It has been a while since the last favorite books entry on this blog, so here we go…

For bedtime stories, Claire has been reading the Harry Potter series almost every night for months now.  We just finished up book #3, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.  Claire loves the HP series and has a tendency to think it is real.  Occasionally she even insists that it is real, a non-function book as she put it once.  Each time we finish reading a book, we get to rent the movie afterwards.  After watching one of the movies, Claire said, “Do you think that is what it really looked like?”  She seems to understand that the movies are just movies but thinks they are based on real events.  We have stressed to Claire that the stories are made up by J.K. Rowling, a nice,  talented writer from England.  One time I showed Claire an interview of J.K. Rowling on The Daily Show just to drive home the point that this is all made up by this one lady, and there she is.  Claire seems to understand rationally that the story is actually fiction, but it also just seems real to her.  That must make the stories very vivid for her.

For the sake of mixing things up a bit, we are trying Nancy Drew mystery series now.  Claire is luke warm on Nancy Drew.  She says it is alright, but it is just not as exciting as Harry Potter.

We also listen to the Ramona Quimby audiobook collection every day after school, while driving to pick up Molly.  Listening to Ramona stories peacefully in the car with Claire after a hard day of work is a highlight of every day for me.  I really look forward to those 20-30 minutes.

As for Molly…

Molly has more variety than Claire at the moment.  It is hard to pin down a favorite.  She can pick three books to take to bed each night, and usually they are different.  Lately, though, one of the three is almost always one of the big Harry Potter books.  This is surprising since Molly cannot read and the books have no pictures except for the cover and the start of each chapter.  But Molly seems to enjoy the pure physicality of the Harry Potter books and insists on saving her place with a bookmark every night.  Molly also loves Claire’s school yearbook from last year (kindergarten).  She loves to look at all the kids and teachers, some of whom she knows.  The third book is the wildcard.  A long-running favorite is Dr. Seuss’ Big Green Book of Beginner Books.  She keeps a bookmark as she works her way through this book too.  She likes any Dr. Seuss book, of course, but this big one is her favorite.  Basically, she likes big hardback books.  Molly also enjoys pop-up books such as a Peter Rabbit pop-up that we have.  She also enjoys some cute little books such as the square Little Miss and Mr. Men books by Roger Hargreaves and the occasional book about potty training.