My daughter and I have been revisiting a lot of our old bedtime favorites these past few weeks, and I have realized that some of these gems have not yet been featured here on the blog. How I managed to overlook these, I don't know, but they certainly deserve a spot on our list of best books!
The Going to Bed Book is one of the first books we ever had in our children's library collection. It was a gift from one of my husband's high school students when we were expecting our son way back in 2007. Sandra Boynton books are well-known classics in the kids' lit world, and rightfully so. Those little board books are fun to read with their lively rhymes, colorful, short (perfect for the attention spans of the littlest readers), sturdy, and, if our copies are to be believed, great for chewing. While my kids have loved many of her books and several have been featured on here already, this is one of our favorites. My kids love seeing the classic Boynton animals get ready for bed, and my four year old daughter has decided that this is the book she likes to read to ME at bedtime. I love it.
I loved these books when my children were babies, and they did, too. At the time, though, I underestimated these stories, thinking that they would be some of the first books my children would outgrow because were so short and simple. I have been so delighted to find that they continue to be favorites, but wonderful literacy resources, as well! These were some of the first books that my son read aloud on his own (he loved reading to his baby sister), and they are the first books with which my daughter has shown some of those important early literacy skills (such as pointing out words across the page from left to right as she "reads.") If you have fallen in love with these books when your little ones are babies, hang on to them. You just might find that they become your child's favorite bedtime stories to read to you one day.
