Evan's favorite books (14 months old)

Evan has loved books for as long as I can remember.  I started reading to him very early, when I know he didn't even know what to look at, but I think it's paid off.  He loves to have us read to him.  He now is able to pick out his favorites and ask us to read them, by holding the book up and saying something like "aah" to get our attention.  Then he carries it over to us, snuggles into our lap, and we have story time.  Story time often becomes many stories time, because as soon as one book is done, he wants to read another, well after he flips through the book we just read first.  What I mean by this is, as soon as I say "the end" and he sees the back cover, he always turns the book to the front cover, then wants to flip back through it for a little while.   After he gets his fill, then he goes off to find the next book.

I've organized these into categories of the types of books he likes.  I wish I could say which is his absolute favorite, but anymore he just really really wants us to read these books to him a lot, so I think they are all worthy of this list.

Lift the flap books

Where's Spot?

This was Evan's first lift the flap book, given to him last Christmas by a good friend of mine (ST) who has young kids (boys to boot), thus knows what they like!  Evan loves to lift these flaps as we go through the house looking for Spot.  This is a board book, but the flaps are just cardstock paper, so I've been worried about if one of the flaps will be ripped off some day.  So far we've just lost the latch the box/chest (which is actually featured on the cover).  

Spot visits his grandparents

Given to Evan for his first birthday by Nana Louise, this is Evan's second Spot lift the flap book and he loves it as much as the other.  Spot gets up to a variety of things in this book, including sneaking cookies from the cookie jar, helping grandpa in the garden where he finds a ball and then when he throws it to grandpa he breaks a window.  Most of the flaps in this book are to hide what happens or is said next, so it's a little bit different than Where's Spot, but Evan still loves uncovering what's behind the flaps.  

Dear Zoo

This book was also given to Evan for his first birthday from Nana Louise.   It's about asking the zoo for a pet, but each animal they send isn't quite right for being a pet.  It's fun to lift the flap and see what animal they send next!  It's a paperback, and again I worry about how long the flaps will last.  John said it was one of his favorite as a child, and it is also definitely one of Evan's favorites too.

Aussie books

My Aussie Dad

I think Evan got this book way back when he was a newborn and his Nana Louise came and visited for the first time.  Thus, we've been reading it to him for awhile, but recently it has become a favorite.  Since it is not a board book, it suffered its first damage the other day, though (the front to pages were ripped out...luckily they were just title pages and what not).  It's a fun book about a lot of aspects of Aussie dads that is meant to be humorous ("My Aussie dad is certain that he could wrestle crocs....that's easy to believe when you're just watching on the box!".  I'm sure Evan will appreciate it even more as he gets older and understands it better.

If you're happy and you know it (Aussie edition)

This book was given to Evan when we visited Australia (by his Nana Louise).  It's based on the song, yet instead has a verse for every Aussie animal. "If you're a wallaby and you know it...bounce around!"  It's got great big colorful pages and we try to do some of the actions with Evan, so there are a lot of reasons he loves it (bouncing on our lap for the wallaby, for example, is great fun for him)!

Fuzzy wuzzy wombat

Given to Evan as a newborn by Nana Louise, we've been reading this book to him for about a year now!  At one point it became his traditional nap time story, but now he doesn't need a book to help him nap so much.  Each page has a rhyme about a different Aussie animal and the animals are very colorful with expressive faces and big eyes (which is probably why he loved it even as an infant).  Recently, during a diaper change (he doesn't lay still long and usually runs around half naked for awhile before we catch him again and manage to get a diaper on him) he was looking at books on his shelf when we heard a dribbling sound.  Poor fuzzy wuzzy wombat, who was laying on the floor at the base of the bookshelf, got a little pee'd on.  It cleaned off easily enough, but just reminded us that Evan's still got no control on his bodily functions, and thus anytime he's naked is like rolling the dice.

Books with fun sounds/rhymes

Hand, hand, fingers, thumb

Another board book given to Evan last Christmas by my friend ST, this was one of John's favorites to read to Evan when he was young because it's a quick read for short attention spans.  Evan handles the longer books better now (many of the books featured here are not that short), but he still loves the goofiness of this book.  At least that's what I am assuming he likes about it. It's strange for sure, but Evan searches and digs to find this book sometimes so he certainly enjoys something about it!

Fire Truck

A birthday gift to Evan from ST, Evan started to really like this board book probably because of how we read it to him.  It's a cute story about a boy who loves fire trucks, but Evan wasn't at first entralled until we started adding in a lot of sounds (siren sounds, meow's when he rescues a cat, and sniffing when the fire truck smells something...Evan loves to make sniffing sounds with his nose!).  Thus, it's become a frequently read book lately.

Mr. Brown can moo, can you??

I picked this book up before Evan was born when I was at garage sales stocking up on baby things.  I figured garage sales are a great place to find used books, so I started a collection of them for Evan.  Funny how most of his favorite books, however, have been ones given to him as gifts!  This one was a favorite when he was a baby as the sounds intrigued him, and lately it's been sought out every time we're in his bedroom (we keep some books in his bedroom and some in the living room, by the way). I'm wondering how much longer before he'll be making all of the sounds with me.  So far no dice. 

Good ole lovable story books

Spot loves his daddy

Evan got this board book for John for his first father's day this past June, and even though it's not a lift the flap book like most Spot books, Evan has really come to love it!  I don't know if it's because it is about a daddy and child spending the day together (can a toddler already understand that?) or if it's the colorful pictures.  Either way, it's a short read, and Evan's been bringing it to me at story time.

The very hungry caterpillar

This (board) book was given to Evan at birth by my friend MC.  She said her kids always loved to stick their fingers in the little holes.   While Evan didn't do that initially, he sure does now!  Evan always loved the butterfly at the end and given how much he's liked this book, we themed his first birthday party after it. It's still one of his favorites, but yet with all the other books he's loving it doesn't get read as much as it had a few months ago.

The monster at the end of this book

This book was one of my favorites as a child.  I always loved how it was so hard to turn some of the pages that Grover had tied or nailed together in order to not get to the end of the book (because there's a MONSTER at the end of this book!).  Note: the pages aren't actually tied/nailed together, but imagination abounds when you read this and you just can't help but pretend the page is hard to turn. :)  I had actually bought this book for myself as a collector's item of sorts many years ago.  When I started gathering children's book for Evan I pulled it out and read it to him even when he was young.  Only recently has he started to have the patience to really listen to the whole thing, but I think he does like my expressiveness (and imagination) when I read it.