In March, I welcomed my fourth grandreader, a beautiful girl named Bhoomi, into the world and into our family. Her older brother, Ira, has already introduced her to many things, including books. So far she seems to prefer cloth books, preferably with mirrors (no surprise there), but we also get a kick out of reading and singing her namesake book, the rhythmic Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault, illustrated by Lois Ehlert. The Kamala Harris-themed coconut tree is a fun bonus.
All my grandkids have surprisingly long attention spans for reading (IMHO) but, as they get older, their ability to sit still for longer books is the biggest thing I notice, especially when it’s a subject they’re interested in (obvi).
Instead of having a stack of books at the ready, I like to point them towards my bookshelves and tell them to pick a few. Though there aren’t usually big surprises, I think it enhances the reading experience.
Two-year-old Harry is all about identifying objects on the page (ah, the genius of Richard Scarry). At this point, he’s not into books with plots, but he responds to the language and, especially, the illustrations. He has fallen completely under the spell of the repetitive language and bright illustrations of Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr. and Eric Carle, and the equally enjoyable sequels featuring polar bears, panda bears, etc. He also loves the charming Bizzy Bear board books by Benji Davies, starting with Bizzy Bear: Pizza Chef. It’s great fun for him to point out Bizzy Bear on each spread.
Harry’s partial to anything truck-related, especially garbage trucks. He enjoys the Construction Site series, and if a book contains a garbage truck and truck noises, Bob’s your uncle! Two favorites are Listen & Learn: Vehicles and My Big Book of Happy Sounds by Marion Cocklico, both of which enable him to point to individual vehicles when the book calls them out. He still enjoys reading to himself, even more so in a little chair. But now he’s okay with reading together, especially if we read books of his own choosing (see above).
Ira, at three and a half, continues to adore books. Books are a huge part of his young life and he has very strong emotional attachments to his favorites, which are often “aspirational” (above his age in theme and vocabulary). With a new baby in the house, he has realized that reading with the adults in his life guarantees him exclusive attention from them. He has incorporated some of the language of his favorite books into his own (fun examples: calling things “a disaster,” which he learned in Arthur’s Vacation by Marc Brown, and “truly magnificent,” which he picked up from Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler).
He loves all of the Arthur books by Marc Brown (including the podcast!), The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler, and anything by Richard Scarry (he can proudly locate Gold Bug on each spread). He’s started to realize that words on the page match up with illustrations, an exciting big step. Since he graduated into a toddler bed and has a nightlight in his room, he’s started to grab books and read to himself in the dark. A true booklover. This feels like familiar behavior to many of us, but Ira’s only three!
He likes books about farms, farm animals, and jungle animals, but he also likes books that have a repeating ensemble cast of animals that take place in the same familiar setting, like the Arthur books and the gentle series featuring Peppa Pig. Like Prince, the legendary singer-songwriter who was inspired to take on the color purple because of the book, Ira is fascinated by Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson and its sequels. A recent fun book for Ira (and me) is I Like Your Chutzpah: And Other Yiddish Words You’ll Like by Suzy Ultman. He likes to repeat all the Yiddish words, but claims that mishegas is his favorite, because it’s silly.
There was big news for nearly five-year-old Olympia (and me) when Pizza for Pia, my first book for kids, was published in May. Not only is the protagonist named after Pia (her former nickname), but the book is dedicated to her. Olympia has decidedly mixed feelings about the book. She’s confused because the girl in the book doesn’t look like her, the family is different, and, even worse, Olympia loves pizza, while her fictional counterpart does not. I’ve gotten a great reaction to the book from other kids, so that will have to suffice for now.
At nearly five, Olympia can read, write, recite all her letters, and write her own name (and a few others, like G-Ma!). She’s started to connect with the words on the page in books as we read them. She’ll often point to a word and ask what it is, and, like many kids, she corrects me sternly if I miss even a word when I’m reading to her. A careful observer, she also loves pointing out that a certain illustration also appeared on the cover or even the frontmatter of a book.
She continues to be an avid reader, with an ongoing preference for books about princesses, fairies, mermaids, unicorns, etc. The Fancy Nancy series by Jane O’Connor and Robin Preiss counts, as does anything featuring Taylor Swift, especially the Little Golden Book biography. She has also recently returned to the comfort and familiarity of one of her first loves, Curious George.
It’s really fun to read the same book to Olympia and Ira and gauge their reactions. A recent example is the brand-new picture book Umami by Jacob Grant. In this case they responded identically, both finding it laugh-out-loud hysterical and having a lot of fun trying to decode the mysterious foods in the illustrations.
For me, there’s nothing under the sun that compares to reading with my grandkids. It’s my favorite thing to do with them, and one of the great joys of my life. And if I’m helping to raise a new generation of enthusiastic booklovers—what could be better?
Til next time, happy reading!
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Betsy Groban, a former children’s book publisher, is a correspondent for the Boston Globe and the book review editor of the Jane Austen Society of North America. Her first book for kids, Pizza for Pia, was published in May by Simon Spotlight.
