Favorite books for 5 year olds

I am making a list of books that my 5-yr old son is enamored with. The books here have indeed found a place of honor, because they managed to drag him away from his toy car collection (which is lovingly parked each day in a discarded Costco pineapple carton right in the middle of our formal drawing room :(

After spending a good part of last year on early reading books, it is gratifying to see him looking for captivating stories.

Without divulging the story, I have given a comment.

1. Anook: the snow princess by Hans Wilhelm

• V overcame the fact that it was about a "princess to re-read it a few times

2. Scaredy Squirrel series by Melanie Watt

• Our first book in the series was signed by the author herself and has become a perennial favorite.

3. Ruby paints a picture by Susan Hill

• Good book to self-read with lot of repetitive words; but still humorous in finding what body part Ruby leaves while painting

4. If you give a pig a pancake and similar stories

• This series feature ridiculous stories with lots of repetitive words.

5. All Jan Brett's books (The Hat, The Umbrella, Daisy Comes Home, Honey.. Honey.. Lion, etc)

• I love Jan myself.. great settings and stories, awesome pictures, good moral as well.

6. Rosemary Wells books - all set in a pre-school/KG class of a school

• Adorable characters that kids relate to, real life situations to teach them a thing or two about life in school (i.e., clothes, teachers, separation, respect, helping/caring)

7. Rainbow Fish - Marcus Pfister

• Beautiful illustration, hopefully teaches about vanity and sharing

Will try to keep adding great favorites

Readaholics anonymous

Since time immemorial, readaholics have been chided, threatened and even yelled-at for their reading addiction. (To respect my mother, I won't mention the incidents where she nearly threw out precious books, lovingly browsed and borrowed from libraries, out of the window, exasperated with the sight of heads lowered over dinner plates :)

Marriage, kids and full work-days may starve us off the time one needs to plunge deep into this Pierian spring, but we readaholics survive! For our sanity, a page here and a page there (even a repeat read) is essential. No de-addiction patch works!

Of course, with the stresses on hand, time hands out different genres on its plate. So, we go through the Dostoyeskies and Gogols with a snobby smirk. This leads us into too much depression that we plunge headlong into the variety of romances. Then, feeling ashamed of wasting time on crap, we tread carefully into the translated works of Gabriel-Garcia Marquez and Paulo Coelho. Not wishing to miss out on popular fiction, we then jump into the Grishams and Pattersons. Of course, maintaining an erudite presence calls for a immersion into the classics, notwithstanding that Thomas Hardy provokes a yawn and Tolstoy puts us to sleep.

Happy reading.