What is Ezri Reading?

This is a longer video of Ezri and I reading Time to Sleep, Sheep the Sheep! by Mo Willems.
She is really enjoying the Cat the Cat series by Willems. Also, look at how good she is at gently turning pages of a book. She is graduating from board books.

She has started to explore books more independently. She flips through and makes comments on what she sees or repeats phrases we’ve read. As her vocabulary explodes, she begins to ask for her favorites by name – even ones we haven’t read in weeks which blows my mind. Proof that if you read to your baby early, they are listening even when it doesn’t seem like it. Just this week we discovered she can say, “Knuffle Bunny” for the book of the same title and “Clifford” for Clifford the Big Red Dog by Bridwell. She was already asking for ‘Sally” for Silly Sally by Wood and “Fingers” for Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes and “Bubbles” for Bubbles, Bubbles (Sesame Street Beginnings) among others.

A surprise hit last week was the book Pajama Mamas by Kate Spohn which Ezri is reading in the photo above. Each spread has an illustration of a mama in her pajamas and then a flap opens to show her baby. One mama strums the guitar and the text reads “strum, strum, Mama.” The corresponding flap opens to an illustration of a sleepy baby that reads “hum, hum, baby.” Ezri’s favorite mama is the one that is “Kiss kiss mama” and the flap opens to “Bliss bliss baby.” Ezri will “read” these two pages saying “Kiss kiss mama” and “Buh-liss buh-liss baby.” It is the first time I’ve seen her reading a book passage exactly as written. She adds some kissing noises just as I do when I read the book. She has pointed out that the kissing mama is wearing glasses. I think because I wear glasses she thinks this is what mamas should do. The flaps are big which means Ezri can open them easily herself. She does forget to close them when she goes to the next page which can lead to a book that needs some arranging of its flaps after reading. I think the simple cadence and repetition of this book with its “something, something, mama” and “something, something, baby” is what captured Ezri’s attention. We will be renewing this library book a few more times so it can stay around the house.