Outerwear for Insects

One of my great joys as a mother is reading with Elsie. As a passionate reader my whole life, I revel in the double consciousness of reading books I once enjoyed myself to her. And I delight in her desire to "read" to me. I eagerly anticipate reading the Little House books, Betsy Tacy books, and Harry Potter books with her one day. For now, I am giddy getting to try out Beatrix Potter and Shel Silverstein and am surprised and delighted at what she seems to grasp. A new batch of books arrived from Amazon the other day and Elsie devoured them and after a few readings of Never Take a Shark to the Dentist she wanted to "read" the book to me. It is filled with humorous lines like "Never escort a raccoon to the bank" or "Never bring an ant on a picnic" with accompanying delightful pictures. When she read it back to me, she read it as dramatically as her Grammy might and I couldn't help but giggle when she translated "Never give a moth a sweater for her birthday" to "NEBER EBER EBER EBER GIB A BUTTERFLY A JACKET FOR HER BIRFDAY." Somehow the subtlety was lost but she had the right idea!

She does seem to get a lot more than I might imagine she would for her age, which makes me think I should step up our selections sometimes--She patiently listens to loooooong stories though sometimes she requests inane Dora books as well. Some of her favorites right now include:

• fairy tales like Red Riding Hood and Hansel and Gretel (though we have the gory old versions and wonder if there are some better ones out there... not politically correct, mind you, just less blood and guts)
• Mother Goose nursery rhymes (and she knows many by heart)
• Curious George books (boring to me but she loves them)
• Berenstein Bears (also not my fave so we maybe we should indulge her with more)
  
• The Alexander books
• Beatrix Potter stories
• Sendak books
• Eric Carle books
  
• still--any Peggy Rathman
• sweet ones like Guess How Much I Love You, Runaway Bunny, and You are My I Love You
  
• Oldies but goodies: Boynton books, Jamberry, Goodnight Moon

And of course, I'd love any suggestions of other books she might like--particularly those just above her reach so she can grow into them...