picture books

What We Read This Week (18/10/2025)

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Is this a 4-year-old thing? I don’t remember C doing it, so I am not convinced. Child is almost – almost – asleep. There have been several long  slow eye blinks. Then, “Mummy. Two makes me fall asleep. I promise.” Oh. You’re not asleep. So you read two books, then, “Mummy? Actually, five makes me fall asleep. This one first”, holding out Fox in Socks, or Wish for a Fish, or anything that is not at all short and actually gives my mouth a workout to be able to read it. Where did that sleep train go? Was there an announcement or did it just sail right on by?

It’s been a week like that. Consequently, there was a hefty stack of books to be cleared near the bed. Never Pop a Penguin. Wish for a Fish. Letters from Felix. Pig Out. Easter Bunny Egg Hunt. Let’s Go Home, Baby Bee. The Little Mermaid. Plus library books. The girls chose a good selection this week. A Very Wiggly Christmas, and I am told each time who is who and what is what as soon as possible. Dreaming, which is a beautiful example of Aboriginal culture and Dreamtime and passing knowledge and culture to the next generation, as well as being a dreamy book for bedtime. Ten Minutes To Bed, Little Koala, which still has all the flaps and has a lovely sleepy koala at the end. Robin Robin, which is a book version of the Netflix movie by the same creators as Wallace and Gromit. C liked that one so much she had snuck it onto her bunk for the week.

And, my new all-time favourite book, Sleeping Handsome and the Princess Engineer. I have not read it every day, but that is because it is just too funny for bedtime. I have, though, read it several times at bedtime, anyway. It’s just that good. As the title suggests, it’s Sleeping Beauty with a few twists, and my feminist, raising strong and resilient girls mind loves it. 

C has branched out a bit this week. She is still loving all the Geronimo and Thea Stilton books she can get her hands on, but at her school library borrowing session last week, she picked up a graphic novel in the Amulet series and got into it. At the library, she found one and that was her afternoon sorted. Every morning this week, instead of asking to play a game on the iPad, she has just started reading in bed. Her Where’s Wally Now prize book, and now Kiki Kallira, a hefty chapter book by Sangu Mandanna, which is very exciting. Whenever I go in to let her know breakfast is on the table, she will tell me in as much depth as I will allow what the latest exciting development is.

We are still reading Anne of Green Gables and thoroughly enjoying it. The only problem is that C wants to change her hair colour and length to match Anne. I was not expecting this.

What We Read This Week (27/09/2025)

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You know when kids just get on a roll with a book? That’s all they want to read or have read to them. For three days. Or for a week. Or for, you know, 3 months. Not that I minded reading Ruby Red Shoes every night for 3 months when C was 2, but it is a memorable part of my ‘reading to children’ history. 

I feel we are in the same situation here now. Possibly. Frozen (aka “The Big Elsa Book”) has been going strong now for well over a month. The push-pull Snow White book (aka “E’s Snow White Book”) is enjoying a similar level of popularity. In fact, we went away for a couple of days this week and when I asked girls to pack one book each, those were the choices from S and E. C picked a Dragon Girls book. I don’t think she read any of hers, but the other two had a bit of Frozen while traveling, and E and S both had quiet moment of resetting with their favourite books.

S has also been asking a lot for We’re Going On A Bear Hunt. We will sometimes even be suddenly in a game of this while on the way to daycare. I will notice that her walk changes from just walking or just running or being Elsa to the pantomime of hunting and obstacles and I’ll hear her sweet voice in a sing-song of “We’re going on a bear hunt, I got my rinoculass”. Very cute. And when we join in, she is over the moon.

Another book that has found new favour is The Princess and the Wizard (Princess Eliza), a Julia Donaldson book but not illustrated by Axel Scheffler. Rather, Lydia Monks has done the illustrations and so it feels like it’s in a different world. C will read this one to the younger two, as well, doing all the voices to squeals of laughter. It has to be managed, shall we say, at bedtime. I might start a collection of Books That Are Only Allowed To Be Read Once, Maximum Twice, At Bedtime. So far: Princess Eliza, Pig the Fibber. On the Never At All At Bedtime Under Any Circumstances: The Book Without Words.

I am loving reading Anne of Green Gables to C. It was one of my favourite books when I was young. Admittedly, I was much older than C when I read it but I was reading it myself. I hadn’t realised what a slow start it was, but that is proving useful for setting up a scene for C. I see many similarities between my C and Anne. I think C has realised this, too, and loves having a character similar to herself but also is very thankful that she is not at all in the same situation in which Anne started. Side note, this particular copy is riddled with typos. I am not a book-mangler or noter, but I think I will be going through and correcting this one for future. I don’t know much about how publishing works, but come on. This is a classic. Anyway, two nights in a row now I have read a bit (or a lot) and C has been asleep within 5 minutes. Rare but welcome.

What We Read This Week (04/05/2025)

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Christmas in May is a thing, isn’t it? I’m all for seasons of the year, and keeping some things to that season, but then girls will find a book and want it read on repeat and it just happens to be a Christmas book so what am I to do? Like, not read it or something? Crazy talk. (Same with Christmas clothing, honestly. If they want to wear the Christmas overalls I made C when she was two and has been worn randomly throughout the years and still going strong then who am I to complain??)

So. Bluey’s Twelve Days of Christmas has been flavour of the week. S and E have tried to get me to sing it every night which has its fun but really we get to the end and my tired voice mostly just says, “And a fruit bat in a mango tree” go to sleep now okay please sleep now goodnight! Which unfortunately just adds to the hilarity and they, crazily, don’t just go to sleep then and there. Weird. S then insists that the book goes to her, and she reads it backwards, usually. Nearly always like this:

S: Two! Mummy, I two!

Me: You sure are.

S: [counts to twelve] twelve guitars! So many!

Me: [clicking] Ah yes. Twelve guitars, and you saw the number two?

S: Yes, because I two! [turns pages, backwards and forwards] ribbit. Ribbit. Hehehe. [random page turning] mummy, what’s that?

Me: [knowing by now what she is looking at] yabbies.

S: snap snap. [more random page turns with the occasional ooh or aah or giggle] BLUEY/BIN CHICKEN. Mummy what’s that?

Me: [checking out which page she’s on] that’s a fruit bat. Bluey’s hanging like a fruit bat.

S: [closes book, places it about halfway along the side of the cot, stands her water bottle on it. Tries to lie down which makes the bottle fall over] Oh MAN. Not again. [repeats the bottle stand up/lying down attempt a few times before remembering to put the bottle into the rails a bit more. Lies down. Sleeps.]

E’s bonus Christmas book has been We’re Going on an Elf Chase. Lift the flaps. Trace the path. Very E things. Like also finding her engrossed in the Pop-Up Punctuation book. She is so careful, and loves them so much. Not Christmassy, but her other choice with me this week has been Thelma the Unicorn. I so love all the questions E asks, revealing her consideration of the story and the pictures and the characters. 

Speaking of questions, C and I finished What Katy Did. This wasn’t Finished until I had asked her the questions that were in the back of the book and she had added her own. We have now started on The Secret Garden which meant discussions about cholera and death and transmission of diseases. What a fun end to my day. 

What We Read This Week (27/04/2025)

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This week is brought to you by the letter “P”. 

When my lovely sister-in-law discovered the girls’ love for Each Peach Pear Plum, her eyes lit up and she asked “Do you have ‘Peepo’?” I had a vague recollection of it but nothing more. So the next time we saw them – a mere 10 days later, very exciting – they brought us some beautiful material (score!) and Peepo. I have read Peepo many times this week. 

One thing I love about reading to E is when I turn a page and she is suddenly, somehow in the book. “Wait, mummy. Go back”, and she turns the page back herself and asks me about something she saw on the previous page, or shows me a tiny detail that she’s noticed, or wants to check the visual on the words she’s just heard. Where’s the grandmother. Where are the sisters. See the birds in the sky. Why is the baby in the stroller. What’s a pushchair.

The other favourite – asked for time and again, turned to for comfort – was Never Pop a Penguin. One of those books with a fidget popper in the middle so each page you can pop the tummy of whichever creature is being discussed. E pushes a couple on each page, then finishes them all off at the end. S may push one on a page, with a look of pure mischief on her face. If I do that, though, she shouts NO at me and turns the book over to un-pop what I have done. Once it is read, she will pop them all and then turn it over to do it all again.

Even though this is a simple book, with only 5 pages that are all nearly the same, it has prompted much discussion. What actually is a narwhal and do they really have rainbow horns like unicorns. Why is the polar bear wearing pool slides. They’re skis? What are skis. Why is the marshmallow on fire. Do you see the cheeky seagull stealing the toasted marshmallow.

Unfortunately, P is also for… yeah. Poo. I saw about a month’s worth of it today. And every time poor E was on the toilet, she wanted me to watch her (as they all do most of the time), and – so that I wouldn’t be bored – read to her. Superworm has been read and read and read today. Note to self: dig out the mole book. 

Of course, once I had in my head that this week was seemingly brought to you by “P”, this evening a very tired S and a very very tired E just went for Christmas books. Bluey’s 12 Days of Christmas, which has E laughing more and more as I continue trying to fit too many syllables into a line and speed it up apparently hiLARiously, and S will half sing it, approximating the words, and comment on each page that has Bluey and/or Bingo on how many there are! And general chitchat about what’s on each page – ooh guitars! Glasses. Bingo is a froggy! Straight after that, We’re Going On An Elf Chase, in all its lift-the-flap glory.

C and I are getting close to the end of What Katy Did. My voice has been rather tired of late, and C has started taking over some of the reading. This is one of my favourite parts of the day. She reads so well! And I love love love it when she does voices. The best.

What We Read This Week (20/04/2025)

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You may recall that the last two weeks have featured Each Peach Pear Plum. A book I remember from my childhood. A book I loved in my childhood. A book the Christmas Eve Book Fairy gave to S, much to my delight (ahem). Last Sunday, I had been asked to recite it on the way home from church. Monday, I was asked again on the way to daycare drop-off… and C learnt it herself on the way home.

Having not really heard it all that much (she is allowed to do Mathletics or Procreate or Patterned, or read in our bedroom away from tired and trying-to-sleep younger girls), I was quite impressed that just a few hearings embedded it in her brain. She then suddenly had a new favourite thing to do, and this was recited – let’s just say, a number of times – over the next few days. And evenings. I had to limit it a bit, and ask her not to say it at certain times when S might start to think she was being put to sleep, which would result at the time in either major tantrums because “IT’S NOT NIGHTTIME”, or S actually falling asleep during the day which would be an absolute disaster in the evening. 

But do you know how I know it was really embedded in her brain? Wednesday night. S was having an overnight wake. Needing me in their room, sleeping on the floor. Wanting a bottle (“with milk. Warm milk”, like she’s maybe had it other ways and like she’s a feisty little Jane Bond). Then C started talking in her sleep. “Each peach pear plum, Tom Thumb – no he’s not there!” Giggles. S, thankfully, was in the almost asleep again phase and just let the words wash over her. About five minutes later, “Robin Hood over the – no. Wicked Witch over the wood. LEAVE ME ALONE. [giggles]”. And that was that. I was amused, and very glad I had been asked to sleep on the floor. When I told her in the morning, C found it hilarious.

Meanwhile, S has been in a bit of a phase – well it’s been like this for a while, really, where she picks a book off the shelf and has it in her cot as she goes to sleep. Sometimes it’s just in the cot, as in, within the bars of the cot but nowhere near her. Sometimes it’s propped up against the bars like she’s been reading it. Sometimes it is wedged what looks like rather uncomfortably poking into a part of her, usually a leg or her tummy. This week, the book of choice has been Timeless (by Kate Canby), and I have been asked to read it before she goes to sleep with it under her head like a pillow. 

E picked another book from childhood this week, but by this one being “from my childhood”, I mean, the actual physical book that I remember from my childhood that my parents brought over at some point in the last year. “Bible Stories For Children” is a large book with several of the Old and New Testament stories in it, with usually just a double page for each story. This is perfect for bedtime. Before she asked me to read any to her, though, E had clearly had a look through herself because I was asked to read the “one with a man falling out of the ship”. So what followed was me turning over every single page to find the RIGHT story involving a ship. That one has been requested a few times (it’s the one of Jesus calming the Sea of Galilee and nobody actually falls off a ship but the picture is misleading thanks very much illustrator). 

Her other favourite is the rainbow story. I absolutely loved the experience of reading this one to her for the first time. It involves her name. There is a rainbow (she loves loves loves rainbows). And I could tell her about the morning that she was born, when my parents were looking after C and they went onto the balcony and saw a rainbow. And I can remind her what her name means and how she embodies that every single day. 

True to their style, no actual Easter books were read this week. They will probably be in high demand around October, I’m guessing. Sigh.

What We Read This Week (13/04/2025)

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How many questions can a 4-year-old ask? Is there any end to them? How many times will the same question (or statement, for that matter) be repeated in the space of five minutes? By how much time will this extend the length of time it takes to read one (1) bedtime story to said 4-year-old? I know, I know. These are questions upon which philosophers have pondered for all eternity – well, at least since there were 4-year-olds. 

I do love all the questions from E. I especially love discovering what she has discovered and thought to question. I admit, I do get a bit frustrated when I have seen her eyes get droopy and her breathing is slowing and I make the stupid thought that she is nearly asleep so therefore I might have an earlier rather than later night myself with some time to do Anna Things and then the next thing I know I’m hearing “Can I have a story?” Sigh. Then of course the wide selection by her bed (Superworm, Easter Egg Hunt, Beauty and the Beast, countless others) are all met with “No, not that one” so she is now fully awake and out of bed to look on the bookshelf for The (Right) Bedtime Story. 

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is her most recent favourite choice, which is one of our First Reader books. The First Reader publications just have slightly simplified language, so some of the beautiful language of stories for younger readers is lost. This particular one bugs me with what the mirror replies to the queen, but anyway. Some of the questions I have fielded have been: why doesn’t the queen like Snow White; why is Snow White tired; why are the dwarfs all so small; which one is your favourite dwarf; why does the prince kiss Snow White; why does the prince want to marry Snow White; why does Snow White want to marry the prince; why don’t they invite the queen to the wedding. All great questions. Whenever a story gets to a chance encounter followed by an immediate proposal, I always make a great drama out of what a silly thing that is to do. This one is going to have a discussion about consent arising from it soon, too. Kissing Snow White while she is unconscious?! Such a big no-no.

Each Peach Pear Plum has continued to be THE Bedtime Story, so much so that E made a chance reference to a page while we were out today. C looked at me and repeated it with the biggest question mark of a face, so I explained E had just quoted some of the book. And then I managed to recite the entire book, so that’s another one in the repertoire. C was delighted by it when she realised it was ALL nursery rhyme characters all in the same story.

C and I have continued with What Katy Did, but C now gets to snuggle in MY bed for French and Katy. C loves being in our bed and the snuggle factor far outweighs that of the sofa so, with these slightly chilly (as in, no longer summer hot) evenings, that’s our new normal. All of Katy’s goings on still make us both chortle, and C is expanding her vocabulary even more. Wonderful.

What We Read This Week (06/04/2025)

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Would you like to guess how many times I have read a particular book to S this week? We’re talking, since last Sunday evening until this Sunday evening. Guesses? Admittedly, I haven’t actually tallied it myself but let’s see. Every evening x1. Sometimes a bonus reading if “Read me a story” didn’t get her to sleep and a second reading was required. Overnight wakes needing 2 or 3 readings. Thankfully these don’t happen every night but this week there would have been (thinking back) um 3 or 4. To be conservative in our estimations, let’s say that bonus evening readings number 3 and overnight wakes also number 3. By my calculations, this means that I have read Each Peach Pear Plum to S 16 times this week. Yes, I have read it sometimes while sitting on the floor and falling asleep over it but S always wakes me with a “Keep reading! Keep reading the story, mumma!”, or “Muuuuuum keep reading the stoooooooryyyyy”.

E has heard it a few times, too, on account of going to bed at the same time as S on nights after daycare. I have discovered that if I show S the pictures and then E the pictures, E gets really upset that I’m not reading HER the story. If I just hold the book so E can see the pictures, then S doesn’t hear the words. So I have learnt this week to just hold the book on my lap as I sit on the floor in between the bunk and the cot, and read it as if I am reading it to myself. I am so looking forward to the girls reading this during the day and actually spying the things to be spied. 

E has also asked for a story a few times at bedtime this week, then had a look through the bookshelf in the bedroom and made a selection. I have started reading her choice to her and after a few pages she has said, “No, not that one” and pulled out the Easter Egg Hunt pull the tab book which I gave her at her first Easter and is now missing nearly all of its flaps. This week she has absolutely loved it. 

Meanwhile, after a little break as she went all independent reader on me (which I love), C is back to needing me to read to her. Evening routine is now that she has a bath or shower straight after the younger two, then does her own reading or can be on the iPad with selected approved activities. Mathletics, Procreate, Patterned and Flood-It are all allowed. Hello Kitty Island Adventures is only for special occasions. Once I have two sleeping girls, I shower if I haven’t already then C and I do French on Duolingo (more than 100 days in a row so far!). This is followed by me reading to her. 

Currently we are reading What Katy Did. I read this when I was young – like, upper primary sort of young – and I just remember the result of the accident, really, and some of the vibe of the setting. Most of it, I am discovering, has blown out of my brain so it is like we are both reading it for the first time. We have both laughed and laughed at some parts, such as when the children are trying to give the impression of being already asleep after getting up to shenanigans while Aunt Izzie was out, or the reading of a story written by one of the children and then the critique that followed. I am cherishing having this snuggle time with C again. Even though she seems to be all elbows and knees right now, spending this quiet time with her as we read together all curled up on the sofa under my elephant blanket is one of my favourite parts of the day.

What We Read This Week (16/03/2025)

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It didn’t feel like we read a lot this week. Superworm and Tiddler are still way, way up the top of the list. But then I noticed the pile of books at the end of my sofa. Just like years ago, long before S was born, and when E but really C would pick books for bedtime and a pile would develop on sofa arms and tables. I noticed the pile. I thought, you should really put those books back on the bookshelf, Anna. 

So I started to gather the books, and what had started off looking like maybe 3 or 4 books just kept getting bigger. It was like Mary Poppins’ bag. Because I am who I am, of course then I started taking photographs so I could make notes of which books they were. This isn’t strictly speaking what we read just this week, but definitely in the last 9-10 days.

Tabby McTat. Zog and the Flying Doctors. Tiddler. (Side note: Superworm and Zog are in the girls’ bedroom, along with the Boy Who Ate Everything, two copies of Little Red Riding Hood and Pop Up Punctuation). Matilda. What Katy Did. Little Ash: Party Problem! Bears in a Band. The Story About Ping. Don’t Call Me Bear! Pig the Fibber. There’s No Such Thing As Monsters! A Sleepy Snorey Dino Story! (Lots of exclamation marks, I’m just noticing now). The Other Ark. Ten Minutes to Bed; Where’s Father Christmas? That’s Not My Lion… That’s Not My Reindeer… Never Touch a Grumpy Unicorn! Hammerbarn. Bluey: 12 Days of Christmas.

My goodness.

Clearly, C abhors a vacuum and has added a Dragon Girls book to my sofa arm, as well as reintroducing Matilda, What Katy Did, and bringing Black Beauty and Heidi to the sofa. Peaches for Monsieur Le Curé is still being read by me and currently resides on my current sewing project and underneath What Katy Did.

Yes. I am trying to be better at putting things away. In my defence, this book stack lasted for less than a fortnight, so there’s that.

What We Read This Week (19/1/25)

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There was not as much reading at home this week as there was last week. It was one of those weeks where a few books were read, and a few bedtimes included a story request or 3, but it was not a book-heavy week. 

Actually, this is the sort of week that Old Me used to worry about. “Read to your child every day” can carry a lot of guilt with it if, say, your child thinks it’s hilarious to run as fast as she can away from you, or if you try to start reading them the story that they have picked out and *asked you to read to them* but about three words into the first sentence you are told, quite firmly, to shush. No. No reading. The Old Me used to stress about this until I realised that they actually get a fair bit of reading exposure without me sitting them down after a bath to do Story Time. There is reading throughout the day. They have reading at daycare. More and more, the younger two are seeing C and me doing reading. The New Me has realised that forcing things on toddlers and preschoolers is a futile and frustrating course of action that has the opposite effect than that which is intended.

So this week there was not much, and that’s ok.  C read this chapter book today, which she seemed to enjoy.  “Pearl the Flying Unicorn” by Sally Dodgers and Adele K Thomas. E’s favourite book this week has been “The Moon Book”. Yeah, not its real name. “Goodnight Baby Moon” is NOT it, but the book she borrowed last weekend about Eid is. What a find. All the girls have also been loving a Japanese lift-the-flap type of book, about hatching animals. It makes me want to revise my Japanese characters!

S now has a bookcase next to her bed, with books she can access, so she has gone a little wild. She often falls asleep with a book under her cheek or pushing into her tummy, or being ruffled by her feet. Currently in her cot are the following: Hammerbarn (Bluey); Never Touch a Grumpy Unicorn; Where is Baby’s Belly Button; and an Ella at Eden chapter book. I am not allowed to read her any.

What We Read This Week (12/1/25)

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Things have progressed somewhat since my last “What We Read This Week” post. My girls now all love books. Phew! 

C now reads voraciously. Mostly she now reads silently, but when she does read out loud I am very proud to hear her doing voices and expression. She is very engaging! 

E switched from being impossible to read to, to loving books. She doesn’t always ask for one at bedtime, but if she has missed a sleep train then “May you please read me a book?” comes out.

S. Hoo boy. What a journey it has been. They say it’s not a good idea to compare your kids, but really. C: lift the flaps and board books and paper books all fine from age dot. E: enthusiastic lifting of flaps as a baby means there are some that are no longer attached. S: all flaps removed; all board books pulled apart; now very careful and sincere with paper books.

All this, plus a developing ability for my girls to adhere to my “It’s time to go now” statements, have meant we have started visiting the local library again. Christmas was a very “book-y” Christmas, from us as well as from relatives. I am often pondering how to incorporate a reading nook for the girls and how to house the books and how to keep on top of library books.

So what we read this week is rather more wide-ranging than it used to be. Hallelujah! Instead of listing alllllllll of the books that have been collecting on the girls’ floor this week (and on my bedside table and on the sofa and on the rocking horse of all places), I picked a book the girls have each favoured reading this weekend, plus some that I found for them that I am loving, plus – gasp – a book for ME! Astonishing.

Whenever I need to take a breather in the bedroom, S comes in to help me feel better (that new doctor kit is getting a workout), and insists I read “Blossom Possum” as many times as she can wheedle out of me. I think it was a find at the school library’s culled book fair, and it is chock full of  Australianisms and rhymes. E found a book about Eid at the library and I read it to her 3 times at the library and another several times today. It is a beautiful book. C is on a mission to read every Geronimo Stilton book that the council library has to offer. I’m not sure how many there are. I’m not sure how many she has read. “Happy Birthday, Geronimo!” was the find yesterday, which was finished by the afternoon. 

“Be You” is one I feel every kid should have in their mind as early as possible. “What Feelings Do When No One’s Looking” is a very lovely approach to accepting our emotions, something I struggle with but am trying to overcome. And “My Name Is A Gift” is the one that makes me tear up. We thought long and hard about names for our girls; their names and meanings are so precious to us. “My Name Is A Gift” is a beautiful expression of the importance of a name and the importance of saying it correctly. 

Because C had finished her sole library book within a few hours, and I had cleared off my bedside table with its stack of her books, “What Katy Did” was floating around and, sure enough, C started reading it and just casually left it on my pillow. 

I actually started reading for me again recently. I have a large number of books on my phone, and I read a murder mystery last month, the kind of thing that I used to read all the time. When I started the second in the series, I got tired of it. I won’t blab on about why, but it reignited my desire to read good books. So at the library, I went on a hunt for books by an author I have followed on Twitter and Instagram for years but never read. Two books by Matt Haig were found; I borrowed one, “The Last Family In England”, and I have no regrets.