What's Basbusa reading?

I have a list of about fifty favorite books which I've been saving during my year-long blog hiatus, so most of these books are ones we've returned to the library long ago. So most of these books (and those in many future posts) are ones Basbusa first loved as a two-and-a-half year old, but she's still enjoying them just as much now (at three-and-a-quarter).

Seen Art?, by Jon Scieszka... Oh, how Basbusa loved this book, and oh, how I grew to loathe it! The premise is pretty corny, in my opinion - a kid, looking for a friend named Art, ends up being directed to look for him inside MOMA in New York. He gradually realizes that all these funny-looking paintings and exhibits are Art after all (even though they're not the Art he's looking for). I thought it was a pretty transparent way of duping kids into an art-appreciation exercise, but Basbusa (who picked it out herself) just couldn't get enough of it, on any of the three times we checked it out from the library. I think she mainly enjoyed the repeated misunderstandings rather than the art itself, but I guess she absorbed some culture in the process :)

Lucy & Tom's ABC is the only alphabet book Basbusa has liked so far (and we've tried zillions)! It's not you're typical "A is for Alligator" style of book; each letter stands for something important in the lives of Lucy and Tom, a sister and brother with all the appeal and charm of ordinary preschoolers. For example: "D is for dogs. There are four dogs on Lucy and Tom's street: a little fluffy one, two medium-sized ones, and a big one called Duchess. Tom doesn't like Duchess very much because she always knocks him down." We love Shirley Hughes' books, both for the stories and for the illustrations (my mum saved Moving Molly, Helpers and Dogger from when my sister and I were little, and all three are on Basbusa's all-time-favorites list).

Seashells by the Seashore is one I saw praised over at The Adventures of Bear, and both Basbusa and I enjoyed it a lot. The plot is simply a day which three children spend collecting different kinds of shells as a present for their grandmother, but the book is also a counting book, a very useful manual of common shells, and is written in rhyme. The illustrations are pretty too. We managed to identify a slipper shell, an ark shell and a periwinkle on our last trip to the beach!




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