Training my son early...

...to like fantasy. My son is 2 (and a couple months), but he already enjoys books that are much longer than you'd expect for his age. Not surprising when you consider how much both his parents like to read. So I'm getting him hooked on fantasy et al as well as I can. For a while, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs was one of his favorite books--it also remains one of my favorite children's books, so that was good. I haven't read that to him in a while, but he does enjoy The Lorax and The Butter Battle Book, both of which I'd consider speculative fiction of a sort (and also among my favorites). But with his last selection from the library, he's gone fully into the genre. He found a Narnia book. OK, he's not quite to the point I can read him the actual Narnia books, but there was a picture book of Prince Caspian that really does go through the entire plot of the book (what does that say about the book?) in a standard picture book length. So now he can say "Narnia" and has even been saying "To battle!" at random times. Hmmm, is that a good thing?

Comments

Anonymous said…
Aaaaw. Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs was one of my favorites. That, and Where the Wild Things Are.
Anonymous said…
I'd recommend 'Babar visits another Planet' as well as 'Orlando the Marmalade Cat goes to the moon'. Two of my first favourites.

Dana :)
Daniel Ausema said…
We have a DVD of Where the Wild Things Are and In the Night Kitchen as well as some of the songs by the Nutshell Kids (which I didn't know, but my wife did)--all great, though he seems to prefer In the Night Kitchen over Where the Wild Things Are--to my chagrin, since I've had Where the Wild Things are memorized for years now.

We have a few Babar books, though not that one--have you read the original? It's a very bizarre story. "Alas, that very day the king of the elephants had eaten a bad mushroom and died. This was a great calamity." :) I'll have to keep my eyes out for both of those though.
Anonymous said…
I loved Where the wild things are too!

As for Babar, they are all quirky stories. The original and the first few were written by Jean de Brunhoff, the Father of Laurent de Brunhoff, who wrote the later Babar stories. You might find that interesting, if you are reading with your son, or envisioning a father-son writing team!
The ones written by Jean are far stranger, being of an early vintage. I remember that exact mushroom page, where the king of the elephants turns all green and crinkly... :P It is bizarre!

Babar visits another planet features smaller, 'curly eared elephants' and they have to fill a swimming pool with pillows as a place for Babar and Celeste to sleep. I think Arthur does something foolish and they get booted off the planet, though I can't remember for sure.

Happy reading!
Daniel Ausema said…
:) Sounds very fun. I think we have 3 Babar books--the first one by Jean and the others by Laurent. I remember a Father Christmas one from when I was little but haven't found that one now. My wife doesn't remember that one either...plus she pronounces his name differently--BA-bar (with the first a like the a in ash) whereas I grew up hearing it ba-BAR (first a as a schwa).
visionbird said…
Hmm, not sure why my comments are coming up as anonymous. I signed in to the google thing. Sorry they don't have my name on them!

Dana
visionbird said…
We always said BA-bar, but I've heard Ba-BAR, too, and its probably closer to the french original.
great fun, in any case!

d.
Daniel Ausema said…
I just (only half intentionally) switched over from the old blogger to the new blogger, and that seems to have made the comments that were here already anonymous. Arrg. That's very annoying. I was not especially pleased with the whole process of switching.
visionbird said…
me either! There was a cross over phase where it didn't seem to let me log in either under my old name or the new one. Let's hope they work the kinks out of it.
Merry Christmas,
Dana
Daniel Ausema said…
You too, Dana!

My wife just discovered that there's a sequel to Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs--Pickles for Pittsburgh. Guess what one of the things my son is getting for Christmas is? =)