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N is for nonfiction.
This week I bring you the joys of nonfiction.

If you parent a preschooler and have been hanging in the picture books and not over in the nonfiction section, it’s time to make your move because there are some great reads over in that true stuff. Many written at a very basic level.

Feet by Nicola Whittaker
“Different creatures have different feet. Some have flippers. Some have paws. Some have toes. Some have claws.” Each brightly colored page has an animal or at least the feet of the animal with a statement about what sort of feet it has. “Some feet are small. Some feet are big. Some feet can hop. Some feet can dig.” The book has an appendix with a few quick facts on each of the creatures featured and despite its simplicity there is even an index. Ezri enjoys the simple rhymes and looking at the feet of a koala, frog, mole, mouse, elephant and so on.
This is a series so Whitaker has also done Creature Features on Noses, Tails and Hair.

Why Are Animals Blue? by Melissa Stewart
Each two page spread features a blue animal and talks about why it might be blue. The Blue Shark’s color helps it hide in the ocean. The Blue-Tongued Skink sticks its bright blue tongue out to surprise predators. Ezri may not understand all the information in this one, but with prompting she points out what’s blue on each page. The text is sparse enough that it fits with her attention span and the color theme is perfect. This is from the Rainbow of Animals series and there books about other colors to be read.

Spot the Difference: Eyes by Daniel Nunn
This is Ezri’s pick for the best of these three books. She has memorized sections of it and learned what a stalk is from this book which explains that crabs have eyes on stalks. The text is very simple. “This is an owl. It has big eyes. This is a mole. It has small eyes. This is a frog. It has bulging eyes.” The photos are big and vivid. There seem to be others in the Spot the Difference series from Acorn a division of Heinemann publishing on fruits, roots, leaves, flowers, and animals. When we start gardening this spring, I’ll bring home some of the ones on flora for Ezri.

Ezri is also enjoying reading Wild Animal Baby magazine from the National Wildlife Federation. It has simple I Spy game pages where you find each particular animal in a scene. Also, throughout the magazine Sammy the Skunk hides five times on various pages and Ezri loves finding Sammy.

Here’s Ezri helping bake chocolate chip cookies for the first time. She enjoyed helping eat them too.

It’s been awhile since I’ve written about Ezri’s books.
It’s a little late to recommend holiday fare, but I thought I’d mention 3 that worked out just about right for her interests and attention span this Christmas.

The first one was a gift from librarian friends, so it was well selected.
Santa’s Suit by Kate Lee
Santa is bored with his red suit and tries on suits of different colors which just don’t work for him. By the end he realizes that “Red is best.” There are textures on the pages, so the reader can pet Santa’s fuzzy suit or feel his blue corduroy suit. Ezri loved the changing outfits and it works as a color learning book as well. One quibble is that I’d really liked to have seen in him the orange suit instead of just talking about wearing it with it thrown on the floor. I think Ezri would have liked to see Santa in each color, though the orange suit was in the illustration. She requested this one each day after it came into the house.

Mouse’s First Christmas by Lauren Thompson
A young mouse ventures out exploring and finds presents, a decorated tree, a cookie, Santa. . . To the young mouse everything appears huge and the illustrator does an excellent job of making the reader feel the enormity of the things mouse encounters. Christmas seems big to toddlers and, while it may not be Ezri’s first Christmas, it is the first in which she is participatory. So, she could identify with the mouse experiencing things for the first time in this story. The rhyming text is brief, but richly descriptive making it great for an audience with a short attention span. I also recommend other books in this series by Thompson. Mouse’s First Fall, Mouse’s First Halloween, Mouse’s First Snow

Maisy’s Snowy Christmas Eve by Lucy Cousins
Maisy is a highly anthropomorphised mouse who is having her friends over for Christmas eve to make paper chains, bake pies, and wrap presents. Her friends come over in a heavy snowfall, but Eddie the elephant fails to arrive. All the friends must go out into the snow to find Eddie who is stuck and come to his rescue. The simplistic Maisy books work just right for toddlers and this Christmas offering is no exception. It was longer than some Maisy books, but this did not stop Ezri from asking for it AGAIN. I recommend Cousins’ other books for toddlers too.

Here’s Ezri hanging out in the cuddle corner of her room.

Baby Dance by Ann Taylor
This is sung to the classic tune of Daddy’s Gonna Buy You a Mockingbird. The illustrations show a dad comforting and playing with his baby daughter by rocking and twirling her. Ezri made me read/sing it again 5 times. She asked for a sixth, but I made her pick another story. This was recommended by a coworker librarian – gotta say she knew what she was talking about! It would make a great baby shower gift.

For her next story she selected
Hairy Maclary
She told me, “Ezri read.” And took it over to her bed, sat on the edge, opened the book to the first page and said , “Hairy Mackary Donson Dairy.” The book is about Hairy Maclary from Donaldson Dairy, but she was so close and seeing her “reading” was excellent. We then spent a lot of time with her pointing to the dogs in the story and asking “who’s that?” The dogs all have funny rhyming descriptions and names like “Hercules Morse big as a horse.” She especially enjoys making the fiercesome cat noise when the toughest tom in town, Scarface Claw, scares all the dogs away.

For Hanukkah Ezri received
Heads by Matthew Van Fleet
I highly recommend this one as a present for folks aged 18 months up to 3 years. It is a very sturdy pop-up book. Not just lifting the flaps, but pulling thick board book tabs to make the animals move. Cleverly, many of the moving parts are underneath plastic film and so less likely to be torn. The book talks about the parts of the head – hair, ears, mouths, eyes, tongues. It shows different animals with varying kinds of these bodyparts. Ezri loves it. She turns the pages saying, “ahh ahh” and looking for the page on which the elephant sneezes all over a probiscus monkey. When she finds the page, she pulls the tab and the trunk lowers and sprays green mucus on the monkey. Then Ezri says, “CHOO!” A great new book from the guy who brought us the joy of Alien Opposites.

Our local bookshop runs a Book Angel program where you can buy discounted books for children in need as holiday presents.
The tree of kids to gift with books included a tag for a two-year-old girl. Ezri is inching up on her second birthday so we selected this girl to gift books. She seems much more two than one these days.

I am hoping each year Ezri and I can pick a book she likes to donate to someone around her age. Here’s what we did last year.

This year I picked (and Ezri approved with a loud “YES”) the purchase of:
Time to Sleep Sheep the Sheep by Mo Willems
and
Here Comes the Big, Mean Dust Bunny by Jan Thomas

Not knowing the girl’s particular interests, I went with universal humor and re-readability. The Book Angel tree does make me feel festive. I will probably revisit it and pick books for one of the teens on the tree – a tradition of mine that predates Ezri. Thanks, Anderson’s Bookshop, for being part of my holidays.

What is Ezri reading? These are some titles that are for reading, but also for playing with.

Carrots or peas? illustrated by Anthony Lewis.
This has a baby on each page whose face can be turned to smile or frown depending on whether the reader thinks they like or dislike the item or activity at hand. For example, Does Jack like to shop? You can flip his face from smile to frown to decide. It’s like the youngest version of those “Choose Your Own Adventure” books possible. Ezri likes flipping the faces about especially on pages where the reader is being asked if the baby likes a certain food because then I say, “Yuck!” or “Nom-nom-nom” depending on which way the face is turned.

Farm Faces
Goodnight Faces
Zoo Faces
all 3 of these books of masks are by iBaby and written by Lucy Schultz and illustrated by Ana Larranaga
Ezri now likes to peek through the pages of this book of masks and make the animal noise of the animal facing her.
She does not actually know what the viewer is seeing, so she is making a moo with the cow page against her face while I see a mooing pig.
These books of masks have stayed a hit across the months as a book/toy.

This morning we spent some time in the Pop-Up book corner of the library playing with the book:
Maisy Bakes a Cake by Lucy Cousins
The pull tab that made Maisy rub her hands under the water faucet to wash her hands seemed useful for instructing cleanliness and also easily recognizable to all toddlers. There was a pull tab that made Maisy mix her cake, one that made the cake rise in the oven, a slider that let you sprinkle the cake with powdered sugar and a page of Maisy’s friend Charley chomping on the completed cake. This would be a great book to use before a toddler baking session. The pop-ups were not too delicate for my almost two-year-old.

As we were leaving the Junior Room of the library, Ezri waved and said “Bye, bye, Harry Potter” to the cardboard cut-out of Harry. She then said, “High Five Harry Potter.” And we went over so she could high five the cardboard cut-out’s outstretched hand. Is it too early to say she’s a fan? She really only knows Harry from the library displays. Too young to be a Rowling reader for some years yet, but she gives him high fives.

Ezri is learning her colors. She really likes to say the word “purple.” The double “p” sound is just fun. There are plenty of books about colors, but here are two we’ve enjoyed recently.

Carlo Likes Colors by Jessica Spanyol
Carlo, a young Giraffe, sees different colors in the places he goes. Each two page spread shows Carlo in a picture dominated by a particular color. “Carlo sees blue at the pool.” There is then the opportunity to point at all of the blue items in the picture. “Carlo sees purple in the garden.” It’s time to point at eggplants, plums, and flowers. After Carlo has seen all the colors, he’s shown in a room decorated with childlike artwork in all the colors. The final page informs the reader that Carlo also likes to beep and shows Carlo in a toy car saying “beep beep.” This ending is perfect.

Will you wear a blue hat?
This Rookie book just stays fun as the boy gets dressed for cold weather in primary-colored clothing. I have used it as inspiration to sing the “Will you wear your x-color clothing item?” as Ezri gets dressed in the morning.

Reading with friends is even more fun.

These two are books about toddlers who love their books.

Maybe a Bear Ate It by Robie Harris illustrated by Michael Emberly
In this book a little monster is imagining all the things that might have happened to his missing book. Maybe a bear ate it. Maybe a shark swallowed it. Maybe a bat flew away with it. Since he can’t sleep without it, he decides to look for his book. After searching the house, he finds his book under his bed. He gives his book a hug and says he loves it. Then he curls up and goes to sleep with his book. The illustrations show that the little monster’s stuffed animals are the animals he imagines doing away with his book. I’ve referred to the little monster as “he,” though no gender is assigned. No name or species is given either. Just a little critter talking about his/her book. The bibliophile in me loved this title and Ezri asked for it AGAIN.

Book! by Kristine O’Connell George illustrated by Maggie Smith
In this book a young boy (I think no gender is given in the text) is given a wrapped book as a present. Then he explains how he likes to open it and close it and put it on a shelf. He likes to wear it as a hat and read it to his cat. Ezri has been trying to read books and magazines to Sushi a lot lately, so she relates to this. The cat in the illustrations is seal-pointed grey like one of our cats, so she really likes finding the cat on each page. This is not a hard game as the cat is not hidden, but he is a part of each illustration. The boy, toy elephant and book are also in each spread. The illustrator did a nice job with this simple text. In the last page where the boy has fallen asleep with his book the eyes of the cat, toy elephant and rabbit on the cover of the book are also closed. I liked this touch that everyone was now napping. The boy also takes his book on a wagon ride to his secret place hiding under a table and takes his book to a lap so he will be read to before his nap. Yes this was a perfect pre-nap read.

Sushi has decided since we took the side of Ezri’s crib that it is a perfect place to nap. In this photo Ezri and Sushi are happily sharing the crib. Sadly, Sushi being in the crib makes it WAY TOO EXCITING a place for Ezri to sleep. She must be evicted at nap and bed time or Ezri will not sleep.

Tilly and Friends series of picture books by Polly Dunbar
These slight tales of 6 friends (one little girl and five animals) who all live together in a yellow house have plots that seem to flit from one game to another in the way a toddler might. To Ezri it makes perfect sense to have a tale that begins with making music while doing a dance called the wiggly woo, then has a feast, followed by a post-feast pretty prance parade, then a post-parade elephant ride and ends with friends sharing a book until Tiptoe, the rabbit, falls asleep. The illustrations are charming. The animal friends have distinct personalities from earnest Tumpty, the elephant, to fanciful Pru, the chicken. There are six books in the series which begins with Hello, Tilly and includes a tale for each of the six friends who live in the little yellow house. So far, Ezri and I have enjoyed Hello, Tilly (described above) and Where’s Tumpty? (about an elephant who really wants to be good at hiding despite his size). Hello, Tilly has red endpapers with polka dots. Ezri loves the polka dot endpapers. She can count the polka dots up to 8 dots (there are dozens of them, but she only gets the first eight). I think we will be spending more time with Tilly and her friends.

Wild Animal Baby magazine from the National Wildlife Fund
This has been a big hit particularly because 5 small pictures of a red, overall-wearing skunk named Sammy hide in each issue. Ezri loves finding the pictures of Sammy as we read. She also likes describing what Sammy is doing as he is in different poses throughout. “Sammy dancing.” “Sammy sit.” “Sammy sleepy.” The magazine has brief articles about wildlife with photos and also features like find this animal at the park that asks the reader to point to the chipmunk, duck and so on. This is the first find it game that has fascinated Ezri and we are considering a subscription to Wild Animal Baby.

In other news, Ezri is enjoying having her own rake with which to move fall leaves. She doesn’t understand making a pile yet, but moving leaves around with a rake – she is on it!

On July 15 for a couple hours I wrote down most of what Ezri was saying.
Here is what that sounded like (approximately as some of her words aren’t standard pronunciation yet, but I could tell what she meant):
bottle
ginger (referring to a neighborhood cat)
no
more
uh-oh (grape goes onto the floor)
grape
Manchi
bagel
I-see-you
up
choo-choo
nipple
dada
soon
pen
ding-dong (the doorbell noise)
mama shower (said because I had wet hair)
glasses (said because I did not yet have my glasses on in the morning and an Amanda without glasses is not right)
tail
bedtime
hair
round round
finger
clap-clap
fish
bye
shoes
buckle
towel
wet
wee-ooo wee-ooo (siren noise)
duck
quack
tickle
hat
frog
keys
ear
baby
wash
cat
poop
mirror
monkey
nose
Mark
grandma
tam-ma
belly
fan
swing
Ezri
Harvey

The morning featured mostly unconnected single words. Mostly they are nouns.

Then I did this again last month on September 25.
Here is what that sounded like (approximately):
Bump head
Ellie brush (Ezri wanted Eric to brush our cat Ellie)
Ellie necklace (How Ezri describes Ellie’s collar)
Ellie fur
Ezri potty
Potty box (we recently acquired a potty though Ezri is still in diapers and she was playing with the box it came in)
Sushi hair brush
Sushi brush time
Ezri hiccup
a paw
Leave it down
Mama porch (Ezri went out on the porch and this was her request that I join her)
cheers (cheerios)
grapes
roll, roll, sugarbabies clap-clap-clap (a Favorite fingerplay from library storytime)
Inga-inga
dada
Dada back here
Ezri cheers (eating cheerios)
Ezri water (drinking from her sippy cup)
Silly Sally went to town (from the book Silly Sally by Audrey Wood)
Ezri drink it
This bottle
Hippo yawn bug teeny boys girls in betweeny ( a favorite rhyme slightly garbled)
MOUSE! (When asked if she wanted to go to storytime)
Dada mitten
Apple
Owls Dancing (a favorite video clip)
Ezri No Poop Just Fart (very informative)
Cow Cookies (after a favorite book The Cow Loves Cookies by Karma Wilson)

On this second day, she is saying some verbs and two word phrases which often lack the verb. She’s also doing a lot of quoting her favorite songs, books, and rhymes.

Sometimes it takes some detective work to figure out what she is talking about. I am glad for example that her babysitter told me about asking Ezri when she was digging with a stick at the park if she was digging to China. Now Ezri will pick up a stick, tap the ground and say “Ezri China.” Without the background this statement makes little sense.

Yesterday in the car she started saying “Tricky Daddy,” and “Argle Flargle.” Sure this sounds like nonsense, but I figured out “Argle Flargle” was the nonsense words the baby says in the book Knuffle Bunny. Then Eric said, “Oh, Tricky daddy is Trixie’s daddy!” as the baby’s name is Trixie in the book and it is the adventures of her and her daddy.

Ezri knows what she’s talking about, but her parents don’t always.

Yesterday for the first time she did all of the fingerplay “roll, roll sugarbabies” including the push and pull which she has always left out before. She also sang correctly most of the lyrics to Twinkle, Twinkle Time for Bed (A Rookie Toddler Book from Scholastic – all of this line of Rookie Toddler books seem to be perfectly pitched for where my toddler is now).

It’s so great that Ezri can tell us things now.

It’s getting harder to return library books.
This week Ezri helped me put the books in the book drop slot.
She said, “Bye-bye I Know Rhino” as the book I Know A Rhino by Charles Fuge dropped into the book return and “Bye-bye Cloppity” as she dropped Clip-Clop by Nicola Smee. She also seemed sad when she realized these books weren’t coming back. Though when I told her Miss Rachel had a cat puppet over by the story room, her sadness disappeared in cries of “Kitty!” The short attention span can certainly be a beneficial feature of the toddler.

I Know a Rhino is a book of simple rhymes about a girl playing with animals she knows. The girl has tea with a rhino, dances with an ape, plays dress-up with a leopard, bathes with a giraffe and so on. The book ends with the little girl asleep with a pile of stuffed animals who are her animal friends from the rhymes. The nice rhyming pace and illustrations of everyday toddler fun make this a good one.

Clip-Clop features a horse offering rides to four other barnyard friends. The horse goes faster and faster making a clippity cloppity sound until the animals on his back start to fall off. When Mr. Horse makes a sudden stop, the animals fly over his head into a hay stack. Mr. Horse is concerned for his friends, but when they all yell, “AGAIN!” he knows that all is well. Ezri also said “again” for the reading of this book. I bounced her on my lap during the horse’s ride which added to the fun.

I can’t believe it has been about a year since I left my job at the Downers Grove library, but I am still there every week with Ezri. She is getting better at picking out her own books. I am letting her pick a couple herself from the shelf. Sometimes they are much too long, but then we just skim and explore them together. We don’t always bring them home, but it is fun to explore books at her direction.