Your guide to activities and fun things to do with your preschoolers, toddlers and kids in Tucson, AZ

I love November's theme "Because a Great Book..." We are in love with books at our house.  Book shelves are over flowing and yet buying a w book is hard to resist.  J comes home with a new school library book every couple of days and although he is in kindergarten, his librarian knows him and his favorite books by name.

With all of our love of new books, there are still a few tried and true that we always go back to.  When I was a consultant for Usborne Books I came across a series called "First Experiences."  I was pregnant with Little J and the book The New Baby was just what we needed to explain a little sibling to J.  We read that book once a week starting in about my 6th month and then every day during the last month.  Although some of the story would not be part of our scenario, it gave us a chance to talk about what would be different in our family. 

A few months later we were getting ready to move into a new house, I decided to buyThe Complete Book of First Experiences.  This book includes all of the smaller books in the series in one nice hard cover edition.  The titles include Going to the Hospital, Going to the Doctor, Going to School, Going to the Dentist, The New Baby, Moving House, The New Puppy, Going on a Plane, Going to a Party.  That about covers every new experience a toddler and preschooler will encounter. 

Even when we are doing something that we have done before, but don't do very often, like move or go to the dentist, we re-read that part of the book as a gentle reminder.  One time I took the book with us to the dentist and pointed out the pictures of the kids in the story as the dentist started the same procedures on J.  He is very sensitive and this helped put him at ease.

The books are written with a dual sentence structure.  There are short sentences on the top of the page that can be read alone to create a short story for beginning readers or short attention spans.  The sentences on the bottom are longer and more detailed for the kids who can sit longer.  Each page has Steven Cartwright's signature yellow duck for the kids to find.  Sometimes my kids want to read the stories just to find the duck.

This is a series I highly recommend for all young children's libraries