One of the things I am most proud is the library that I have curated for my kiddo. In this series of posts, I want to share some of the books that have been our favorites over the years. Note: I only post about books in English. Much of kiddo’s life, including their household with their other parent, is in German. So in our home I try to keep all media (books, magazines, videos, movies, …) in English.

That phase of learning to read was pretty short. As soon as kiddo saw that they could read the simple stuff in these books, they quickly went to longer, harder books – another post on that is coming.

I think the main keys in this phase were building confidence and having funny stories that linked reading with laughter.

Here are the few that kiddo wanted to read again and again and that helped give confidence in reading:

• All Elephant and Piggie books by Mo Willems. We especially love:
  • We Are in a Book
  • I Broke My Trunk
  • Watch Me Throw the Ball!
  • Can I Play Too?
• Frog and Toad by Arnold Lobel. We got the complete collection and that was definitely worth it.
• No More Naps by Chris Grabenstein. I read this aloud so many times in earlier years that kiddo probably had it memorized – which was a great confidence boost when they started reading on their own.
• Books in the Baby University series by Chris Ferrie. I think these were also major confidence boosters, because the topics seem so complex, but the words in the text are mostly words they know.
• Some of the Pete the Cat books, like Play Ball and Pete at the Beach. They’re repetitive – which, again, built confidence.