<p>I had totally forgotten about Go Dog Go! Her kindergarten teacher gave her one of the Angelina Ballerina books, but that may have been later. I knew she could read when she pointed out words in my Agatha Christie books…</p>
<p>Thank you alumother. I have no idea what the first book was that any of my kids read. It’s a big reading blur. Reading before bedtime was something that happened every night and every single book that was posted above were ones that we read, so who knows… My favorite book was Goodnight moon when they were each small.</p>
<p>My Mom said she realized I could read (before kindergarten) when I started reading the ingredients on the cereal box. So my first book might have been Frosted Flakes. I loved Tony the Tiger. :)</p>
<p>Oh what memories this thread is bringing back! Go, Dog, Go. One Fish, two Fish. These were the books I read to the kids at bed-time, until it was thier turn in life to read the same books to me. </p>
<p>The simple joy of sharing time with them as I tucked them in and kissed them good-night. Days long past, but never forgotten.</p>
<p>Excuse me now while I go wipe my eyes…</p>
<p>Oldest son was The Napping House, oldest daughter was Amy the Dancing Bear, middle daughter Katy No Pocket, youngest son Where the Wild Things Are and middle son (#4 of 5 kiddos), not a clue! He was reading his older sibs’ chapter books before age 4, was deep into Tolkein by second grade. </p>
<p>I cheated on the remembering part, it is written in their baby books! And yes sadly, middle son’s space was empty… He figured the only way he could keep up with the older one’s WAS to keep up. With 3 older sibs it was like having 3 built-in tutors 24/7.</p>
<p>He is still the one making me crazay!!</p>
<p>Kat</p>
<p>ps He did however LOVE Stellaluna as a baby but pretended it was Stanley not Stellaluna. To this day when reading to his little cousins it is Stanley.</p>
<p>Sesame Street books and also the Berenstain Bears.</p>
<p>It was one of the Oliver and Amanda stories for D1. She refused to cooperate all through preschool and kindergarten. The other kids were reading by then and I was afraid she was . . . slow . . . and then suddenly she was reading chapter books. After that the Box Car Children. </p>
<p>For D2 it was a Junie B. Jones, which is still a favorite. I give her a new one every B-day and Christmas. Then for a very long while it was all about Anne of Green Gables.</p>
<p>The first “real” books Kid # 1 read were the “Frog and Toad” series, followed by one of our all-time favorites: “My Father’s Dragon.” Love that series.</p>
<p>As is so often the case for subsequent children, I have absolutely no recollection about what Kid #2 read first. He did learn to read, though. ;)</p>
<p>Forgot all about My Father’s Dragon!!! Loved that one.</p>
<p>One thing I especially enjoyed was later, when DS had graduated to chapter-books and started reading all the great Boy-Lit adventure books and would finish one and say to me, “I think you would like this book.” Book recommendations from my little boy! I read them all, of course, and loved many of them (My Side of the Mountain, etc.) and had many terrific discussions.</p>
<p>Probably one of the Dr. Seuss books. I do remember child #4 reading the instructions to a hockey game we had for the computer at age 4. He was motivated, I guess. This was the child who was almost 4 before he was potty trained b/c he was so BUSY doing other things. LOL</p>
<p>My DD first book she read was " Sam’s Cookie" a story about a dog. </p>
<p>She also memorized a book that was read to her at day care before she could read. She would come home and pick up our copy, I think it was an “Agelina Ballerina” book, and read the entire story out loud in the same eastern seaboard accent of her daycare teacher. At first I though i’ve got a genius on my hands she’s reading at two! then one time I noticed the book was upside down in her lap.
She was two however when she could tell the difference between Disney VHS tapes by just the label on them.
We loved “Stella Luna” and we read that almost nightly, one night she was drifting off to sleep and said " Mom look Stella Luna is here—Look mom up on the ceiling" Sure enough a bat had made its way into the house! i immediately released the cat on the bat but for some reason the cat was waiting for a can opener sound. The I got a broom and opened the windows and tried to sweep the bat out the house. The poor bat squealed and squeeked so i thought better of the broom, but the cat ended up going out the window when the bat squeeked. So I go out on my city block chasing my cat back into the house with a broom while in my pajamas (and no one called for psych pickup!) and still trying to get the bat out of the house. Finally I got them all on the the back porch which had high windows that only a bat could fly out of and a cat could not. I closed the door and told my DD let nature takes it’s course. Next morning the cat was there the bat was not and no blood anywhere.</p>
<p>I have Dr Seuss’s ABC, Hop on Pop, One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, and Go Dog Go memorized! Not intentionally, I assure you. But I was 6 years older than my brother so I was often the one who read to him. (His favorite book was The Pokey Little Puppy… the slowest, most repetitive book ever… to this day I consider that book torture!). I was so excited to share those books with my kids.</p>
<p>When our cat has been outside in the rain and I let her in, I always say, “You never yet met a pet, I bet, as wet as they let this wet pet get!”</p>
<p>I always have trouble with milestones, as it depends. Nothing ever black and white, be it sitting up, walking, reading. How does one define it? </p>
<p>At six months she could ‘play along’ with the Hello Bunny book (you know where you look in the mirror on one page, lift the table skirt on the other, rub the fluffy thing on the next). Around 2-3, she was ‘reading’ all or parts of books she memorized, esp the Seuss easyones, Good Bye Moon, Good Dog etc. Real reading (e.g. reading unique sentences on her own) didn’t come until she was 4 and then it wouldn’t be a whole book, but here and there first with words, then sentences.</p>
<p>Oh, these toddlers with prodigious memories! Remember the “Wee Sing” tapes? My D not only sang entire songs, she said the bit at the end about turning the tape over and “we’ll meet you on the other side.” We thought it was hysterical. She was two-something and always enunciated very well. She is now a teacher. :)</p>
<p>This all reminds me of the verse, “Richer than I you can never be, for I had a mother who read to me.” Or older sibling…</p>
<p>oh my! such wonderful memories! my oldest read Bambi first , and she was so young, i’d thought she’d memorized what she was actually reading to me! i said something like, “honey, so you memorized what mommy has been reading to you? no, mommy, i’m reading!” ( i felt so guilty, and then elated!) we loved Raffi, if anyone knows him. and she loved the talking “Teddy Ruxpin”! :)</p>
<p>Ah, my kind of people on THIS thread!!! Y’all would love the new museum for children’s literature in Amherst, MA on the campus of Hampshire College:</p>
<p>ERIC CARLE MUSEUM of CHILDREN’s LITERATURE (I might have garbled the name of the museum).</p>
<p>Our favorites:</p>
<p>“Pat the Bunny,” by Dorothy Kunhart (kept replacing it; they wore out the bunny fur)</p>
<p>“Winken, Blinken and Nod” (illustrated; LOL, just now, I went to look for the author but I see my S took it for his own library!) I have my own Dad on VHS tape
reading it to S-1, with the toddler chiming in on each last word. Sigh. Miss them both. </p>
<p>“Love You Forever” by Robert Munsch (we heard him read it in Canada;H and I still can’t get through it without weeping…)</p>
<p>“The Balloon Tree” by Phoebe Gilman (because my D’s name is unusual and
the protagonist’s name is the same…D found this magical). GIlman later
wrote “Something From Nothing” which is more famous. </p>
<p>And I keep 2 volumes by Tommy DePaola: “Mother Goose,” and his “Children’s Nursery Rhymes” because he wrote and illustrated the old tales so that I could love them again. They sit awaiting a first grandchild…someday…I can hope!</p>
<p>mathmom,
DS1 was also all trains, all the time until he discovered computers! I still have all their books downstairs – I can’t bear to part with any of them. We moved a lot when I was a kid, and being the oldest of five, nothing survived that many moves and that many siblings. </p>
<p>P3T, We visited that museum two years ago – Eric Carle was a big favorite with DS2. Did you pop into the Yiddish library/museum at Hampshire too? It is fabulous!</p>
<p>I Love You Forever makes me cry every time. So does The Runaway Bunny. Typing this makes me cry, too. Sappy Mom!</p>
<p>^^I hear only great things about the Yiddish Book Museum; will put it on my “hope to” list!</p>
<p>I’m remembering seeing Jesse Jackson on TV, reading “Green Eggs and Ham” as if it was a Sunday morning sermon, with deep rhetorical inflections in his phrasing. He was really funny with it. Did he do it on Saturday NIght Live? I can’t place it.</p>
<p>Green eggs and ham was my favorite book when I was little. For some reason, my kids never liked Dr. Seuss.</p>
<p>[Jesse</a> Jackson Reads Suess’s Green Eggs and Ham • VideoSift: Online Video *Quality Control](<a href=“http://www.videosift.com/video/Jesse-Jackson-Reads-Suesss-Green-Eggs-and-Ham]Jesse”>Jesse Jackson Reads Suess's Green Eggs and Ham)</p>