What is Ezri Reading?

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.