Big Red Barn by Margaret Wise Brown and Felicia Bond

“By the big red barn in the great green field, there was a pink pig who was learning to squeal…”

Sorry, I see the book and the words just start rolling off my tongue, I can’t help it!

Ivy loved it as a baby and I read it so many times I accidentally memorized it. Then when Clara started reading books we pulled it out with the rest of the board books and it took about two times through before I had all the words back again.

Someone tell me why I was never able to master my times tables but I can memorize kids books on accident!

Regardless* of my math ineptitude this book has my favorite sort of sing song rhythm to it, making it easy to memorize (if you are into that sort of thing) and fun to read out loud.  As if that wasn’t enough to make one little book lovely the girls seem to really enjoy the super detailed illustrations (can you see the hose on the barn in the picture?).

Would I recommend it? Yes, both the kids and I agree on this one. Besides, I have it memorized and I don’t hate it, it’s got to be good.

*I was going to use irregardless in this sentence but thought I’d better look it up to see if it meant what I thought it meant. My dictionary had this to say about it:

…”The most frequently repeated remark about it is that “there is no such word.” There is such a word, however.” … “Its reputation has not risen over the years, and it is still a long way from general acceptance. Use regardless instead.”

So I did…

…but every time I’ve read though my draft I say irregardless in my head.

Where’s My Mom by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler

Forget what I said yesterday, this book doesn’t meet that criteria.

In this book  little monkey lost his mom and a butterfly is trying to help him find her and getting it all wrong!

“No, no, no! That’s an elephant”

If you can get passed the fact that it is a rhyming book but “come” and “mom” don’t really rhyme (unless you pick up an accent and call her “mum” instead), and that butterfly has a creepy head (I think it’s the nose that bothers me) it’s a pretty good one!

Would I recommended it? Yes unless you can’t say mum or have a major phobia of butterflies with noses.