Baby M Hearts These Books!

A few weeks ago my mom bought Baby M the book Tails, by Matthew Van Fleet, and it changed her little life. It is an illustrated picture book that also has textures for your baby to feel, and tabs to pull to animate things while you read along. And it is the book I read to Baby M at least 5 times in a row before she goes to bed every night.

As I sit there reading the few words in the book, she immediately knows where to go on each page to feel the different textures (scaled tails, fluffy tails, bristly tails, etc.) and even has some favorite tails that she loves to feel over and over again with her pointer finger on her left hand. It has gotten to the point where when we get to the end she shuts the book and then opens the front cover and looks at me like, "Um, again please." It could be the cutest thing I have ever seen.

But the problem we have run into is that I am unable to read her any other book right now. If I get out Big Red Barn, which has quickly fallen from her top 3, she simply feels the first page for something different, realizes that it is just a plain old board book, shuts it completely and tries to knock it out of my hand. While this behavior makes me laugh every time she does it, I am getting crazy sick of reading Tails over and over and over again!

Luckily, while on one of our many visits to Costco, I came across another book by Van Fleet, Alphabet. This equally fantastic book has the same textures and animation, but is almost twice the length - even more feely fun! I just had my mom go on a mad search for a third Van Fleet book, Heads, and just now saw that he has a Dogs and Cats book as well.

I can't recommend these books enough, but I recommend them with the warning that you may not be reading anything else for a long time!!