books for babies

i've gone in babies-r-us twice in the last week.

the first time, i was buying a gift. the second time, i convinced jamie to go back with me so i could show him everything. they make a lot of stuff for babies these days. i kind of got tripped up by the exersaucers, walkers, and jump seats. are you supposed to buy all 3? we will not be buying all 3. and, of course, i fell in love with a stroller even though we already have a stroller that was given to us free. the one we have is cute, but the other one has elephants on it. there's no way i can justify buying a new stroller just for elephants. also, they're now making baby cribs big enough for a full size adult human to sleep in. seriously, the cribs at babies-r-us are nicer than our bed. and despite the signs saying the cribs had passed all safety standards, jamie convinced himself that our child could still fall between the mattress and the side of the crib. he kept going around to each crib, reaching his hand down and saying, "i just don't think this is safe."

for now, most of those kinds of purchases are a long way off. there are too many uncertainties about age [and gender] that we don't feel comfortable buying anything...not even a crib. i guess some people would find that disappointing because the natural thing to do when you're expecting a baby is to nest. but we aren't disappointed because we've found one thing we can buy now for our kids that won't be a waste later: books.

reading daily to our kids is a huge priority for us, so books are a great investment. we buy a few each paycheck and put them away on a huge built-in bookshelf upstairs. a lot of the books we have bought [and hope to buy] are books we read when we were kids. others are books that have been recommended to us or that we have seen in the store. here are some of the ones we've purchased so far:

























i think curious george and harold and the very hungry caterpillar are familiar characters to most people. but i'd really recommend mama miti to anybody who has [or will have] children from africa. i like the story a lot, but it's the pictures that are most captivating. i've also got to give a shout out to it's OK to be different. i know some people might freak out because being "different" is sometimes not really OK in this society...or in the church for that matter. but the author covers a lot of ground in the book from "it's OK to have help" [with a picture of a person with a seeing eye dog] to "it's OK to be adopted" [with a picture of a puppy in the pouch of a kangaroo] to "it's OK to eat macaroni in the bathtub, which is probably not really OK, but it's still cute. and lastly, we are obsessed with the jesus storybook bible. it's so good, jamie and i are reading through it [instead of the "real" bible] for our nightly devotion. what's great about it is that every story ends pointing towards jesus. it's a great way for a young child to understand how everything fits together rather than hearing a bunch of discombobulated stories that don't really seem to fit together. the clarity with which this bible tells the story of redemption is really unparalled. the other great strength of this bible is that the illustrations don't make you think jesus was a pale white guy.

so now, i'm looking for more recommendations. what's your favorite children's book you had as a child or that you read to your children now?