One of the benefits of writing this blog is occasionally gaining little tidbits of inspiration from fellow Magpie moms as to the books, toys, and activities that might appeal to my children. I thought we could engage in a mindshare today: what are your kids loving right now, at their ages? (This might be good fodder for holiday gifts.) As for mine:
Emory, age 8!
When I think of my girl, I mainly think of her as a reader. She is never without a book and often reads multiple at once, which impresses me — I only came into “reading simultaneous books at once” as an adult. I asked her how she chooses between them, and she says, “just based on my mood.” A woman who knows herself and takes her own joy seriously! I would say we’re pretty disciplined (metered?) in our home around a lot of things, but I am intentionally lax and soft about anything related to reading. We’ve always let them stay up late to read, encouraged them to soothe themselves back to sleep with a book or audiobook when upset by nightmares, brought them to bookstores and libraries so that they can load up their arms, made audiobooks widely available to them (they will play them at the breakfast table, in their rooms as they’re falling asleep, etc), ordered them the next book in a series if we see they’re into something, permitted them to read whatever they like. This last one was tricky when she was into the graphic novel / Dogman era (which, interestingly, she has largely outgrown at this point), and I worried about the maturity of the themes in some and the cruel humor in others. But I came to feel it was more important that she should have a sense of freedom and autonomy in her readership, a space to learn her own tastes, and this has panned out well. (On a practical level, I also thought — there is probably no way to keep her from reading what she likes; kids will seek it out! — and tried my best to read bits of what she was reading in tandem, having conversations about the unpleasant bits.) I see a lot of my parents in this tack. When I was growing up, my parents treated books like a utility; it was something we were entitled to at all times and in enormous supply. My mother took us weekly to the library, and I can still remember my Dad inviting me to purchase thick stacks of books from Barnes and Noble — “absolutely, you can have these.” They were tremendous models of readership themselves; even in the carpool line, my mother would read a page or two while idling. Anyway, Emory is a book girl, often curled up in her corner chair by the fireplace with her blanket, lost in a book.
AMERICAN GIRL BAKING COOKBOOK // HARRY POTTER // SWEATSHIRT // DISTRESSED JEANS // WOOM HELMET // KLUTZ LOOM ANIMALS // BEANIE BOO // JOURNAL // UGGS // SOCCER BALL // ADIDAS SNEAKERS // PIP POST POST EARRINGS
+She is currently reading Harry Potter and The Hotel Between. I am reading HP alongside her — it’s my first time, too! — and when I tuck her into bed, she likes me to read her Shel Silverstein poems. They are perfectly calibrated to her age — silly and clever, with lots of wordplay and “justice” themes, and the illustrations are fantastic. Funnily enough, she found the poetry herself; I have old books that belonged to me in her closet, and she came across The Light in the Attic with its inscription from my uncle: “To Jennifer, a special and wonderful girl.” I’m so charmed by this cross-generational accordion around poetry! I also wouldn’t have thought to read her poetry, but she elected it all on her own. She’ll also binge read graphic novels when in the right mood, and has read and re-read the Roald Dahl books countless times. We enjoyed reading The Borrowers together over the summer.
+Into any and all handicrafts — rainbow looms, Klutz crochet, fortune tellers, friendship bracelets, Klutz mini erasers. Klutz is such a great brand; their kits are my gifting go-tos at the moment.
+Obsessed with illustrating and journaling. She and my son love using how-to-draw videos and books; they could spend hours working on this. She keeps a journal that I fastidiously avoid looking at; it’s her safe place. I keep a little cache of journals and notebooks in my gift closet, and she’ll come to me as soon as she’s finished one to trade up. Sometimes these are pretty keepsakes, and sometimes simple.
+Toys: she’s more likely to be found reading, drawing, making something with her hands, but we do sometimes overhear her playing with her Playmobile sets, American Girl dolls, and — very occasionally — Barbies. She’s still big into stuffed animals – Squishmallows, Beanie Boos!
+TV wise, she loves the kids baking show programs; this American Girl cookbook changed something in her. She asks to bake something almost every weekend, and I think a lot of the enthusiasm stems from the baking shows. She recently watched and loved “Mighty Ducks.”
+Sports: swimming, occasional tennis, soccer. She’s currently playing soccer in a rec league and had a hat trick (!) last week that may well be one of her greatest sources of pride. She loves to ride her Woom bike.
+Music: “Life of a Showgirl,” Benson Boone, Olivia Rodrigo, relaxing Disney piano (she and my son listen to this at bedtime – it’s charming!)
+Clothes: oversized hoodies/sweatshirts, jeans, flared leggings, Uggs, Pip Pop Post earrings. I have found over time the best brands for her are Zara and Mango — they have slightly elevated takes on the trends. Mango in particular does a lot of “mini” versions of what I would wear, which is very much her speed.
+Food: I’m omitting the usual kid obsession with all sweet treats. Emory loves yogurt and yogurt parfaits, pears and apples, and will try anything we give her — a huge accomplishment after years of battles of the wills at dinner time.
Hill, age 6!
The essence of Hill at six: refuses to wear anything but boxers around the house (!), will wake up early to work on the 1000 piece puzzle downstairs, wants to throw the football all the livelong day. He’s also our social butterfly; he’ll look out the window “to see if anyone’s out there” and sprint downstairs to chat with neighbors if they are. He and my daughter have a profoundly special relationship with our next door neighbors (who have one high school aged daughter); they have taken such loving interest in our children’s lives, and it makes me farklempt just to think of it. My children pass many hours of the week chatting with our neighbors in the cul de sac, on their front porch, while walking with the neighbors’ dog. When my son received a soccer trophy last weekend, he sat outside and waited for them to come out so he could show it off!
COMMANDERS SWEATSHIRT // CAT’S CRADLE KLUTZ BOOK // DEADLIEST SNAKE BOOK // 1000 PC PUZZLE // FRANKLIN FOOTBALL // CADETS CARDIO SHORTS // CECIL AND LOU MONOGRAM HAT // VANS SNEAKERS // ZARA SWEATSUIT // PAPER AIRPLANE KIT // KINGDOMINO GAME // LEGO CREATOR SET
+Reading: The Who Would Win and Deadliest Creature series, DogMan (ugh), but he’ll still ask for picture books at bedtime, and we recently read and re-read Hello Lighthouse at the suggestion of several Magpie readers on the heels of my “lighthouse keeper” post. We were both entranced by the illustration, by the themes of passing time, isolation, connectedness, obsoleteness. Hill had so many unexpected questions while reading this: Why are lighthouses circular? Why can’t they be square? Do glass bottles float in the water? Does ice cover the entire ocean? He brings such a scientific mind to these texts, and I love to see what a poetic book like this elicits in him. We have also been making our way through a few chapter books: The Mouse and the Motorcycle, The Phantom Tollbooth. A teacher recently recommended these graphic novels as an alt to Dogman and I happily, readily ordered!
+Sports: football, football, football. Rarely without a football in his hands; begs his dad and sister to “throw the ball” about 1000 times a day. I recently bought him a Washington Commanders sweatshirt and I don’t think he’s taken it off unless forced to for school (he wears a uniform). He also plays little league baseball, CYO soccer, and enjoys tennis (when we remember to enroll him in the seasonal clinics).
+Obsessed with cat’s cradle, puzzles (1000-piece!), paper airplanes, checkers, any game that involves logic or math (King Domino! — this was a Magpie reader rec and has been such a big hit in our house), Uno.
+Was very into birding this summer — he’d eat his breakfast outside with Merlin running on his iPad, and report on the birds he’d heard. By the end of summer, he was pretty good at identifying most of the birds common to our yard by ear.
+Toys: Lego guy; he especially likes the “Creator” sets where you can build three different creations with one set of Legos. He’ll power through them, doing one, taking it apart; doing the second, taking it apart; etc. We also keep Magna-tiles and Lincoln Logs out in our family room area and he still plays with those regularly, even all these years later. He’s a builder!
+Music: Soundtrack to “Trolls Band Together.” I can’t tell you how many hundreds of times we’ve listened to this. Landon is more of a music stickler — he’ll put on what he likes in the car — but I let my kids DJ, as I figure it’s one small space I can say “yes” to when I feel like I’m more often a font of “no.” (Sigh.) Anyhow, we’ve listened to this so much, I know the tracks he likes me to skip and will anticipate them, and we sing several of the songs word for word together. He also loves K-Pop Demon Hunters and the song “Fox Hunt” by Sierra Ferrell. At night: relaxing Disney piano. (I think the playlist on Apple is called “Disney Dreams.”)
+TV: “You Vs. Wild,” any live-action nature shows, “Sonic,” “Trolls Band Together.”
+Loves to play video games — Wii sports, Mario, etc — but we severely limit this. I would say he has access to video games 1-2x a month, whereas we give them iPad time most days.
+Clothes: Washington Commanders sweatshirt, Cadets mesh or cardio shorts, performance polos (<<specifically this one with the sports motif), Adidas slides, Bombas socks, Vans Knu sneakers in red and black.
+Food: I’m omitting the usual kid obsession with all sweet treats. Hill loves cottage cheese, almost any slicing cheese, salami, pickles, and Cheetohs. He can be really picky at dinner time; we still have to cajole and coax him into eating new foods. I know a few of you have said your kids just aren’t big dinner eaters, and this seems to be his vibe, although I suspect this is because dinner is where he encounters the most new cuisine and advanced flavors.
OK, share — what are your kids into?! What’s on their radar? Book titles, games, tv shows! Spill the good stuff!
P.S. Recent clothing finds for kids.
P.P.S. Gentle packing lists in motherhood.
P.P.P.S. The almost invisible milestones in motherhood.
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Oh I am so glad you enjoyed Hello Lighthouse! Isn’t it a beautiful book?! Thanks for all of your recs—what a great idea. My daughter (age 9/ 4th grade) is also a book girl, and her favorites lately have been Winterhouse, the Mystery at the Biltmore series, and The Swifts series by Beth Lincoln (she is in a mystery phase!). Also, I recently gave her my old laptop (with no internet access) solely for the purpose of typing up her stories, and she is now writing her own mystery book. It’s so cute! My son (age 7/1st grade) is also into Cat’s Cradle. In a similar vein, we got him a knot tying kit last Christmas, which he loves and comes back to a couple times per month. He has been loving the Wild Robot books lately. For better or for worse, both of my kids fall asleep to audiobooks every night—Ramona for my son (read by Stockard Channing!!) and Harry Potter for my daughter. TV rec: Hilda! Game rec: Splendor and Splendor Duel (my husband and I play the latter quite often, too!)!
I have 4 kids(7,6, 3,1) and I recommend checking out Wonderbooks at your library! They are hardback books that read the story outloud(think when you here ding, turn the page). They have them in simple books up to chapter books. My kids have all enjoyed them! They are a nice change from the yoto stories, since you can follow along in the book.
Hadn’t heard of this! Thank you! x
OH ! And for kids musice, The Okee Dokie brothers are AMAZING. Their song grandmother tree brings me to tears a lot of the time. They are great in concert too!
Have you seen Brambletown? It’s their PBS special, it’s sooooo good
Love, thank you!
At Hil’s age my sons loved the podcast Greeking Out, it is REALLY good and all about the greek myths. Highly recommend. And for all the parents out there worried about their readers/non readers. Research shows–early reading and love of reading/future reading skills are not related. Be patient. My most voracious reader could not really read until after 2nd grade. In a lot of scandinavia they don’t even teach reading until 2nd grade so that EVERYONE is ready. Best predictors of future readers, books in the house, being read to and parents who read.
Have heard such good things about that podcast! We have a small road trip tomorrow and going to test with my kids — thanks for the reminder!
Love these other notes – very encouraging! xx
My wonderful kids!!
T is nearly 4. He’s the funniest little person. He says “Is that amazing?” after every story he tells, and always surprises me with his vocab words. He likes singing the teenage mutant ninja turtles theme song (he’s never seen it but has a few toys), he loves Wild Kratts, Tiny World, and all things creature-related, he likes me to sing him early Beatles songs at night. His special animals are a skunk, a black bear, a tiger, and a yellow bunny. He and his sister both have special blankets and are always trying to steal each others’. He loves to dance and sing and make music. He has a toy accordion that’s getting a lot of play lately. He’s got a real sense of rhythm. His favorite book is called Glouton: Le Croquer des Livres, or anything funny like Bathe the Cat. He likes scary/spooky/monstrous books, and let me tell you, French libraries deliver. He adores my old Walter Wick I Spy books. He likes SpongeBob and Tumble Leaf and Daniel Tiger. He adores his teacher and class. He hates being naked outside the bathroom and changes from pajamas to day clothes as soon as the sun is up. He likes to dress himself and usually won’t see the whole look until the mirrors in our elevator, when he exclaims, “Mom, I look so cute!!” He likes to look “fancy” and wear his church clothes especially if he will see my MIL or his aunties. His favorite foods are pancakes, rocket, chorizo, pesto meatballs, and carrot soup. He loves bubble gum. He tells me all the time that I’m the best cook.
M is starting to speak in whole sentences. When I picked her up from creche she looked into my eyes and said, “missed you SO much whole time.” My heart! She says “help you” all day long, and wants to cook, to tidy, to wipe or wash. She loves books so much already and carries one everywhere. Favorites are The Pigeon Finds A Hot Dog, Lilou joue à la poupée, and Goodnight Moon. She’s really into cutting play food right now, coloring, and toy cars. She’s in a phase where she practices new skills for hours: climbing the rock wall at the playground, opening and closing a belt, putting her shoes on. She’s always nude at home. She only wants to wear pink. She loves kitty cats and my MIL’s elderly golden retriever. She knows the names of all the extended family and her friends. Favorite foods right now are salmon, potato chips, Greek yogurt, chicken quesadillas, chocolate, ice cream, French toast. She likes to sit in my lap and will eat things doused in hot sauce from my plate. Her special animals are a pink fluffy bear and all the Bluey ones even though we don’t watch it much these days. She loves Ms Rachel, Moana, Elmo, and singing Arabian nights, Petit Escargot, and Ainsi Font Font Font. Everything is “mine” especially her blanket, bed, and doll in her vicinity. Both my kids love curious George. We’re in a real natural world phase and exploring anything that piques their curiosity, so right now we have walnuts in the shells and a nutcracker to experiment with.
Gosh thank you for sharing these darling portraits of T and M! “Help you” — ah! The sweetest holophrasis.
xx
I loved this post and found so many great tips and things to explore! My 4.5 year old is really into books and being read to but can’t read himself yet. Any tips for that? How did you encourage that book love with pre readers? I have three kids, he’s my oldest, and I often have to say no when he asks me to read to him because of other things going on. We read at bedtime and whenever we can, but it still requires a lot of no. I would love to adhere to the idea that they can have books anytime, but looking just at pictures doesn’t do it for him and my husband and I simply have too much going on to constantly be reading! Welcome any tips!
This is such a great question and I’m curious to hear what other readers would say. He might be a tad on the young side, but you could try audiobooks/Tonies/Yoto player that he can access himself so he can “listen” to the stories whenever he’d like, or maybe look for some graphic novels? He might be a tiny bit young but I think that’s around when Hill began mirroring his sister by looking at those. The pro is that they can often puzzle out what’s happening just by looking at the frames. Maybe also temporarily slotting in like 10 minutes of family reading where you might not usually — audiobook together in the car, or read to him while he eats his cereal in the morning, etc? Will keep thinking on this…welcoming other perspectives!
My family always did audiobooks on the way to and from church!
My son is enjoying brief books he’s memorized with visual cues! Sandra Boynton’s Blue Hat, Green Hat is a favorite. He likes to read it to his little sister and try for a really funny delivery. He can also flip along and look at pictures, I used the Yoto app to make him a card with recordings of me reading all his favorite books, and he often gets to listen to that while he waits for me to put his sister to bed, or the Frog and Toad one. The app is really easy to use. Audiobooks from the library, or there are movie versions of a lot of picture books on Hoopla and YouTube, my kids love The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog. « Wimmelbooks » which are all about looking/noticing are great, his favorite of those is My Busy Day. Harold and the purple crayon is one I read him a lot and he likes to just look at the pictures. We use our little free library a lot and he’s often delighted with a new book to flip through even if it’s not one on his level, his favorite right now is an out of date atlas from 1992. Pull tab or lift the flap books are fun even without the story, my kids love Where do You Poop? Which is also helpful if you’re potty training any of the younger ones. Physical books adapated for their hands are nice, my daughter is tiny but carries around her Bluey Little Library ones.
Recording yourself reading a book on Yoto — such a cute idea!
Hi again! I asked my sister, who is an early reading specialist / teacher and she had this to say:
“That’s so wonderful that he enjoys books so much! How precious that time must be of bonding when you are able to read with him and nurture a genuine enjoyment of literature together.
But as you mention rightly, it is unrealistic to be able to do so nonstop! And, he should develop the important skills of independence anyways in order to enjoy reading solo in the future.
There are many factors which contribute to children learning to read with success: feelings about reading, motivation, concentration, endurance, phonetic knowledge, and other skills.
My suggestion would be to take an honest assessment of your son’s strengths and areas for growth. If your goal is for him to learn to read independently, work with his teacher using any formal and informal assessments available to understand his current pre-reading level, and set realistic, developmental, attainable goals to work on.
If your goal is for him to spend time independently, without you feeling guilty, remind him lovingly that you cherish your nighttime reading ritual together and that he is welcome to choose to work on his reading skills by himself (there are many alphabet books/ workbooks, literacy toys, and early readers available) but you are busy at this moment. Additional ideas for allowing him to enjoy books at other times might be sometimes reading during breakfast, for example, or helping him listen to audiobooks, e-read-along books on a device, Yoto player-type devices to listen to books independently. Check out your library’s selection of VOX books for ones that read along with him (there are other brands as well).
Know you are already clearly giving him a fantastic foundation for a long future of enjoying books.
Thank you so much for these wonderful tips! And thank you to your sister, Jen. I am ferociously googling and planning now. ❤️
Oh good, I’m so glad – right there with you! xx
Love this Jen! Thanks for all the ideas!
My boys are almost 6 and almost 4.5. Here are a few of their favorite things!
Books – I love reading! But my kids….sigh. I know there’s still time and I’m telling myself when my oldest can read (he’s learning now in K), that could change things. The one audiobook I got them to listen to that I highly recommend: is Kate DiCamillo’s The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. (fyi: There is a death in this book, but it’s kind of lightly done.). Loved it. I got it for free on Libby. As far as picture books, Mo Willems’ Knuffle Bunny Series (all 3!) have been probably the biggest hits in our house throughout the years. And my favorite gift to book new parents is All The World.
Audio – They love PBS Arthur Podcast!! So, I’m hopeful this will be a step toward more audiobooks in the future when they’re attention spans grow (hopefully? lol)
Music – one of the biggest wins for me this year is we’ve begun listening to the Zelda music (since they play Zelda Ocarina of Time on the N64) and the Zelda music is classical and beautiful. Also my youngest is being the world’s cutest Link for Halloween.
Sports – Just wrapped up our first soccer season and the Pugg Goals in the backyard are heavily used. Also swimming lessons. Hanna Andersson now has a used website of “hanna-me-downs” and I got swimsuits there that I love. Their stuff holds up so well!
Games – Board games continue to be huge in my house 🙂 We have yet to get Kingdomino but have Dragonimo (the younger kids’ version) which is great! My eldest is in Chess Club at school and plays chess nearly everyday at home. We love Sleeping Queens (which I found from this blog, so thank you Magpies!), as well as Sleeping Queens 2. I am about to gift my eldest Mancala for his birthday and am excited to play it with him!
Oh I LOVE this comment. We also have the Pugg goals! Thanks for the reminder about “All the World” — one of my favorites. We don’t read that one anymore and it made me feel a little pang of sadness just thinking about it!
There is absolutely still time on the book front. Not that this is your situation, but wanted to share that when Hill was 4-5, I was internally struggling with the fact that he only liked to read nature books at bed — would actively reject all of the gorgeous picture books that Emory had loved. Like, nothing wrong with reading the encyclopedia of animals and animals facts and dinosaur facts page by page night after night, but I worried that he didn’t seem interested in “stories”; where was he going to encounter classic characters and narrative struggles?! I’d really have to push picture books on him! But I was determined to put my money where my mouth was (bad book girl ethos) and let him read whatever interested him and not force it. So I leaned into his interests with him — I chatted with librarians who recommended books up his alley, I got him all the “dark ninja animal predator” type books, I got excited about the books he was excited about, etc. I now know a lot about things like angler fish and mosquitos — ha. And now he reads so happily on his own, and loves to trot out the facts. Basically, I’ve realized that he, also, is a great reader, just reading a completely different canon than my daughter. Not that this maps to your sons, but felt like something germane.
xx
Has Hill seen Wild Kratts or the older Kratts Creatures? He may love! Or the Apple TV series Tiny World is fun for the whole family, and it adds some narrative. Narrator is Paul Rudd!
Mo Willems has an excellent YouTube channel! Here is Knuffle Bunny as voiced by him and his kid. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKLbn8HdHp4
I’m actually shocked to see all of the Dog Man/Captain Underpants hate. While I agree the books aren’t what I would prefer, I do think they have made reading for my 8yo son so incredibly enjoyable and isn’t that would reading should be? Especially when they’re first navigating the world of reading on their own. It’s also not as though he will be reading these kids of books forever. I see them as a stepping stone into a love for reading.
You are so right! They have such great value in that regard, and I do think graphic novels are a powerful on-ramp for early readers because they can piece together what is happening visually even if they can’t work out all the text. xx
My daughter is hitting the Dog Man phase and I need actual actionable steps to take and words to say bc I HAAAATE this series! She is not fully reading on her own yet (like can read 70-80% of it) and I too want to support that she can read anything and everything she wants – but these characters are just so rude/annoying? I start to read with her and then I’m like ugh blah. Help please!
I feel you…hopefully she doesn’t discover Captain Underpants (even worse!). I tried to be very neutral about it but finally implemented a rule where they can read it themselves, rent from the library, purchase with their own money, borrow from friends, but I will not read it WITH them. This was candidly after I’d read the series with them multiple times at bedtime at their request, so there was a grin-and-bear-it phase…I guess it was important in retrospect to help them read what they wanted when they couldn’t do it on their own. But now I just say “I prefer other books; I don’t like how mean the characters are too each other. But you are welcome to love what you love and I’m happy you have books you look forward to reading.” Etc. I made the conversation about accepting different book preferences / respecting their choices / sharing my own. My kids were fine with it — ha. They still read them regularly! But at bedtime, we’d read something else together.
xx
PS – curious to hear how other moms tackled this!!
This is great! And super helpful for the childless person with a lot of children in their life. So I’m not desperately googling “toys for 6 year old boys” a week before a birthday.
Oh good!! I’m glad this was helpful!! x
NYMag’s The Strategist has really helpful guides by age level!
Love the idea of giving your kids access to audiobooks throughout the day. I remember having a little cassette player with a case of audiobooks on tape when I was younger and loved the autonomy of it. What do you use to play audiobooks? We have a toniebox, but generally use it more for music.
Yes! I also had a cassette player and would play audiobooks and music and felt very independent. I shared this below but repeating here —
I have an Audible subscription and we’ve purchased/rented a bunch of children’s titles through that plan. Both of my kids have iPads with Audible downloaded, so they can either access the audiobooks that way (we’re pretty strict about screentime, BUT we will permit them to bring the iPad into their rooms or to the breakfast table if they’re ONLY listening to audiobooks), or — what they do at bedtime — can airplay a book to their bedroom via their HomePods (they both have HomePod minis). Our setup is very Apple tech intensive I realize! We really bought into the ecosystem and use the homepods as intercoms, too. Our kids either have music or audiobooks on in their bedrooms at all times! We encourage this!!
An alt starting place would be to download the Libby library app — you can get audiobooks through there — to their iPad, or maybe put an Echodot if you’re not an Apple family?
xx
I’m so interested to hear any suggestions for slow books and slow movies, by which I mean books like Secret Garden and Heidi and movies like Velveteen Rabbit. I find so much of our life with little kids to be busy and loud, and lengthy meandering books and slower movies really seem to bring great peace into our family time. My kids are nearly the same ages as yours. Was the Borrowers appropriate for that age group? I was also considering Wind in the Willows or Little Princess?
Love this, and all for a “slow life” – “Borrowers” is definitely in this category; Emory and I enjoyed reading it at night as a wind-down. It is really comforting with all its victorian language and intricate descriptions of rooms and the natural world. I agree that any Burnett would be good. I tried “Heidi” with Emory and that was a big pass on her part; not sure if it was idiosyncratic to her. “Wind in the Willows” — my kids loved this audiobook. Will never forget the afternoon we were all out of sorts and I put it on in my room and they quietly filtered in and laid on our bed and just listened for a solid hour. It was so beautiful!
I am just remembering that I loved the book “Mandy” at around this age, maybe a little older (“This is the perfect book for ten-year-old girls who love tiny houses and stories filled with hope”) — and also “The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles” by the same author. Both have a similar slow, quaint, charming vibe. My SIL loves the Tove Jansson “Finn Family Moomintroll” series for this age, too — I read those growing up. Whimsical and charming. Thanks for this prompt! I just ordered several of these books for my daughter!
xx
This post was a great jumping off: https://open.substack.com/pub/withyweather/p/boring-tv-for-children?r=ddm&utm_medium=ios
I have fond memories of This Old House and The New Yankee Workshop with my dad, and TOH still puts my kid right to sleep!
We also love Brambletown, The Repair Shop, old movies, Frog and Toad, The Tiger Who Came To Tea, all the lyrical movies based on the Julia Donaldson books but especially Zog and The Snail & The Whale. I was 8 when my mom read me the borrowers, The Trumpet of the Swan, and Charlotte’s Web. I also put on videos of birds singing with no other audio when I need my kids to calm down. This channel has some good ones: https://youtu.be/rX3ofy-olZw?si=C2G2nMSNDttXx5Ad
Love the bird channel! I would watch this.
My first thought for a slow read aloud was Swallows and Amazons. Lots of descriptions of sailing and the everyday details of a summer adventure.
Love!!
My daughter is also 8 and I completely understand where you are coming from with the Dog Man books (though I did at least have an easier time reading those than many of the Captain Underpants books which made me squeamish). We then had the opportunity to see Dav Pilkey speak at a wonderful children’s museum we have here built around children’s literature, The Rabbit Hole. That opened my heart up to his books even more. He has such a beautiful story and purpose. If you have the chance, look him up. Though it sounds like she’s moved onto other series now, if you find Hill gravitating towards them soon, knowing more about Dav really helped me see through all the crude humor.
And also, I’m with you! While I sometimes feel sad she’s not interested in reading some of my old favorites like the Wind in the Willows or Pippi Longstocking (yet), I just try to meet her where she is. We don’t count the minutes we read; we just similarly try to make it available nearly all the time, however it interests them. I enjoy hearing about your approach, and your parents’ approach, to books. I realized mine also took a similar approach and so do I; I will almost never say no to buying more books (Squishmallows, on the other hand).
On that note, how do you do audiobooks with your kids? Both of mine have Yoto players, but recently our 8-year old’s stopped working and through conversations with their support, it sounds like it’s at the end of its life. She recently discovered the Playaway books at our library, so I’m hoping to find some kind of player for her for Christmas. Something that can support audiobooks through Libby or our Audible subscription, but also Spotify. Curious if anyone in this community has recommendations! Particularly for something that’s kid safe (no open-ended online searches) and can handle being dropped from time to time.
Hi Rachel! I actually did read a little bit about Dav (I think my son read the author’s bio and told me about it first!) and it softened my heart a little bit…but…eek! I really have a tough time reading those books. Maybe need to read some more about him! The rule in our house is that they’re welcome to read them, rent them, buy them with their own money, but I won’t read them to them at bedtime. I explain it like this: “they’re not to my taste; it’s OK that we all have different tastes and I’m glad you’re reading something you enjoy.”
Re: audiobooks. I have an Audible subscription and we’ve purchased/rented a bunch of titles through that plan. Both of my kids have iPads with Audible downloaded, so they can either access the audiobooks that way (we’re pretty strict about screentime, BUT we will permit them to bring the iPad into their rooms or to the breakfast table if they’re ONLY listening to audiobooks), or — what they do at bedtime — can airplay a book to their bedroom via their HomePods (they both have HomePod minis). Our setup is very Apple tech intensive I realize! We really bought into the ecosystem and use the homepods as intercoms, too. Our kids either have music or audiobooks on in their bedrooms at all times! We encourage this!!
An alt starting place would be to download the Libby library app — you can get audiobooks through there — to their iPad, or maybe put an Echodot if you’re not an Apple family?
xx
Omg! When I was 4, my cousin came from Korea to live with us while he attended college here and brought me copies of The Light in the Attic and Where the Sidewalk Ends. They were Korean translations, with an index of the original English poems. They were my favorites and I used to beg him to read them to me before I could read (English or Korean) myself. Those were the first books I put on our registry when I was pregnant. I think my daughter is now at an age to really appreciate them— thanks for the reminder to get into them, I’m excited to read them to her tonight! (Ps I also still have my tattered copies on my bookshelf.)
Oh I love this! I’m so glad this post bumped the books to the top of your reading list with your daughter! So special 🙂
Jen, I read these with my mom about that age and they were such a delight! https://www.amazon.com/Joyful-Noise-Poems-Two-Voices/dp/0064460932
Ordered! THANK YOU! xx