July 08 Book of the Month

Announcing Planet Silas' July Book of the Month:

The Wheels on the Bus adapted & illustrated by Paul O. Zelinsky.
This adaptation has intriguing illustrations that introduce side plots and appealing characters along side the traditional song most of us are familiar with. It has pull tabs that move parts of the pictures and as you can imagine, Silas is a big fan of these. He's pretty hands on with this book, much to the book's chagrin. For instance, there's now only one remaining wiper on the bus going "swish swish swish."

This book is also known by the title "Not that one again!" Silas' is utterly obsessed with this book. We've read/sung it countless times, and it's now a bit worse for wear. But his love for it continues. If it happens to "disappear" he will search for it and come up to me signing "book." A couple of times, I absentmindedly sang a line from it (it's been stuck in my head for about three weeks now), then cursed myself when Silas excitedly went and brought me the book, expecting a complete recitation. For a baby who watches no TV, this book might as well be Sesame Street, and the bus might as well be Elmo. We are doing pre-potty training and have a little potty for him. Several times, we've sat him on his potty and he's read contentedly for half an hour. Not bad for an active little boy!

Here he is, about to shove the book at me so that I read it to him.
And 1.5 seconds later, he's attacked me with it. He will not relent until I make the wheels go round and round, make the doors go open and shut, make the babies on the bus go "wah, wah, wah." OK Silas, I get the point.
And pictured below is Si's favorite page: "The driver on the bus says 'move on back.'"
And the honorable mentions are... well, I don't have any this month. Not that there aren't plenty of good ones to choose from, but it's summer, and I don't feel motivated to capture them on camera and blog about them. Besides, The Wheels on the Bus is really the only book carrying major weight around here at the moment.

In lieu of honorable mentions, here's a bonus picture of us enjoying the 1,586th reading of The Wheels on the Bus.