Welcome to What Are Your Children Reading?, a weekly meme started by The Well-Read Child. I have the privilege of hosting it this week. If you participate on your blog, leave a link to your post in the comments.

For those who may not know, I have a son who turned two this month. Most of our current reads are therefore not very intellectual. To keep my sanity, though, I keep getting some picture books just for me.

The first board book that my son has been carrying around with him is Cars, Trucks and Planes/Carros, Camiones y Aviones by Gladys Rosa-Mendoza. He loves every vehicle that moves and this book is perfect because each page has a different vehicle. It also has Spanish translation on each page: my son looks at me funny and shakes his head “no” if I try to read it to him in Spanish. Most of the time, he reads it to himself (“Bus! Truck! Airplane!”) as he turns the pages.

He’s taken an interest in the toilet lately, so another book high on his list for the last week is Once Upon a Potty (for boys) by Alona Frankel. It is, as you would expect, the story of one boy using the potty. I like the author’s suggestion to adapt it, as you read, to the terminology you use in your own home. At any rate, my son loves this one right now. This week, he has been demanding to sit on the toilet about 5 times a day; it’s a game, and it’s one I don’t mind encouraging. (Although I wouldn’t mind seeing actual progress, I accept the fact that he is still quite young!).

Rainbow Fun! by Emily Hawkins is a pretty basic board book of a rainbow of colors. My son likes it because there is a die cut on each page so he can wiggle his fingers through it as he turns the page. He likes to say the colors, but hasn’t learned the differences between them yet, so I guess we’ll keep reading it.

And then we turn to Feet are Not for Kicking by Elizabeth Verdick. We haven’t gotten this particular book from the library before (We had Hands Are Not for Hitting) and I’m hoping maybe the “let’s not kick” message will sink in. This mommy is tired of being stepped on, kicked, and hit by her two-year-old. (He’s not violent: I suspect he thinks it is fun?)

Those are the books that he likes this week. Here are three more picture books I picked up this week that I liked.

Green Eyes by Abe Birnbaum has gorgeous color paintings for each page, as it tells the story of the life of a cat, Green Eyes. It won the Caldecott Honor in the 1950s and I think the full-page color probably helped because it is stunning. Lots of white space, lots of gentleness. My son isn’t interested in cats, but if you child is, I think he or she would love this one! Green Eyes is a cute cat.

The little boy in the story The Boy Who Wouldn’t Go To Bed by Helen Cooper rides his car away from his mother in search of adventure friends who want to stay up all night with him. But the lion is sleepy, as are the soldiers and the choo-choo train and the animals. Eventually, the little boy’s car falls asleep too and the boy is alone in the dark. On one of the last pages, the boy is rescued from the dark. Who was it?

Someone who was ever so sleepy, but couldn’t go to bed until the boy did.

The mother, of course! I think most mothers reading bed time stories can relate to that line!

I loved how the illustrations showed the real-life setting: walking back to his bedroom through his imaginary wonderland, there is a huge toilet and toothbrush in the background so we know that even his wonderland contains a bit of real life. A perfect bedtime story for this mommy!

The last picture book I’ll share is one that I found quite interesting but I can’t get my son to even glance at it. The Black Book of Colors by Menena Cottina and Rosana Faria is completely black: only words are in white text. (The cover shows a gray illustration, but that is the only place that illustrations are not black.) The rest of the book is textured or raised, with all the text translated into Braille. The illustrations, although shiny black-on-black, are also raised. Each page describes a different color, with a textured illustration (such as feathers).

Thomas says that yellow tastes like mustard, but is as soft as a baby chick’s feathers.

The purpose of the book, according to the front flap, is to “convey the experience of a person who can only see through his or her sense of touch, taste, small or hearing.” As one who has always had my sight, I struggle to imagine learning colors from this book. That is, I think, why it was so fascinating to me.

What are your children reading this week?

If you write a post, leave a link in the comments and I’ll add it here!

Other What Are Your Children Reading? Posts (22 October):

• The Well-Read Child
• In Need of Chocolate
• Tina Says…
• Silly Eagle Books
• A Few More Pages
• Brimful Curiosities
  
• Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns