Book loving

The Boy has a lot of books. Thomas the Tank Engine, Peter Rabbit and Mother Goose chief among them. But we've also got a gigantic library of British books, given to The Boy as presents from his English family. Books that are mostly unknown to American kids and whose words fall off my American tongue awkwardly.

Though the characters may be largely unknown in the US, Hairy Maclary, Bobo, Fix-It Duck, the Gruffalo, Slinky Malinky and Bobo are all much cherished friends in our house.

Here's a pic one of our Hairy Maclary books

We also have "Hairy Maclary and Zachary Quack" and "Slinky Malinky's Catflaps"

And a Duck book

We also have a book called "Yes" by the same author, Jez Alborough.

What was, perhaps, our first book love...

The Gruffalo. Other books from the same author are "Monkey Puzzle" and "Room on the Broom"

And our current fave

Because a book about underpants loving aliens is beyond awesome.

I really need to work on exposing The Boy to stuff that's more common over here so that when he and his buddies start talking about books, or at least characters of books, he has something in common with them. But I am so glad he has these books and these characters in common with his cousins and buddies in England. It means that all but 2 weeks of his early childhood may have been spent in the US, but that a crucial part of his development has been quintessentially British anyway.