prowl and he’d pry.
My niece, who’s 3, thinks Lynley Dodd creates everything with animals in or on it: she’ll see a butter packet depicting a cow and declare authoritatively “By Lynley Dodd”.
I once hid The Very Hungry Catepillar because of over reading. I thought seriously about hiding Knuffle Bunny but it’s utterly adorable, too good prose saved it.
My children are all big on books, so multiple readings are very common around here. My youngest would sit through a standard (not board) book from the age of nine months on. By one we had progressed to the multiple readings of the same book in the same sitting. She’s a good girl now about only reading a story once each time now thank goodness, so my precarious sanity is saved.
PS. Wacky Wednesday is evil.
BE BO!
I guess I’ve hidden Are You My Mother once or twice. I’m horrible and I tend to suggest short books like Brown Bear, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, and Wiggle (though there’s one non-scanning line that bugs me) over Cat in the Hat or Tango Makes Three. Those are better daytime books.
Disney books get hidden or tossed. I haven’t seen a good one yet. Also some accidentally-purchased Backyardigans books are going in the trash - the prose is pure torture!
One berry, two berry, pick me a blueberry
Hat berry, shoe berry in my canoe berry
Under the bridge and over the dam
Looking for berries, berries for jam.
Aargh! Goodnight Moon also of course, and Brown Bear and others, but Jamberry is the one kids book that I will still be able to recite on demand when I’m old and peeing myself and can’t even remember my own grandchildren’s names.
Haven’t had a toddler in years, but I had to hide Curious George Rides a Bike which I put on a top shelf. Only a couple of days later…well, maybe a couple of weeks, at any rate not long enough, the kid’s other parent said, “Oh, what’s this book doing up here?” In retrospect I should have clued him in.
I also used to sort of use movies as a built-in babysitter (bad mommy, bad, bad!) and when I was on deadline for one of my books (a murder mystery) the video of choice was The Wizard of Oz and I was not in the same room but not very far away. Not far enough. I very nearly changed the name of my book to “Really Most Sincerely Dead” and sometimes I wish I’d done it.
Duh!! I had this brilliant epiphany that all you smart folks are slready doing: Sign the toddler books as you read them to your kids.
Brown Bear, Brown Bear seems ideal for the purpose.Look at all the animals you can sign: bear, bird, duck, horse, frog, cat, dog, fish, and sheep. But, you say there’s no word for SHEEP at
http://commtechlab.msu.edu/sites/aslweb/browser.htm
Click on LAMB and you’ll find it’s a combination of BABY and SHEEP. So, just use the SHEEP sign (which looks like your right hand is sheep shears, running up your left forearm).
For beginning signers…
If the videos of the signing site above don’t work, you might need to download (free) Apple Quicktime at
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/win.html
You might also want to look at the two My Baby Can Talk DVDs at
They’re quite good and have enthralled the toddlers of many folks at this website, including my grandkids.
Censorship makes me 
I pity your children for living in such a bubble. Stories are the way that we learn to deal with the world. What better way to start a conversation about smoking and the dangers of it, how common it was before because we didn’t know–and how so many people are sick now because of it.
Or having a conversation about death, or mothers, or anything. Babar is a wonderful book. I imagine you have good intentions, but what a way to stunt your children’s growth.
While I agree with you for somewhat older children, we’re talking about toddlers here. They don’t exactly have the capacity for the discussions you’re suggesting.
That said, the only book I edit is “Love my Mommy,” and the edit is very slight. Instead of “I love my mommy because she is not afraid of the dark,” I usually say, “I love my mommy because she stays with me in the dark.” I figure there’s no use in suggesting that she should be afraid of the dark. If she develops the fear on her own, the edited version is just as good.
But I don’t think my subterfuge will last long, as she’s showing some signs that she’s going to be reading for herself in the not-too-distant future.
Hand hand finger thumb
Dum ditty dum ditty dum dum dum
We had to hide How do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight for awhile. She was at the stage where she would point to something and say “what that?” There was one page where she would point to the Dinosaur’s nose, and nothing you answered was correct, she kept getting angrier and wouldn’t let you turn the page. We never did figure out what the correct answer was, just hid the book for awhile until she was past that stage.
Other books have gotten huge repetition, but fortunately, so far she hasn’t remained fixated on any for too long.