five things Friday: Hendrik's 2018 reads edition

One of my goals for 2018 is to log the new books we've read with Hendrik, so I've been tracking all of our selections on Goodreads, from the chapter books we've recently started with (so fun!) to the new-to-us picture books we've picked up at the library.

We've been doing a lot of reading while he's been home on spring break this week, so I thought it would be a good time to share a few recent favorites. I love pulling out some books from my childhood (Roald Dahl!), but I've also really been enjoying finding some new things, so we can both enjoy the experience of exploring something new at the same time.

1. Fantastic Mr. Fox was a favorite of mine as a kid, and we retrieved my childhood copy from my parents' house recently to give it a try with Hendrik, who loved it - though I did have to assure him a couple of times that Mr. Fox is so clever that he's going to make it out of all those sticky situations.

2. Can I Play Too? is an entry in the Mo Willems Elephant and Piggie series that is much beloved, but Hendrik hadn't been all that into yet. I think he's now hit just the right age for this particular brand of humor though, and for the almost comic book feel of the drawings/speech bubbles. I love reading these as an adult too, for how they portray complex emotions and feelings that come along with human interaction (learning to share, wait, etc.) in a subtle and always amusing way. This one in particular made us both laugh out loud multiple times.

3. The Street Beneath My Feet is Hendrik's "curious book", as he calls it, for all of the interesting things there are to learn about what goes on in the world beneath our feet. My mom found this one for him, and it's a fascinating (even for grownups!) journey to the center of the earth and back, exploring all of the things from bugs and fossils to diamonds and magma that are down there. It also has a really cool fold-out format.

4. Penguin Problems follows a penguin who really feels like he's got problems - he complains, "I'm freezing," "everyone's trying to eat me," etc. until finally a whale comes along and provides some perspective. It's funny and charming and has a great "find the good" outlook. Plus the line "I literally have no idea who you're talking about" made us both giggle so much when we encountered it, and hearing Hendrik repeat it out of the blue later on was literally the funniest thing about this book.

5. Mercy Watson to the Rescue is an excellent bridge between picture books and longer chapter books. Very short chapters with fairly simple (but not inane) language, great illustrations, and a story with a bit of adventure/excitement (Hendrik loved this idea of a pig living in a house, sleeping in a bed, eating buttered toast) but still tame enough for a 4-year-old. And it's a series, so if you get into it, there's more where it came from - excellent in our case, because Hendrik really enjoyed it.


I got the great Mercy Watson recommendation from several blog friends (thanks!) - anyone got more great ideas for our 2018 4-year-old reading list?