And It Was So

 Published by the Westminster Press Philadelphia
Illustrated by Tasha Tudor

This book is not bad at all.  Totally Presbyterian, but the parts they pull from the bible are heavily edited to be understood by kids, so whatever.

 The only problem I have with it is that it pulls from way to many sections.  It starts with Genesis, which is great.  And then it moves on to a whole bunch of psalms.

It sneaks something in there about the son of God being born and how he loved children and stuff, which is nice.

The pictures are really nice.  But it's all blonde white kids, and there's this one page about spreading the news throughout the world that has bunch of kids in traditional outfits from foreign countries.  It's a bit white-savior/racist.  But it's an old book, too.  Maybe there's a new edition?

Snow White - 1976

 uncredited

 I keep seeing these abridged Disney movies from the "Wonderful World of Reading" series.  I picked up this one because the Disney version is pretty much the same as the original story and it's only a little bit scary, right?

The uncredited art is not quite the same as the original, which I find very interesting..  But the story, sure is.  Which means that the awkwardness of the dwarfs names is more apparent in this shortened version.  We don't watch these movies, so it's not as charming and more confusing without the experience of having seen them act out their characters.

 That's only a little awkward, though.  You know what's really awkward?  Having to reword the part where the hunter is going to kill Snow White because your toddler doesn't understand death yet.

But most awkward of all...

"Mama, what's a princess?"

"Well...  A princess is a girl who lives in a big house, and her parents have lots of money, and she wears lots of big dresses...  and she waits around for a really rich man to take her away..."


Well.  What would YOU say?  This is why I don't read fairy tales that often.

Wuthering Heights: A Weather Primer

By Jennifer Adams
Illustrated by Alison Oliver

This is actually a really great book about the weather.  Each page shows exactly the same scene with slight changes.  My daughter likes to point to all the changes, even the shifting colours on the castle.

The descriptive word is in big letters.  These were great!  My daughter loved to point to the letters and yell at me until I told her what they were.  It was trying.  But she learned a lot of letters!

I still haven't read the quotes to her, because they're still a bit much.  But I like teach her synonyms for the descriptive words, and we like to make weather related sound effects as we read.


Our copy is covered in food and chew marks.  It's been well loved.

Richard Scarry's Best Storybook Ever

 We love Richard Scarry so much.  His books are old, though, and often compiled kind of weirdly.  This is no exception.

"I am a Bunny" is featured in this book, but most of the pages are missing, and there's an extra page with insects on it that isn't in our board book version.

Other stories seem to be complete.  The nursery rhymes are scattered throughout.  The prints are of varying degrees of quality.

You take what you can get, though.

 Not all of the stories are good, but the ones that we like to read are fantastic.  They label instruments, they explain colour theory, there's counting and letters and all kinds of educational fun.

My favourite is the alphabet of things to feed and not feed a hippo.  My daughter is on the edge of understanding comedy. If you ask her whether we should feed the hippo a nest or a nut, she will angrily explain that she already picked out the banana on the first page.

I'm sure she'll get the joke in a year or two.

Cozy Classics: Pride and Prejudice

This is a pretty popular book for baby showers.  It's really meant for the parents.

Each page is a scene from the novel (*cough* film adaptation *cough*) done in adorable felt figures accompanied by a single word for baby to learn.

The words are mostly a little abstract.  One page is "Friends" for instance, and the next is "Sisters".  My daughter, at 2 years, knows what a friend is, but is a little confused by the concept of sisters because she doesn't have any.  And while I keep insisting that her aunts are all sisters, that just makes the whole thing even more confusing.





Probably the biggest problem is the polygamous marriage at the end of the book.  Yes, I know that they don't all end up married to eachother, but try explaining that to a toddler who doesn't even understand what marriage or weddings are.

This book wasn't purchased for my kids, it was purchased for me.  And I love it.  And we still read it with the kids.  The pictures are so adorable, and it's way more enjoyable to read than any of those utilitarian stock photo baby books.