The board book - book nook

17 Months

He tries to be JUST LIKE Dada and leans on a pillow

My 17 month old son loves to read... or just look at the pages in his books.  LOVES it.  I find him many times with a book on his lap while sitting on the couch or even on the kitchen floor while I'm unpacking from being out all day.  If I don't find him there, he's usually asking me to read him a story.  He even asks me to read him a book while we're eating dinner.  He has his favorites and we'll read those (maybe) twenty times a day for a few weeks, then he'll discover a different book on his book shelf and we'll be reading that book twenty times a day.  But I don't mind.  I really want him to enjoy reading.

3 Months and drooling on his book

10 Months reading Daddy Hugs

12 Months with the Belly Button Book

I didn't really enjoy reading when I was in school.  Partly because I was being told what I needed to read for class.  So it never seemed fun and I was rarely interested in the book.  It also made it hard for me to comprehend what I was reading. 

I do remember the books I grew up with prior to school, and I remember liking them.  In fact, my parents kept those books and recently they gave those books back so our son can enjoy the stories I had as a child.

In the beginning, when J was so young that reading anything meant nothing to him, we let him chew on the board books. He didn't even have interest in knowing what was on the pages. Eventually, somewhere down the road, he had enough interest in learning what was on the pages and learned really quickly all kinds of animals and characters.  Recently, he's shown a stronger interest in hearing the story. Some stories are sing-song and very interactive, others are more of the I Spy kind of books. Then there are some that are great picture stories and he can interpret those any time of day. Of course, these are all board books. I'm actually afraid to start giving him the paper books. Those are tucked upstairs in his closet.

A few of the books that I could probably recite from memory are:

Barnyard Dance by Sandra Boynton
Let's Dance Little Pookie by Sandra Boynton
Belly Button Book by Sandra Boynton
Daddy Hugs by Karen Katz
I Am A Bunny by Richard Scarry
What Shape is a Grape by Christy Webster (He loves pointing out all the Sesame Street Characters)
Elmo Loves Red: A Book About Colors (soft book) by Unknown
Is Your Mama a Llama? by Deborah Guarino (He recently discovered this on his shelf and loves the story and enjoys telling us what animals they are)

Sesame Street First Board Book Library is great for his little hands.  The books come in a carrying case that he loves to load up and spill out.  It has a magnetic clasp which he struggles with, so he'll constantly ask us to open it for him.  When we take long road trips, we'll give him one of the books and it entertains him for a while.

I've seen these sort of libraries with Mickey Mouse or Cars, but Sesame Street is my personal favorite... maybe because it's my generation (although I'm still struggling with Elmo and Zoe).