Here are a few of our children's library favorites! We're pretty particular about our children's books, but these ones work for us. As time has passed, we've been able to find more and more of these at garage sales or thrift stores.

I'll include brief reviews and links to more reviews of these books. Let's start with...

The Frog and Toad series by Arnold Lobel

Frog and Toad Together,  Frog and Toad are Friends,  Frog and Toad All Year, and Days with Frog and Toad

These books each contain 5 short, easy-to-read stories about a frog and toad who are friends. The stories contain some humor and remarkable personality. I have a lot of these memorized from reading them so frequently, yet I'm not tired of them. They are some of Yehoshua's very favorites. 

The frog and toad have certain characteristics that carry through each story. For example, Toad tends to need motivation and Frog is usually the one helping Toad do things. A couple of the stories have a part that I change a little (I change the "ghost" to "a scary creature", or leave out a couple words).

Overall, we really really enjoy these stories. They are hilarious and entertaining! We started reading these to Yehoshua when he was about 20 months old.

Emily by Michael Bedard

This is a children's story about a little girl who lives next door to Emily Dickinson. Our library has this with an audio reording. It's beautiful. The story is written in such a lovely way. The girl's mother plays piano (the audio recording has excerpts from Schumann pieces) and I love how music is a part of their life. (For example, the girl's mother is practicing piano while she and her father are watering flowers in their greenhouse.) There is one part where the girl's mother is offered a glass of sherry.

If you appreciate a well-written, beautifully written children's story, you will enjoy Emily.

"And they say that she writes poetry."
"What is poetry?" I asked.
He laid the wilted petals in his palm. "Listen to mother play. She practices and practices a piece, and sometimes a magic happens and it seems the music starts to breathe. It sends a shiver through you. You can't explain it, really; it's a mystery. Well, when words do that, we call it poetry." -Emily

We don't go to the library every week, but we do go about once a month, and I love getting to enjoy new books and CDs. In fact, I'm going to go blog about a new CD I found too. ;)