It's been two months since the last blog post, and i feel it's high time for another. Unfortunately, I don't have much to write about. I guess it's been a bland two months.

This morning though, as I was organizing our collection of children's literature, I was thinking that I should make a list of the books that I really adore reading to Ava (and to myself!). I am quite lucky to take care of a girl who loves reading as much as I do. We seriously read for an hour to an hour and a half every morning and then again for about an hour as we eat our lunch. I know it may be unique to Ava, but I think it's funny when you take a child development class in college and are taught that a child's attention span is roughly 3-5 minutes per year of age. Ava is four so that would make her maximum attention span 20 minutes. Hogwash. I know that I built up her listening endurance though as the first day she came to my house we read half of a book before she wanted to move onto another activity (although the first thing she asked me the very next day was if we could maybe finish that book we started) and then slowly I just kept adding books until we were reading at least ten in one sitting. I choose the books (so we have a little more variety) and she gets to choose the order in which we read them. I have really come to love reading out loud and I especially enjoy all of the illustrations - we have lots of Caldecott medal books on our shelves. Perhaps if I could go and do it over again I would be a children's libarian (oops, librarian). =)

So, here, in no particular order, are my favorite children's books to pour over again and again:

A Child's Garden of Verses written by Robert Louis Stevenson, ill. by Alice and Martin Provensen
In the Forest written and ill. by Marie Hall Ets
Chanticleer and the Fox adapted from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, ill. by Barbara Cooney
Three Little Kittens written and ill. by Paul Galdone
Goldie Locks Has Chicken Pocks written by Erin Dealey, ill. by Hanako Wakiyama
Blueberries for Sal written and ill. by Robert McCloskey
The Story of Johnny Appleseed retold and ill. by Aliki
The Biggest Bear written and ill. by Lynd Ward
Cinderella translated and ill. by Marcia Brown
Many Moons written by James Thurber, ill. by Louis Slobodkin
Wee Gillis written by Munro Leaf, ill. by Robert Lawson
Doctor DeSoto written and ill. by William Steig
A New Coat for Anna written by Harriet Ziefert, ill. by Anita Lobel
The Story of Ferdinand written by Munro Leaf, ill. by Robert Lawson
Frog Went A-Courtin' retold by John Langstaff, ill. by Feodor Rojankovsky
The Storm Book written by Charlotte Zolotow, ill. by Margaret Bloy Graham
Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel written and ill. by Virginia Lee Burton
Ox-Cart Man written by Donald Hall, ill. by Barbara Cooney
Millions of Cats written and ill. by Wanda Gag
Stone Soup written and ill. by Marcia Brown
Bread and Jam for Frances written by Russell Hoban, ill. by Lillian Hoban
Billy and Blaze written and ill. by C.W. Andersen
The Best Loved Doll written by Rebecca Caudill, ill. by Elliott Gilbert
The Story of Babar written and ill. by Jean de Brunhoff
Harry the Dirty Dog written by Gene Zion, ill. by Margaret Bloy Graham
Make Way for Ducklings written and ill. by Robert McCloskey
The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher written and ill. by Beatrix Potter (all of her stories are lovely)
Mr. Putter and Tabby Pour the Tea written by Cynthia Rylant, ill. by Arthur Howard (we LOVE all of the Mr. Putter books)
Flicka, Ricka, Dicka Bake a Cake written and ill. by Maj Lindman (again all of the books in the series are great!)
Frog and Toad are Friends written and ill. by Arnold Lobel (we love the whole series plus Owl at Home)

since our computer crashed it's not quite the same yet so this will probably have an odd font and font size. and i don't have any pictures right now. so sad...