My favorite book for my kids is :Just Go To Bed!” by Mercer Meyer. This book is so funny - The daddy bunny keeps telling the baby bunny to go to bed, but the baby bunny has to be a race car driver, an astronaut, a cowboy and several other characters until he finally makes it to bed. If you have kids, you have been there; the one excuse after another after another…
This is the same guy who wrote the adorable “A Boy and a Frog” picture books, and features the same character as the famous “Just For You”. I think one reason I love this book so much is because it was the first book my daughter ever read herself. Now, listen up, this is one of the best parenting tips I’ve got!
I took long sentence strips (you can get them at the craft store in school supplies) and wrote out each sentence from the book - then made up sentences using the same words. I did this because she had learned the book by heart in order, so I mixed up the sentences to see if she could recognize the words without the pictures to help. It took a few days, but she did it! She was only four.
Now my daughter is nine, and she is just like me. She always has a book in her hand, and would rather read than watch TV. I am so glad she likes to read - I have a lot of friends that all say their kids hate reading. I think that is so sad! When I was growing up, we didn’t have TV in our house, so I learned to read when I was three and I couldn’t even tell you how many tens of thousands of books I have read in my life!
Read to your kid today! You’ll be glad you did - and go get a copy of “Just Go To Bed” and “Just For You”!!
I love Mercer Meyer.
That’s great! My daughter is the same way with books. She carries them everywhere and is rarely without one. She loves to read and now she is even reading to her younger sis. Love your blog, found you on Twitter.
What a great idea! I have been a book lover all my life, and am determined to give my daughter that same “gift”, because I really think it is a gift to love books and reading! My parents read Little House on the Prairie and Beverly Cleary books to me when I was about four, as well as children’s books. We read to my daughter each night, and at almost 2 she isn’t reading, but she points out the characters and animals to me.