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Books. Babies. Babies. Books.

My child loves books.

He loves to be read to. He loves to gaze at the pictures. He loves to turn the pages. He loves to gnaw on the covers.

I am so happy about his interest in books and I encourage his infatuation as much as I can. My parents encouraged our love for reading and there was always a vast array of choices at my house. I remember as a child, my brother and I would wait for Mom to come "tuck us in" and one of the first questions we would ask was "how many books can I read tonight?"

Luke always got to read more than me, because he was older and could read faster, and so I would grab my two books and study every page and memorize each picture so that they would "last longer". I still vividly remember the pictures in my books because of this.

Levi received a lot of books at his baby showers and we have purchased some for him as well. But for Christmas, my parents started a great collection for him that included so many of my favorites as a child! I was so very excited about this gift!!

Here are the ones he got for Christmas.

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YAY!!!

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He is so excited about his sea of new books.

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He just stares with a look of awe on his face and I'm trying my best to keep up with reading them to him.

Books are one of my favorite things for a child. They encourage imagination, help with word development and sharpen their little minds. There's just nothing like books!

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(I loved this one!)

I am so glad Mom chose our childhood favorites to buy for Levi. I'm certain he will love them as well.

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In addition to the many Dr. Suess and P.D. Eastman (those are my faves) books, Mom found some other treasures that I am so excited about. His little book collection is rapidly growing, and it's amazing! (Any recommendations on a good book shelf that will fit in a closet?)

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This one is awesome. It's a children's book about the names of God. I know that Levi and I both will benefit from reading this one!

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These are so so neat. She found these at Anthropologie and they are seriously the cutest things ever. Serious.

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This is a four volume set of Bible Stories and they are pretty amazing!

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"Mom, there are too many choices. Which one should we read first?"

Do you have a favorite children's book?


**Be sure to check out the Review Page for the contest winner and the Cooking Challenge for the start of my journey!!**
I am a modern day homemaker with a passion for family, cooking, celebrating, decorating, travel, and memory making! The Lord has blessed me with the desires of my heart in my husband and our two sons. We recently built our dream home and cultivating a loving and happy haven for my family is where I find so much joy.

Comments

  1. Hi Whitney--I'm relatively new to your blog but am thoroughly enjoying reading it. I had to chime in on this post because I, too, am a huge book lover--especially children's books! My boys (3 years old and 5 months old) have somewhere in the vicinity of 300 books and they all get read. Some of our favorites are: anything by Eric Carle (he's amazing!), the "Little Critter" series by Mercer Mayer, the "If You Give..." books by Laura Joffe Numeroff, and "No, David!" by David Shannon. I seriously could go on and on, but these are perpetual favorites that my three year old now knows by heart. Enjoy reading to little Levi. before you know it he'll be "reading" to you!

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  2. I don't have any children but I teach Pre-K! I love BOOKS! When turning in the monthly scholastic order mine is always the biggest :) I can't help it.. I love the Llama Llama books.. written by Anna Dewdney the first one is Llama Llama Red Pajama and the 2nd one is Llama Llama Mad at Momma. They are so so cute.. and you will love reading them...once you check them out.. let me know what cha' think! I think you will be a fan!

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  3. Its so good that you are inculcating Levi, with the best habit of all. The reading habit! its never too early to get kids interested in books. My mom says she started reading books for us and showing picture books when we were 4 months old!

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  4. I would suggest you have your mom write a little message in each book with the date it was given, like Christmas 2009. I love to go back in my children's books and see who gave them to me what year!

    Also now that I have three boys we have soooo many books that you can't remember which books belong to whom! Just a little tip for you.

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  5. I love to read and luckily my love of my books has been passed down to Cecilia. She gets excited right before she goes to bed every night, because she knows it's story time. She has quite a collection of books too, we have quite of a few of the classics too. Some of our favorite to read are "Love You Forever" by Robert Munsch, "I Love You Through and Through" by Bernadette Rossetti-Shustak and anything by Sandra Boyton.

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  6. Books are my favorite gift to give to children! Nothing better - I remember growing up and my aunt was a librarian (at a university, but still really into books) ... she would give us a new book (or two) every year and I was always so excited to see what the book was this year! Now she emails me lists of books to read and I am so thankful for it! One of my favorite right now to read to Baby Ben (that I nanny) is Big Red Barn ... he loves it. And Goodnight Moon is one of my favorites from when I was a kid :)

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  7. That is AWESOME, Whitney! Yay for your parents doing that!! I learned most of my Bible stories from these small, easy-to-read rhyming books that my parents kept stashed throughout the house. It only took a few minutes to read them, but the information stuck (Jezebel, Deborah, Gideon ... I remember every detail of those books!). It's amazing how kids are little sponges and soak everything in!!

    I had a book shower when I was pregnant with Cub and we honestly have more books than his bookshelf can hold at this point ... and I love it! Everyone wrote their name and a little note in each book so he will know who gave it to him. I, too, have a voracious reading appetite that I hope I am passing on to my son!

    My dear friend is an occupational therapist and she told me that part of the importance with reading to babies is that it teaches their eyes to focus and track one word at a time, as opposed to TV where their eyes are desperately searching the entire screen (which they think might contribute to ADD). It's never to early to train children in the right way, is it??

    Love the collection! Love it!

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  8. Our house LOVES books too!! I have a 2 year old and 2 6 month olds...and we love nightly story time. Some of our favorites are Karen Katz books, they have flaps that lift up that are interactive for the little ones (examples, Where is baby's Belly Button? and Toes, Ears and Nose) also another one that our daughter now reads to us is "How do Dinosaurs say Good night?"...they also have others in the series like, play with friends and say I love you...really cute!! I love your collection!! I am going to have to look for the bible stories and those at anthropolgie!!

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  9. I LOVE picture books and so do my kids! I got them 5 treasuries for Christmas loaded with tons of good stories:
    Make Way for McCloskey (Robert McCloskey)
    20th Century Children's Book Treasury
    Harper Collins Picture Book Classics
    A Virginia Lee Burton Treasury
    A Jan Brett Snowy Story Treasury


    I can't remember the titles of some of them, but if you go to Amazon I'm sure you can find them easily. Our oldest has loved books since she was tiny too and is still an avid reader!

    I also love Karen Katz books for babies and Sandra Boynton is fun as well!

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  10. I can remember being at baby showers and people giving me baby books for Bean and I would be so disappointed. I really wanted another cute bib or a stylish diaper bag. But now that Bean is here, I appreciate those books more than most other gifts I received. Baby books are EXPENSIVE! Especially the classic ones! And to have a really great library to start Beanie's collection is such a treat! I now give books as my staple baby shower gift!!

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  11. I have always loved books, and my favorite as a child was "Goodnight, Moon." I gave this to my best friend's son when he was born and since he turned 2 back in July, he has not let them put him to bed without reading "Moon" as he calls it.

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  12. A friend of mine's mother started pointing to each word as she read books to her daughter (my friend) and my friend was reading by age three! Then she did the same thing with HER daughter and she was also reading by age three! It's worth a try, no? :)

    Love the books!! You all are so blessed!

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  13. What a wonderful gift! I couldn't agree with you more - it's never too early to instill a love of reading in a child.

    My favorite children's book is "I'll Love You Forever." As a momma to a baby boy, I think you'll love it just as much as I do. The story is so sweet, I cannot get through it without tears.

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  14. Books are a fav of mine as well, one of the universal favorites of my four children is "Moo Moo Brown Cow" I can recite it for you if you would like... :)

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  15. I love books too! I love buying little books for infants too - we gave books for Christmas for a little one this year and he loved it!

    My fave books are always Dr Seuss books because they always rhyme!

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  16. The big Read Aloud Bible Stories was one of my FAVORITES when I was little. I remember thinking it had the coolest pictures. :) Enjoy all of your new books!

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  17. A lot of my faves have already been mentioned here. One word of warning if you get "I'll Love You Forever". YOU WILL CRY. And by that, I mean YOU WILL SOB. And by that, I mean YOU WILL BAWL YOUR FREAKING EYES OUT. Moms of boys especially (the story is about a boy). I sobbed out loud, uncontrollably IN THE BOOKSTORE. Be very, very careful.

    On a happier note, my boys absolutely loved "Go Away Big Green Monster" and "The Big Bad Bully Bug" both by Ed Emberly. The pages have cutouts and bright simple graphics. The stories have a sort of sing-song rhythm. The Manimal loves for me to read them overandoverandoverandoverandover...

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  18. My favorite kids' book was The Tooth Fairy, about a magical tooth fairy land made all out of teeth. I thought it was the coolest!

    I've had a couple closet bookshelves that have worked well for me. They are the DIY kind that come with all the pieces and you just have to put them together with the little pegs that come with it. Simple, inexpensive.

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  19. The Little Pokey Puppy and There's a Monster at the End of This Book!

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  20. awww. Your son is just soo cute staring at the books!!! I used to love the Dr. Seuss ones & will read them one day to my future kids.

    P.S. the pic of you & your husband on the bottom of your blog is so touching.

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  21. Still have a ton of D's books here. Casey took a stack with her, but lots more to choose from. A whole Bible series too.

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  22. I used to work at Barnes and Noble in the Children's Department. I love books and really love children's books. One of my favorites are the Alexander books, especially, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. It's adorable and I used to read it to the children at storytime. I used to get them to chime in with me and repeat the title which is a reoccuring line in the book. They loved it. You should check it out if you don't already know it.

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  23. You can never have too many books! We are currently building our collection of children's books.

    www.monkeymaesays.blogspot.com

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  24. Don't know if you've seen The Jesus Story Book Bible but it is awesome! It is one of the best I've seen at communicating simply and at the same time fully the character and truth of God. I'm sure it is a little above little Levi's reading level currently but you would benefit from the stories & it has great illustrations.

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  25. I, too, loved reading with my mom when I was little. I loved it when I could finally follow along with her as she read aloud, and I could read the words in my head at the same speed. I felt so grown up! ;) Levi has quite the collection going!!

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  26. My son his books! He has 2 large book cases full of books in his room, and a basket in the living room. One of Tysen's favorites is "Kiss Kiss" by Margaret Wild. He loves all the animals, basically he loves any book that has a lot of animals. His second favorite is anything with a tractor or a firefighter. It's nice to be able to sit him down and he'll just look at the pictures during quite time.

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  27. I used to LOVE the Berenstein Bears books. When I worked shelving books in a library, I used to sneak into the children's section and re-read them all over again.

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  28. I hope my kids have a love for reading. It was my favorite thing--heck, it still is my favorite thing to do.

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  29. My absolute favorite book to read to our son when he was little was, "Just in Case You Ever Wonder" It is all about how God chose to give our child to us to raise and teach about Jesus. It is beautiful and makes me cry when I read it. Hope you find it and try it out.

    BTW your blog is wonderful. I love reading it. I don't remember how I got to it--it has been a long time now that I have been reading. I am sure it was through a friend or something. Anyway, thank you for writing and know that you are special. God is using you to bless many you don't even know.

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  30. OMG...I didnt read all your comments so I hope this book isnt listed but its called A Monster At the End of The book...it was my childhood favorite and still my favorite...I laugh at it every time. Ive read it to both my sons in my belly and my 3 year old loves the book and has it memorized!

    I cant wait for you to go through the stage where Levi has a favorite book that he makes you read over and over and over again! Too much fun!

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  31. I don't have any kids yet but I have a lot of books from teaching art. My favorites are The Dot and also Ish by Peter H. Reynolds. Some good art books for babies are the Mini Masters books by Julie Merberg and Suzanne Bober.

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  32. This is one of my favorite topics, so I apologize for the 2 comments. I forgot to mention since you love Dr. Seuss, I got a 4pack of board books at Sam's when Mia was little that consisted of: Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You?, Dr. Seuss's ABCs, There's a Wocket in My Pocket, and The Foot Book. These are perfect for babies and young toddlers and my kids still love them. Sam's still has those 4 packs from time to time, but I'm not sure if they have that particular set anymore. Barnes and Noble also carries a lot of the hardback P.D. Eastman and Dr. Seuss books in small sizes for little hands that like to tear up paper pages.

    P.S. I also love the Love You Forever book but Amber finds it creepy because she thinks the mom is stalking her own son! :)

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  33. These are great books! We have created a huge collection for our boy, too. Most of them were mine when I was little that I saved. We have the Read-Aloud Bible, too! I am getting him a new copy for his birthday because my copy is falling apart and I want it to last a long time for him (and our futures kids.)

    I try to only read board books to him right now because he really just wants to chew on them and get a little destructive with the pages... yikes! We love Eric Carle, Dr. Seuss, Goodnight Moon is our favorite, Love You Forever, The Little Engine that Could. Ahhh! There are so many.

    But I love your choices for Levi. I'm going to give Hudson a wagon full of books for his birthday and there are some of these that we don't have yet, so I'll add them to the list!

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  34. I have a 23 month old that is infatuated with books. He absolutely loves them and I feed into every bit of it. I'm hoping that doing this will keep him reading when he's an adult.

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  35. As an elementary reading teacher, I have many favorite children's books. My favorite current books are the Skippyjon Jones series. Skippyjon Jones is a siamese cat who dreams of being a chihuahua and goes on various imaginary adventures to Mexico, outer space, etc. My students love it! So much so that I have had to purchase several copies of each book so that everyone can have one at independent reading time. You have to read his dialogue with a spanish accent though, or it's just not the same.

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  36. Whitney, do you know about the Imagination Library? I'm not sure if they have it in your area or not, but it's a program that delivers one free, age-appropriate book to your child every month until he is five years old. You can check it out at www.imaginationlibrary.com. One of my friends at work does this, and the books she gets are SO cute. The ones for babies Levi's age are very touchy-feely kinds of things with lots of flaps, colors, and textures. Check it out!

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  37. My favorite is "oh the places you'll go" by Dr. Seuss (I think that's the exact tittle, its been a while since I've seen/read it).
    Cool collection little Levi!
    -Jen

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  38. why the heck aren't the books i got him for christmas in the christmas book photo? sendak is only the greatest child author on the planet. geeeeeeeze.

    Luke not hollie.

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  39. I didn't read through all of the comments here, but I thought this information might be interesting to you. If you read to/with your kids for 20 minutes a day, it will improve their comprehension skills by 90%. Just another good reason to keep reading!!!

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