Favourite books.

Sonja wants to read the same books over and over and over. No different from any other kid. It's tiresome for Peter and me because we have to read the same books time and again, but it always makes me smile when I realize that Sonja memorizes the books just as well as we do. It gets to the point where we can leave off the last few words of every sentence and she will finish them for us. It's so cute that it can actually make reading that same old book fun again.

There comes a time when a book has to be taken out of the rotation to save my sanity; I simply can't bear to read it again. So it will stay on the shelf for a few months while other books take the place as favourite. And then one day that old book is found and almost feels brand new again. Very exciting. What's amazing is that not only do I remember most of the words, so does Sonja and it's as if we had never stopped reading that book at all. Honestly, the memory on that kid is incredible.

First lines of five kids' books that will never be wiped from my memory:

1. "Did you ever hear of Mickey, how he heard a racket in the night and shouted, 'Quiet down there!'..."

2. "The sun did not shine. It was too wet to play. So we sat in the house. All that cold, cold, wet day..."

3. "Corduroy is a bear who once lived in the toy department of a big store..."

4. "I wanted to keep some frogs in the bathtub, but Mom wouldn't let me..."

5. "In the light of the moon, a little egg lay on a leaf..."

But the first line that wins the Most-Read Award is:

"Late one summer afternoon, Lisa and her mother took their laundry to the laundromat..."

This last one is from A Pocket for Corduroy by Don Freeman. Sonja calls it "Corduroy Pocket." Peter and I must have read this book to Sonja hundreds of times and to this day if you ask her what book she wants to read, she'll answer "Corduroy Pocket!" without even thinking. She doesn't necessarily want to read this book, she has just asked to read it so many times in the past year-and-a-half that it just blurts from her mouth out of sheer habit. 

The nice thing about reading A Pocket for Corduroy is that I can literally close my eyes and have a little rest while my memory and mouth do all the work.

Sonja, three-months old, and her first favourite book,
Elmer and the Lost Teddy, by David McKee.

"Elmer could hear crying. It was baby elephant.
He had lost his teddy and couldn't sleep..."

And in case you're wondering: 

1. In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak

2. The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss

3. Corduroy by Don Freeman (the first of the Corduroy books)

4. I Was So Mad by Mercer Mayer

5. The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle