Day 9: The Mitten

I was so excited when I bought this book as a gift for my son's first Christmas.  Jan Brett's illustrations are, as usual, amazingly detailed and beautiful, and I have always loved and admired her work.  I was naturally disappointed, then, when my son showed no interest in it for the first year or two.  He went through a rather long phase of only wanting to read books that rhymed and had a nice sing-songy meter to them, which I suppose made perfect sense given his young age.  Still, I couldn't wait to be able to read this wonderful story to him.   Finally, the winter he turned two, The Mitten became an absolute favorite!  He would even ask that I tell him the story in the car on the way to daycare in the morning while he held the book in the backseat, marvelling at all of the gorgeous pictures.  We just love following along with the woodland animals as they squeeze their way into the lost mitten, and my son particularly enjoys the little preview illustration on the side of each page that shows which animal will be crawling into the mitten next.   His favorite page, of course, is the one where the bear sneezes. "aaaa...aaaahhh... aaahhCHOOOOOO!!"  He'll laugh, and laugh, and laugh, and loves to yell, "All the animals flew out of the mitten!" as we throw his stuffed animals up in the air.  Needless to say, I got my wish of having him love this book as much as I do.  We even have a beautiful 200-piece Ravensburger "The Mitten" puzzle, which he asks to do at least once a week.  This is another classic book that we just love to read all year long!