Every night we have a ritual in our home. The Hubs and I make sure to read at least one book to our kidlets (usually, it’s a lot more). Sometimes it’s books they’ve brought home from their weekly trip to our local library or a book from their own collection. It seems like I’ve read them all the kid lit classics — Dr. Seuss, The Berenstain Bears, Curious George, The Pigeon books and Little Golden Books, just to name a few.
I always love it when one of my kidlets hands me a book, snuggles up to me and demands politely says “read me a story.” There are some books I’ve read so often that I seem to know them by heart. I breathe their rhymes, rhythms and repeats. It’s a joy to see that my kidlets, aged 3 and 5, are starting to recognize them too and read along with me.
The Hubs and I love to read and we hope our kidlets will also be avid readers. We always encourage family to give the kids books instead of toys as gifts. For my daughter’s birthday a few weeks back, my mother-in-law sent her three books that I’ve just fallen in love with myself.
They are BabyLit board books – a fun way to introduce young children to the classic literature of William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, Charles Dickens, Lewis Carroll and even Bram Stoker. I don’t want to mislead you here. These are not real story books, but rather counting and color primer books. However, they feature key elements from these classic stories combined with some simple text, that introduces young children to the characters, imagery and bit of the story they can understand.
A page from the Little Master Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet counting primer book
My daughter was given Little Master Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet, Little Miss Austen’s Pride & Prejudice and Little Miss Bronte’s Jayne Eyre for her birthday from her Granny B, she herself had seen them in a magazine and thought they were cute.
A Page from the Little Miss Bronte’s Jayne Eyre counting primer book
These small, compact un-rippable board books (a plus with little ones) feature gorgeous illustrations, wonderful colors and clever literary touches that made me smile. I love how the colors used in these books actually communicate the moods of characters. My daughter doesn’t bring just one of these books over to me to read with her, she brings all three with her because she likes them so much.
A page from Little Miss Austen’s Pride & Prejudice counting primer book
There aren’t too many books in this collection. There’s a Little Master Stoker’s Dracula which would have been perfect for Halloween last week. I see that there is a Little Master Dickens A Christmas Carol that maybe our Elf On The Shelf might leave for my kidlets one night during his upcoming holiday stay. I hope that BabyLit will expand this series and expand to more classic literature and maybe tackle sounds, rhymes and even sentences. Anything that encourages young people to read, I’m all for it!
Now it’s your turn to share. What books do you like to read to your children?
