Journey to 1,000 Books: Reading to 300
Editor’s note: This is the second part in a series documenting one parent’s approach to 1,000 Books Before Kindergarten.
The first hundred came and went, then the second hundred and now we’re closing in on our third hundred.
That’s right, after dusting 100 books, 200 went and now my daughter Holly is past 300 books.
It should be noted, of course, that it isn’t necessarily 1,000 different books but 1,000 books in general and that’s where the second update comes from: We’re kind of sick of everything we’ve already read.
I should say ‘we’ meaning my wife, Ashley and I. Holly isn’t sick of many of the books yet.
Here are Holly’s most-read books (and links to them in the EPL catalog if you’re interested in for your own little one):
Llama Llama Red Pajama by Anna Dewdney (10 times)
Pete the Cat Saves Christmas by Eric Litwin (9 times) – I am aware it’s summer right now, don’t ask
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See by Bill Martin Jr. (19 times)
This is Baby by Jimmy Fallon (9 times)
The Pigeon Needs a Bath by Mo Willems (8 times)
And of course, there’s an assortment of little board books like Babies First 100 Words that we look at a lot but don’t log because it’s not really a narrative and we don’t always look at every single word in it.
In order to not get burnt out on all of our books, we of course hit the library. I found a few books that I remember when I was a kid, like Is Your Mama a Llama. Holly likes llamas, or maybe we’re projecting that on to her, but her favorite stuffed animal is a llama and then she really likes Llama Llama Red Pajama so we’re just going with it at this point.
But it also allowed us to find other books with characters she really likes. We’ve picked out other titles by Mo Willems, Eric Carle and other Pete the Cat books.
Finding variety is key, but at the same time, your kid is going to go through phases with their favorite books. Holly has been near-obsessed with The Pigeon Needs a Bath lately, but a couple of months ago it was Brown Bear, Brown Bear, so who knows what it’s going to be next month.
That’s OK though, because we can tell she’s picking up words from the books and that stuff only comes from repetition.
Happy reading!