Books We Read: Picture Books That Sparked Our Love for Reading

Reading books about topics I find interesting was put on a back burner for quite sometime before the whole world went into pandemic. When the pandemic forced businesses to take a break; workers to work from home and people to stay indoors, I found having more time in my pocket that I could possibly ask for. I rediscovered my love for reading and incorporated it back again in my daily life.

This also overflowed into my son’s life. Since we were left to enjoy the world from the safety of our homes, I made it a point to build Kimi’s exposure to books as a priority. Books have the capacity to tell a story, to transport him to a different dimension, to teach him valuables lessons about life, to work the imagination and to expand his vocabulary as well as his world. And weren’t these what we needed most at that moment?

Building Kimi’s library of picture books is one of the things that I am currently obsessed with. We started with a few picture books during the winter and these were what we have grown to love:

The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats is probably the picture book that I love reading to Kimi over and over again. I am sure that this is the book that Kimi loves to be read to again and again as well, as evidenced by him choosing it first over the other books laid out.

The book features Peter, an African American boy, who leads us to an adventure around his neighbourhood after the first snowfall of the season. I have incorporated exaggerations with pronunciations and small actions that Kimi can follow while we read the book which he find very amusing and enjoyable. Although we do not experience snow in this part of Australia, this book is very relatable to a young child as he can have the same sense of wonder like that of Peter’s of a seemingly new world and wanting to hold on to that magic of a new world forever.

The next book is Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd. I got this recommendation from the book The Read Aloud Family: Making Meaningful and Lasting Connections With Your Kids by Sarah Mackenzie.

Aside from it being a wonderful bedtime book, it also offers a bit of an “I Spy” game to the reader. I think that is what Kimi loves most about it. I, on the other hand, loves how the vibrant colours mix on the page. I also appreciate the alternating coloured and monochromatic pages across the book - with the coloured pages being crowded with colours and objects and overloading the senses and the black and white pages exemplifying calmness and focusing on a thing at time.

The third book is Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell which is a very straightforward book but one that is filled with surprises. I still remember quite clearly the first time Kimi and I read this book, both of us anticipating which animal would we see next every time we lift a flap.

Where is the Green Sheep? by Mem Fox and Judy Horacek is a book filled with, you guessed it right, sheep. This book allows the reader to build-up some excitement and anticipation around the whereabouts of the green sheep and the guesswork around that “thing” the green sheep is doing at that moment. It is a subtle book about diversity.

Last but not the least is We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury. It is a nice book about a sibling’s adventure and their encounter with different challenges and scary places which they are able to overcome by facing and going through it until they found a bear which prompted them to run back home, across all the obstacles again, while being followed by the bear. In the end they hid under a duvet and vowed to not go on another bear hunt. I love how the book is filled with repetition and onomatopoeia, which are words that sound like the same words they are describing, which are very relatable for young children.