Triple Tuesday

I have decided to share books in sets of three each Tuesday that center around one theme.  The theme for today?  The zoo!  Summer is a great time to explore all of the exotic and interesting animals that make their home at the zoo.  At our local zoo, the Kansas City Zoo, we get to travel from Africa, to Australia, to Asia and back home all in one day!  I have to say, Africa is probably my favorite!  I love to see the giant giraffes, the zany-striped zebras, and the hippos hunkered down in their mud-holes.  Below I review three books that have give my kiddos and I an opportunity to meet (and even hear!) those animals, and more, at home when we are not at the zoo.  And then when we do get a chance to visit the zoo, it makes the experience that much more entertaining and educational.  Happy zooing!

Simple First Sounds: Noisy Zoo

We love noisy books at our house right now, as my ten-month-old is loving to imitate sounds. His older brother received this book as a gift for his first birthday, and it has been well worn. We all love to make the sounds together, making our house sound much like a zoo; and, raising boys, the feeling of living in a zoo is not all that unfamiliar. The Noisy Zoo is written like a science textbook, and since I prefer narrative and literature, this style took a little geting used to; however, young ones can learn about the animals' body parts, habitats, and distinct characteristic. What I enjoy about this book is that it engages young babies with the sounds and colorful photographs, while also growing with the child and teach older ones new animal vocabulary and facts.



Dear Zoo

Our local librarian introduced the fun book Dear Zoo: A Lift-the-Flap Bookto us during story hour last year. A child narrator writes to the zoo asking for a pet. Young readers turn each page "opening" a package from the zoo, but the animals are just not suited for being pets--the giraffe is too tall, the lion too fierce, and on it continues. Will the zoo find the right animal pet to send? Read for yourselves to find out!



Alphabeasties and Other Amazing Types

This fun new find is full of flaps and rhymes and pop-ups and beasts! Each page uses unique type sets to create animals and pictures out of letters. Learning letter recognition is hard with so many fonts and typefaces out there. That is why I love the concept behind this book--the playful poem at the beginning says it all: "Blocky or small, thick or tall, Roundish slope-y, fancy or dopey. Letters lok different in all different places, That's because they have different typefaces!" So when your child turns to the "P" page, he or she will find an orderly line of penguins all fashioned from fat p's and skinny p's thick p's and short p's, sans serif p's and bold face p's--it brings an entirely different meaning to "P is for penguin"! How fun to learn about animals and letters at the same time. Check outAlphabeasties: And Other Amazing Types at your local library to see what I mean--words alone cannot do this book justice.