Book Review #1: Edition what was supposed to be on The Forgotten Garden is actually on Moo, Baa, La La La

I just read a whole book.

This may seem like a small achievement to most, but barely having tucked my first year of motherhood in my belt, this is an accomplishment indeed.

Usually I am an avid reader.  It is probably the reason I became a teacher.  Some of my favorite childhood memories are gleaning new titles from book shop owners after running out of books to read at my own house and school library (wow - nerd alert!).  And now, for the first time in my life, I am finding that I have stacks of un-read books on my bedside table.

To be fair, I have read some of all of them.  That is except for The Dawkins Delusion - shocking, I know.  Apparently I go for young adult (YA) fiction over academia.  Now we see why I'm not getting my PhD too though most of you didn't need evidence.

For fun, I snapped a photo of Taylor's bedtime reading.  He loves to be reading a million books at once, so it has one thing in common with my side.

Further evidence of why he is getting his PhD and not me.
(The one  YA novel is purely due to my influence - we are reading it aloud together and are on about page 5. because I can't tear him away from his 5th reading of The Lord of the Rings.)

I am pleased to find that after passing the year mark, I'm finding time to read something longer than a blog post here and there (though I am super thankful for the invention of the blog so that my reading material goes beyond Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See and Goodnight Moon - not that I don't love reading with Seth; it is one of my favorite things to do!)  Recently, after an animated lesson on "Books: A Survey on Your Feelings about Reading" for the conversational English class I teach, some Chinese students asked me when I first started reading to Seth.  I had learned from our conversation that it isn't common in China to read aloud in families.  When I told them I had started reading to Seth immediately after he was born, they were amazed.

Seth is the baby on the left and cousin Caroline is on the right.

Seth's love for reading makes this former lit teacher's heart so happy.  He would rather look at books than play with toys!  He has recently started interrupting my housework by holding out a book to me with a look of such earnestness that of course I comply.  I mean seriously housework or reading to this guy?  Easy choice.

And I get this face if I don't comply immediately.

He has actually paused the writing of this post about twenty times so that I can read Things That Move or Peepo.  We actually read Peepo so many times in the past 48 hours that he now has part of it memorized.

His favorite book though is Moo, Baa, La La La and I have to commend his choice as it may be the only book that I can actually get through the sentence on the page before he is turning to the next one.  That Sandra Boynton is a genius!  He has also memorized sections of this book too.  My favorite part is when he starts wagging his finger while adamantly saying, "No, no!'  when we get to the page where the pigs are said to say "oink" instead of "la la la." Can you guess what Little Man hears a lot these days?

Pause my music before clicking play on the video if you want to see Seth "read."

So this was going to be a book review on Kate Morton's The Forgotten Garden, but I think I will save it for it's very own post tomorrow.

Read to your kids (no matter what age)!!

American readers, go and visit Elizabeth's blog to enter her giveaway - it closes July 31st!