Reading Notes: New favourites and old in picture books

My 3 year old loves being read to, especially now that she's starting to make sense of the code that is words on a page. It occurred to me that I used to do a monthly wrap-up of what she was enjoying, book-wise, and I haven't done it for ever so long; maybe this is a good opportunity to look again at what's floating her boat, now she's 3 1/2.

She's really loving the works of Janet and Allen Ahlberg at the moment; The Jolly Postman and Peepo! are her particular favourites. The Ahlbergs are family favourites, really; A was obsessed with the Jolly Postman and Jolly Christmas Postman for years, while E still sits down with Each Peach Pear Plum sometimes to try and spot all the hidden details in the pictures. C, however, is a Peepo! girl all the way. She's so, so fascinated with the baby's-eye glimpse of family life it offers, while I, reading it to her, am enchanted with the glimpse of 1940s-English-city-life in pictures.

She's loving the new book in Chloe and Mick Inkpen's wonderful Zoe and Beans series, Zoe and Beans - Pants on the Moon. We got sent the first of these books, The Magic Hoop, last year to review, and it was an instant hit, so much so that I sought out and bought the Christmas story in the series, Zoe's Christmas List. C loves the goofiness of Beans the dog, the soft, watercolour-style illustration, and the gentle, funny plotting. She's very taken, in Pants on the Moon!, with the notion of floating up to the moon in pursuit of a runaway line full of pants; it tickles her, every time. It's a charming book to read aloud, and I'm not bored with it, even after multiple rotations, which should tell you something important about it :-)

It's not all good news, though. Much to my personal displeasure, she is going through a stage of obsessive delight in Babette Cole's Doctor Dog books. I find these books pretty gross, truth be told - funny, yes, informative, yes, but also more than a little nauseating, frankly. A Dose of Doctor Dog in particular is a book that I refuse point-blank to read at mealtimes; it puts me right off my food. However, C adores them, just as her sisters did at a similar age, so I try to stifle my inner sigh and read them with gusto.

She has adopted three personal favourite books, that are read a minimum of twice a day each, and which she will sit with by herself, moving her finger along the text and murmuring the well-known words to herself. They are David Melling's The Scallywags, Helen Cooper's Delicious! and Ragnhild Scammell's The Wish Cat.

I've written about our devotion to Helen Cooper more than once on this blog; suffice to say that this beautiful book is a happy re-reader for me as well as for C. The Scallywags, which is funny, mildly subversive and vibrantly illustrated, is another great storybook, and The Wish Cat is just lovely, sweet and heartfelt, with a simple, not-preachy message of love beyond appearances. C adores them all.

What are your preschoolers enjoying at the moment? Any new things I should check out for C?

Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of Zoe and Beans: Pants on the Moon! for review purposes courtesy of Pan Macmillan Australia. No financial payment was offered nor accepted for this post. All opinions expressed are purely my own.