Kitty Love

This is a little board book we found in the Target Dollar isle. It's roughly 5 pages and features kitties in obscenely cute poses. We were fond of the kitty pile picture.

We meowed, we used our sweet voices and we petted the one dimensional pictures.

The Foot Book

We heart Dr. Seuss.

For the life of me, I don't remember where this came from. I think it came from my brother in his attempt to replace all the Dr. Seuss books my cousins removed from my mother's apartment after she passed. I'm supposed to have let that go.

The foot book is all about....feet. And we do like feet. If there was only a butt book, we'd be in heaven. This Dr. Seuss had an especially appealing rhythm and Layne tried to read along. It was very cute. :) He liked the pig feet best of all.

Sleepytime Farm

Another little board book. It's short and sweet - around 4 pages. You can move the beads on top to correspond with the characters in the story. I think we found this at Goodwill for a dollar. It retails for $8. That's a rip off.

Layne liked it. He's liked every $8 beaded book like this. Maybe if the book was reasonably priced we'd recommend it.

Big and Little

This is a cute little board book that we got at the Doctor's office last year. Layne was mildly amused at the pictures when I read it to him but I caught him a few times looking through it by himself. His favorite picture is the big boat and the little boat. Its only about 7 pages long so it's a quick read.

My First Book of Animals

Ok, this isn't technically a book. But I love anything that Melissa and Doug makes. Layne almost loves this book as much as I do. :)

This is 8 pages of animal magnets. There are four categories of animals: zoo, farm, dinosaurs, and pets. The magnets are durable and brightly coloured. It takes a little effort to free the magnets from the pages but Layne has no problem with them.

The Three Sillies

The Three Sillies tells the story of a family of idiots.

A farmer and his wife are visited upon by a gentleman who wants to court their daughter. One night at dinner, the daughter goes to the cellar to draw some cider and has a vision of her future son's death: mallet hanging above the tap hits junior on the head and kills him. Pretty soon mom and dad find her sobbing at the tab and begin their own mourning once daughter tells them of her vision. The gentleman finds them all weeping in the cellar now filled with cider and is inspired to go on a quest to find three sillier people than these.

He finds a woman who's killed by a falling cow, a boy who can't put his pants on, and an entire town who attempts to rescue the moon from their pond. With his deed done, he returns to the farmer and his clan to immediately marry the daughter. The mallet eventually does get its day however but they live happily ever after.

Layne was mildly interested in the story. The pictures are silly and are sort of in a comic book form. The language is silly as well with the use of "a" in front of many of the verbs: a-courting and a-crying.

A Bear Lived in a Cave

This short little story tells the story of a bear living in a cave. He's antisocial and won't let anyone else come into his home until...the mouse who's lives there as well comes home. Layne liked it. It's short and cute. He recognized most of the animal visitors as well.

The Cat in the Hat

The Cat in the Hat is quite possibly the greatest story, ever.

Mom leaves kids alone. Enter the cat who uses every means possible to entertain the kids and irritate the fish. The fish is the only character with any sense but he's quite the bore.

Layne is the fish right now so he enjoyed the story. Everyone is naughty and must be yelled at.

Oh, and we ignore every theatrical release of any Dr. Seuss story. There's a special place in hell where Mike Myers will burn.

The Bear Who Didn't Like Honey

This story is all about overcoming fears, making excuses, self esteem, and dealing with your abusive siblings.

Little Bear is afraid of many things and has to use excuses like "I'm not hungry" or "I'm not tired" to escape the insults of his siblings. One day he saves a little cub all by himself. The cub' s mother praises Little Bear. Her words of wisdom, "You did your best even though you were afraid, and that makes you a very brave bear." Little Bear goes home to eat the honey he rejected and possibly slaughter the other cubs that berated him.

It was a little long for Layne, who's just now surpassed board books. Mommy liked it though. It was a sweet story with a good message.

Bedtime for Baby Bop

This little board book goes through Baby Bop's bedtime routine. It was very helpful to start Layne's own bedtime routine. "See, Baby Bop is putting on her jammies and brushing her teeth, maybe we should to that too."

Layne does like his Barney. Really, Barney is fine without the kids. If they could ditch the so called child actors, we'd watch the show more often.

Snow Family

This is the most adorable story.

A little gang of snow boys is running amok; losing their hats and noses and throwing snowballs at bears. Each of the boys is uniquely dressed. My favorite is the snow boy wearing the fez. How cute is that! The snow boys meet an actual boy who takes it upon himself to create snow parents for the little delinquents. Now mom and dad keep everyone dressed and stop the snow ball throwing.

Layne loves this book but he could care less about the story. He loves the illustrations of the snowmen/women/boys. Right now, he's in love with snowmen and its a shame or a relief that we've had enough snow to make one.

Sir Dwight the Knight

Clifford Follows His Nose

This was originally a scratch and sniff book where you could smell all the places where Clifford had been. Sounds lovely, right? Unfortunately the smell had all be scratch off of our copy.

This takes place when Clifford was still small and Emily Elizabeth, the great pet owner that she is, loses Clifford after ordering a pizza. We follow Clifford from the pizza parlor to the bakery to the florist and finally home. (Our copy was missing a few pages so how Clifford gets home is still a mystery.)

Layne liked it. Clifford was bad and Layne's into telling people they're bad... so he got a lot out of the book. I was mildly disturbed that Clifford rolled around in food at public eateries and no one seemed to be that upset with him. Apparently they have lenient health codes where ever Clifford lived.

If I Ran the Zoo

My brother also bought Layne a Dr. Seuss collection for Easter. We read If I Ran the Zoo.

This was written in 1950 and it shows. Some of the helpers Gerald would employ to capture the animals for his phenomenal zoo are not PC; Namely the tribal Africans and Asians and even the little Russians. They're all stereotypical and reminiscent of a less enlightened time.

But...the rhymes are sweet and Layne loved the Iota with its blue hair. This would probably be a good book to bring up when he's older to show him what racism looks like.

I can't say it’s bad. It’s still Dr. Seuss. It’s like my grandmother who still used racial slurs until her dieing day. You hate it but you still are obligated to love it.

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish

The first Dr. Seuss book of the year. Keith gave Layne this book on Election Day last year.

Layne loves Dr. Seuss. I love Dr. Seuss. How can you not love Dr. Seuss?

Layne loved the rhymes and his favorite section was the man with 11 fingers. He counted along and said what sounded like 5. I know he can definitely count to at least 11 now and he's said his second number. Yay, Dr. Seuss!

Buzz off. I'm busy.

Oh, how Layne loves this book. My Aunt Teresa gave it to him on his birthday last year.

He loves the pop up pictures and grew angry that he couldn't play with the little bugs while they were attached to the book. He has ripped each and every pop up bug out. This was his first adventure with destruction and my first lesson on not leaving him alone with books. I finally gave in and let him finish ripping them out this weekend. I don't think the book can be salvaged. Maybe I can tape the bugs up and he can play with them.

Moo, Baa, La La La

This whimsical little board book is supposed to be a great book for toddlers. Layne disagrees. Maybe he's just out grown the baby/toddler books. He does know all the animal sounds and the illustrations really didn't enthrall him even if the pigs wore pants.

If it was made of paper, he would have torn it to shreds. Thankful its not and it is one book that I can leave him alone with even if it does insult his intelligence.

Curious George

My brother bought Layne this collection last year for Easter. We read the first story entitled Curious George.

Layne was pretty much bored for most of the story so I had to resort to funny voices.

This first story tells how the Man in the Yellow Hat abducts George and smuggles him back to the U.S. He sedates George once their on board his ship by giving him wine and a pipe. This may or may not have lead to George's near drowning. Once back in civilization, the Man in the Yellow Hat disappears leaving George alone in his house. Of course mistakes are made and the poor little monkey is sent to prison for prank calling the fire station and escapes to the "freedom" of the zoo by stealing balloons.

I never read these stories when I was young. My brother remembered them quite fondly so he bought Layne the collection. I'd have to say these are quite disturbing little stories.

Good Zap, Little Grog

Layne loved, loved, loved, this book. He made me read it through twice, which never happens, and he asked for a third but it was time for zap.

I thought it was about a little caveman boy but apparently he's an alien. I guess that would explain the multiple moons. Anyway the water colour pictures are wonderful. There are 3 little poems describing Grog's day ending with Good Zap. It's a sweet little book.

A Children's Book About Being Destructive

Being Destructive is one of many in a series of books focusing on controlling children. The book, resembling a power point presentation features a young boy and his cat who are hell bent on destroying anything and everything. The book lists the consequences and appropriate punishments for the offense of being destructive but doesn't even cut you any slack for accidents.

Layne was thoroughly bored and threw the book across the room. The message of obey or else was lost on him.

Three Favorite Tales

This gem was published in 1975 and features the stories of:

The Bremen Town Musicians - Mickey, Donald and Goofy are mediocre musicians who prey upon innocent travelers.

The Little Red Hen - The Little Red Hen makes some bread and won't share with Donald's lazy, illegitimate nephews: Huey, Duey, and Luey.

The Princess and the Pea - Prince Mickey's high standards keep Princess Minnie up all night.

Layne liked the condensed stories especially the Bremen Musicians. The retro pictures enthralled him and he had to rip multiple pages out while Mommy was out of the room.