Must Haves

What books are must haves in your household?

The Gigantic Turnip by Aleksei Tolstoy and Niamh Sharkey

We order many books from Barefoot Books. They happen to be some of my favorite children's books and my daughter has a particular fondness for them. I think in part because of the great stories and beautiful and colorful illustrations. We bought The Gigantic Turnip about a year ago and we still read it on a weekly, sometimes daily, basis. It is based on an old folk tale from nineteenth-century Russia.

An older couple plants vegetable seeds and by the end of summer the garden is full of all different types of vegetables, including one gigantic turnip. It's too hard to pull out so he asks his wife to help. It still won't move, so they ask the cow for help, the pigs for help, the cats for help, the hens for help, the geese for help and the yellow canaries for help but the turnip still will not move. This is the set up for the ending which I will not spoil here.

There is great cadence and repitition in this book which is one of the reasons why it is so catchy for children. The recommended age is 5-8 years but I think that is more the age for children to actually be able to read it alone. We have been reading it to our daughter since she was two and she was interested in it immediately.

Overall, it is a cute book and the pictures are pretty amazing as well. It comes with a read along CD, which we still have never used but I know many kids who like to have the book read to them by someone other than mom or dad, so that is a nice bonus.

I Spy Collection

I asked my daughter to pick out one of her favorite books and she came back with I Spy Little Letters. Basically each page has a little rhyme like, "I spy a fire on an F for me, and golden glitter on the letter G." Then on the following page there is a picture with those items hidden among other images. My daughter enjoys searching for all of the "missing items". It's a little like Where's Waldo.

It's a fun alternative to traditional stories and the rhymes are fairly catchy. I bought these not really thinking they would hold much interest but I was wrong.

So, let me know what you think.

Freckleface Strawberry by Julianne Moore

Freckleface Strawberry by Julianne Moore (yes, the actress) is one of my daughter's favorite books. It is about a young girl who has red hair and freckles. She hates her freckles and does everything she can to try to rid herself of them. She eventually takes to wearing a ski mask to school. Her classmates don't realize the "new girl" is really Freckleface Strawberry (a little unbelievable to us as adults). She realizes how lonely she is without her friends and when she finally takes off the ski mask all of her friends shower her with love. She realizes that she'd rather have freckles and a million friends than no freckles and no friends.

I think it is a cute book and there is something catchy in repeating Freckleface Strawberry. My daughter, however, loves this book with a passion that I don't quite understand. She will often wear her ski hat and refer to herself as Freckleface Strawberry (even though she is blond and doesn't have freckles).

I would recommend this book for girls at least three years of age or older. It is geared toward kids a bit older, but it has definitely captivated my daughter's interest so it will just depend on your child's preference.

If anyone else has read this please let me know what you thought of it.

What is Sarah Select?

Welcome! I have two small children (ages 3 and 1) and books are a major part of our lives. We love to read and I am always looking for great new children's books. Over the course of these three years we have built quite the library. I find that many of my conversations with other parents revolve around books. So the purpose of this blog is to compile a list of children's books...some well known and some that are not. If you have books you would like to recommend that I add, please leave me a comment and I will definitely check it out.

Thanks for reading.