Every book I've reviewed so far, newest first. 9 reviews and counting. The ones with a gold star next to them are the ones I'd press into your hands at a bookstore.
I read this book as a kid and thought it was about a nice tree. I read it to my daughter last week and had to stop on page seventeen because I couldn't see the words anymore. She asked why I was making weird breathing sounds. I told her ...
I was standing in the kitchen last Tuesday making coffee when my daughter walked in holding this book and said, "Toad is having a hard time and Frog is helping him." She's eight. She wasn't asking me to read it. She was just telling me w...
My son has requested this book every single night for three months. Not occasionally. Not in rotation with other favorites. Every. Single. Night. He knows it by heart. He corrects me if I try to improvise. He gets angry if I turn the pag...
My son threw a book at the cat last Tuesday. Not at the cat, really — near the cat, in the cat's general direction, because he was mad about something I've already forgotten. Probably screen time. Maybe a banana that broke wrong. He's fo...
My daughter asked me last Tuesday why the BFG talks funny. Not "incorrectly" or "strangely" — funny. And I realized I'd never actually thought about it before, even though I read this book myself in third grade and have now read it aloud...
I finished reading the final chapter of Charlotte's Web to my daughter last Thursday night and had to pretend I had something in my eye. She looked at me — completely dry-eyed, mildly concerned that I was having some kind of medical epis...
Let me tell you about my relationship with Mo Willems. I did not grow up with Mo Willems. Mo Willems published his first Pigeon book in 2003, when I was in college and had bigger problems. I came to him entirely through my children, whic...
I want to be clear that I do not dislike Goodnight Moon. Three stars is not a bad score. Three stars means: I respect what this book is, I understand its cultural importance, and I also have some questions that haunt me at 11pm when I sh...
I want to tell you something about 1991. I was seven years old, my mom handed me a paperback with a little girl on the cover, and I disappeared for a weekend. Not in the metaphorical sense where adults say "she was really engaged." I mea...