I don’t remember what age Silas was when he seemed to understand what exactly I was doing with the whole book thing. I’ve been reading aloud to him for basically his whole life. I read over a hundred books that I kept track of to him before his first birthday (incidentally, he now reads so much, already, that I’m only tracking super favorites).
Petra has, to this point, pretty much ignored books or considered their merits as teething toys. Within the past week or so, though, she is suddenly very interested in them. It started with Global Babies, which is one of my favorite board books. It features photographs of babies from all over the world. She squeals and points to the babies. The other day, she tried kissing them. She hugs the book. She pats the baby. This evening, she said, “baby!” when I got the book out.
Another big hit is Baby Farm Animals, illustrated by Garth Williams (who also illustrated the Little House books and Charlotte’s Web). Silas adored that one, too.
Today, though, she really surprised me. I checked out a couple of Tasha Tudor books from the library, for Silas. He was not interested, but Petra was completely enamored. She had to examine every page of The Springs of Joy, pointing to each child, corgi, goat, and robin. She squealed and clapped her hands. She traced all the flowers in the borders. I’ve never seen her get this excited about a book before.
So there we go–the beginning of bookworm #4 in the Huber house. From what I’ve seen so far, she has impeccable taste.
his hole life?