9-11 Easter Edition

9. Meet the Easter Beagle! adapted by Tina Gallo. Illustrated by Vicki Scott. Based on the characters created by Charles M. Schulz
10. Llama Llama Easter Egg by Anna Dewdney
11. Five Little Bunnies by Harper Collins Publishers. Illustrated by Dan Yaccarino

Happy Easter from Jenny Bean!

Welcome to our very special Easter Edition of Reading Books to my Daughter.

Easter is my absolute favorite holiday. Not for religious reasons. My mom and I went to church regularly when I started in middle school, but we don't really go anymore. I grew up going to a Lutheran church camp every summer since I was 18, but I'm not not uber religious. I can respect religiou people and their beliefs, but I'm more agnostic then anything else.

ANYWAY, like I said, I love Easter. I love hunting for eggs. I love the food. I love being around my family. I love how everyone gets so excited. I love that my dad and Auntie Liz get very, very creative with hiding the big money egg. There are no bad memories associate with Easter. When we started having them at my parents house, my grandma would always come over early to help my dad cook. I'd fill Easter eggs with her, and I really liked hanging out with her one-on-one. It didn't happen very often. She's gone now, but I constantly get reminded of her everyday, but get very nostalgic when the Easter season comes along.

So I had to get Jenny (her full name is Jeanette, which was my grandma's name) Easter books!

Meet the Easter Beagle! is Jenny's first introduction to Peanuts. I love Peanuts. My mom loves Peanuts. Jenny will love Peanuts too, damnit! If you've seen the Peanuts Easter Special, you know this story. Everyone thinks Linus is insane because he tells stories about the Easter Beagle, reminiscent of his stories about the Great Pumpkin. Peppermint Patty is upset because Marcie cooked all the eggs she was going to color for Easter. When I first read this, I thought she hard-boiled them, and was confused as to why Peppermint Patty was so pissed. But then I realized, she probably scrambled them and at them all. Anyway, Linus is all like, "Hey, NBD, just wait for the Easter Beagle." Of course the kids think he's crazy, but low and behold, the Easter Beagle saves the day. Well, except for Charlie Brown. He always gets jipped.

Llama Llama Easter Egg is one of the shorter Llama Llama board books. Dewdney has longer picture books, and then created these very short board books as well. Each page has 5 or less words, which will be great for when Jenny starts recognizing sight words and reading. I've already expressed my love of the Llama Llama series, so it's pretty obvious that I love this book. Baby Llama wakes up Easter morning. He gets chocolate bunnies, jelly beans, and searches for Easter eggs. He finds a robin's nest with bright blue eggs. His Easter surprise is the birth of a baby robin. It's really very sweet... I used to find robin eggs all the time at Omi's house, so I know the joy and excitement when you find REAL blue eggs in nature. Thank goodness Llama didn't mistake the robin eggs for Easter eggs... what a demented twist...

Five Little Bunnies is cute Easter finger play with illustrations. Dan Yaccarino is a pretty well-known author and illustrator. The bunnies are cute, bold, and colorful. It's fun for older kids to find all of the Easter eggs, to count all the bunnies, and to practice their colors. All of the bunnies hide the eggs, then watch a handful of children find them and eat the sweet, sweet insides. I have a favorite illustration. It's of a little boy thoroughly enjoying what looks to be a peep, with a smaller blue boy in the background pointing into his mouth. I don't know if he's meant to be thinking, searching, or indicating to everyone where to put their goodies. Insert sweets here. It's super cute and Jenny was pretty interested in all of the bold colors and different shapes. Good solid choice for a 4 month old.

I hope everyone who has made it this far has a very Happy Easter! And if you don't celebrate, have an absolutely amazing Sunday!