Irregular Books

There are a lot of baby books out there these days, and I guess that’s a good thing. Gone are the days when parents started to read to their kids at age two or three. Now, reading to infants is a commonplace activity, and I think it’s great.

Reading to your baby not only introduced him or her to the idea of literacy at an early age, but it fosters physical bonding and gets the baby used to parents’ voices. My son is just 14 months old now, but he’s been read to for just about a year. He picks up books, magazines, and newspapers and reads them himself now - not understanding the words of course, but holding the reading material right-side up (he’s been able to figure out right-side up on books for a couple months) and babbling to himself.

As you can tell, I’m quite proud of my son. The truth is that I’m proud of myself a bit too, for reading to him. Well, the book Spot in the Garden was one of my son’s first books, and one of my early favorites because of the way that it encourages father-son bonding.

I’m an enthusiastic gardener, and so I’m eager for my son to see any character, even a silly puppy, out doing gardening chores. Just like my son, Spot watches the birds, looks at flowers, and “helps out” with my little tasks.

That’s pretty much all there is to the book, seven little scenes of Spot hanging out in the garden. Fortunately, that’s about the right length for a baby. The truth is that almost no infant will sit still for a storybook where the pages are not changed frequently. It seems that my son is amused most by the turning of pages and a quick scan of the pictures, although with this book, he’s willing to sit still for a reading longer than he would otherwise. Spot in the Garden is perfectly designed to have a quick pace so as not to bore the really young ones.

If you’ve got an older kid, above the age of four, I wouldn’t recommend Spot in the Garden. It’s too short and has no real plot to it. At these advanced preschool ages, a child should be receiving something longer for readings, and should be starting to learn the rudiments of plot and character. There’s nothing wrong with keeping the baby books in the kid’s library of course, as every good child likes to regress every now and then for comfort. The point is that books like Spot in the Garden should be bought when one has babies and kept on for awhile afterwards.

Although I am fond of Spot in the Garden, I find myself not really enjoying the rest of the Spot series by Eric Hill. Probably this is because I have a particularly soft spot in my heart for gardening. I recognize that this is not so for everyone, and so I suggest that each parent pick out a Spot series book that suits his or her own particular interest. Luckily, there’s quite a bit of variety in the series, and they’re available at practically every bookstore that has a child’s section (and at used bookstores too - no need to pay four dollars plus tax for a little book like this - Amazon has copies for a penny plus shipping).