What is Ezri reading?

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.