Books to Play By

Tickle by Leslie Patricelli is a board book that inspires participation. The toddler essentially dares someone to try and make him or her laugh with the statement, "I am NOT ticklish."

Of course, Dad the Tickle Monster must prove his baby wrong. This simply begs that the reading experience between child and parent or grandparent or older sibling also devolve into a ticklefest.

Interior from Tickle

On the page where all of the toddler's ticklish body parts are labeled, that same parent or grandparent or older sibling will similarly follow with "Are you ticklish on your belly button? Your knees? Your toes?" It's a fun way for a toddler to learn the names for all the parts of his or her person while also being lovingly tended to by a trusted caregiver.

Board books that invite interaction are a wonderful way for children to associate books with laughter, play and imagination. Patricelli's Tickle leads nicely into other interactive books, such as Nina Laden's Peek-a-Who?, Taro Gomi's Peekaboo!, The Baby Goes Beep by Rebecca O'Connell, illustrated by Ken Wilson-Max, and William Steig's Pete's a Pizza--books that also inspire pretending and playing together.

Reading is not a passive experience, these books demonstrate to youngest children; books are a way to get involved, whether physically (as with Tickle and the other aforementioned board books) or emotionally and imaginatively, as they get older and begin to read fairy tales and other stories.

Laying the Groundwork

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “No way. I finally got my kids out of school, and she’s already talking about the first day back.” Yes, you’re right. Feel free to tuck this one away until August. Or, you might think about it another way.

Mouse’s First Day of School by Lauren Thompson, illustrated by Buket Erdogan, is really a story about Mouse hiding in a backpack and going to school accidentally. In the process, Mouse takes the mystery (and therefore the anxiety) out of that very first day. And if you begin reading this little Mouse adventure in, say, very late July or early August, by the time school comes around, this will all be old hat. Your preschooler or kindergartner will be far less intimidated than he or she might have been.

Recently, I got to witness the value of arming a toddler with information as my brother and sister-in-law prepared my two-year-old niece, Maggie, to undergo open heart surgery. She was born with a hole in her heart, just like her mother. For weeks, Suzie (her mother) talked to Maggie in simple terms about what the procedure would involve. They would give her something to help her sleep through the operation, the doctors would sew up the hole in her heart, and afterwards, she would wake up to see Mommy and Daddy there, and she would have a scar on her chest, just like Mommy’s. (I might be leaving out a step or two, but you get the idea.) Every once in a while, Maggie would check in with her mother to ask a question or to make sure that she understood how it would go. “We have matching scars, Mommy?” she would ask. By the time Maggie got in the car to head out for her surgery, she knew the steps by heart. The hardest thing for her was leaving her big brother, seven-year-old Tiger, behind.

If you’ve been with me for awhile, you know that I’m a big believer that children can understand a great deal, and that whatever they can’t take in, they will simply ignore. So even if it seems like your toddler is not taking in Mouse’s first exposure to a classroom setting, you may be surprised on that maiden trip when he or she walks into that preschool or kindergarten room and says, “Look! There are blocks, just like Mouse’s!”