<p>“Oh the Places You’ll Go” by Dr. Seuss.</p>
<p>Not a book for small children, but a must-read for kids as they graduate from high school, leave home and head off to college. Brilliant.</p>
<p>[YouTube</a> - Oh, the Places You’ll Go! by Dr Seuss](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7XqNLAgJhM]YouTube”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7XqNLAgJhM)</p>
<p>Sorry, off the original thread, but this is too good.</p>
<p>Don’t just take *my * word for it.</p>
<p>How cool was it that Levar Burton that I vividly remembered from watching Roots in high school- then who my kids knew from Next Generation- also was on and produced)Reading Rainbow <B</p>
<p>:)
yayverily
a few years ago someone started a thread about graduation gifts & I mentioned that I gave that Dr. Seuss book.
And… that it was a very popular item for graduations.
They couldn’t believe it because it was a * kid’s book* :rolleyes:
as if.</p>
<p>I remember Brown bear, Brown bear, what do you see?
I think I read that every day at the co-op preschool.</p>
<p>I love this thread. However, I have no idea what books the kids read on their own first. We checked out 30 library books every week, and sat on the couch reading for hours.</p>
<p>Sorry, I have a problem with 'the Very Hungry Caterpillar." If he spins a cocoon, he would pop out as a beautiful moth. Butterflies only pop out of a chrysalis. It’s a great story, but this has bugged me for years, and I have always had to change the word cocoon to chrysalis when reading it out loud.</p>
<p>We read so many books when my kids were little…not sure of the first book they read by themselves, probably ‘Pat the Bunny’. The first chapter book my DD ever read was ‘Betsy-Tacy’. First chapter book for my older son was ‘The Enormous Egg’. Drawing a blank for the name of the book of my younger son.</p>
<p>Mother Goose rhymes and Go Dog Go were memorized, sung, acted out. But that was all baby stuff. I would have to ask my son what he actually first read.</p>
<p>I just dont remember. I do recall loving to read Grimm’s Fairy Tales but am certain this was not the first book I read.</p>
<p>DH renamed “Pat the Cat” to “Beat the Cat into Oblivion.” That book was SHREDDED by my toddler son, who loved it - and the hands-on part - just a little too much!</p>
<p>I teared up (and still do) at the clip of Bill Clinton speaking at Chelsea’s graduation, when he said that he and every parent there longed for one more chance to read “Good Night Moon” to their child. </p>
<p>I also remember being down the hall and hearing DH reading to DS, followed by long pauses… DH was so tired he would fall asleep at the end of each page. DS would stare at the picture until he got bored, then poke his father to wake him up and get him to read the next page.</p>
<p>Pat the Bunny! THAT was the book I was trying to remember, and wrote wrong.
Pat the Bunny! Yes!</p>
<p>Never in a million years would I have ever thought I could forget that title after, what 10,000 reads!?</p>
<p>If you recall the movie Kramer v. Kramer, with Meryl Streep and Dustin Hoffman, he says (testifying in court, to prove his parental worthiness) that parenthood is defined by a few things, including: “reading his favorite book again and again, until you want to scream.”</p>
<p>especially if the favorite book is the Bererstain Bears :p</p>
<p>My younger D when she was tired of books liked to watch the same video over and over again.
All Dogs go to Heaven 
once or twice wouldn’t have been so bad but the singing voice of Burt Reynolds doesn’t quite hit the spot.</p>
<p>DS was stuck on a terrible book about road construction equipment.
Not only did we have to read the narrative, but the detailed description of every blasted piece of equipment. Every night and before every nap, for months.</p>
<p>Go, Dog, Go was our S1’s favorite, too, and had it memorized early. The first book he “read” though was “Mr. Brown can Moo, Can You?” The preschool teacher mentioned it to me - thought it was cute that he had memorized it so he could “read” it to the other students. She was surprised to hear that we didn’t own that one, and that he did NOT have it memorized.</p>
<p>An aunt of mine (very special, more below on her…) sent a teeny tiny set of 3 hardback Babar books in a boxed set around l984. Each book was the size of a pad of post-it notes (2 x 4 inches) but the hardcover was in color and the colorful pages sewn in well. There were a few words on each page. </p>
<p>I think they loved it because they could hold the entire book independently and turn every paper page in their own hands. This was just before board books came in big-time. </p>
<p>The aunt is a real book person, who graduated Smith College, started volunteering for their annual booksale, went on to become a specialist in rare and used antiquarian books. She travels the world and really understands how books are assembled, sewn and so on. When I told her this set was a favorite, she was really surprised and pleased. She’s more intuitive about books than little kids, but this time the two coincided.</p>
<p>My #2 daughter was an early reader - at 21 months - it was Christmas time I have a picture of her sitting on my dad’s knee reading Dr Seuss’s ABC’s.
It was amazing. We used to test her by opening pages at random and asking her to read. She never missed a word. Perhaps she simply had the pages memorized but she knew each and every word on every page.
She also got in trouble in first grade for reading the Boxcar Children and Narnia books in class.</p>
<p>To MaFool:</p>
<p>Your post on this thread – </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>Brought tears to my eyes.</p>
<p>For all three of my children it was “Pat the Bunny” and “Pat the Cat” from before they could talk. I have fond memories of reading “Farmer Boy” aloud to my two sons when they were small boys. The stories in that book had all three of us laughing hysterically while also discussing what life was like in the past.</p>
<p>mammall, that is one of my favorite memories. It was a sweet and lovely time in our lives together.</p>
<p>What a wonderful thread! Books I haven’t thought of in years–A FISH OUT OF WATER!! One of DS’s favorites along with A BIG BALL OF STRING which I’m sure has been long out of print. It was from a used book store I think and I had it memorized at one point. We also had those books with every truck and piece of road equipment known to exist. The “Truck” phase lasted until DS started talking at a rather late age. We had to make an emergency speech therapy appointment when he went to preschool and his “tr’s” started coming out as very distinct “f’s”! Looking back at those days when we weren’t sure he would ever talk much less READ by himself, I wish I had known everything would turn out just fine.</p>
<p>I don’t really remember the first book DD read by herself, but we, together, read the Little Critter & Suess books until I wanted to scream! She watched and read along to the VHS series “I Can Read” until the tapes were nearly worn out. D, too, was “late” reading on her own. I couldn’t seem to teach her a thing, but a couple weeks into first grade with the most amazing teacher (it was her first year on the job) and she suddenly could read. Her first book series was Animorphs. She had every single one.</p>
<p>vetmom - our S also substituted F for Tr. My H and I led our church’s youth group, and the teens used to have too much fun saying “What’s that?” as they pointed out every truck that passed, and getting him to answer as loud as he could.</p>