Quick Cuddle-Time Reads
by Iva-Marie Palmer
Short and sweet. As parents, I think we undervalue that combo.
If we can’t give our kids a good chunk of quality time — the half-hour required to build a complete LEGO city, or the hour we need to devote to a craft — we might skip the together time altogether. After all, we need to get dinner done, fold the laundry, answer that email …
But five minutes can be a glorious amount of time when you’re rightly equipped. These quick and easy reads are just right for a quick cuddle.
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If You Give a Mouse a Cookie
Unraveling like a Rube Goldberg-style machine, the If You… series of books are some of the most fun to read. Each action provokes an equal and opposite reaction, all of which seem quite logical to a child. Turns out Numeroff’s animals have a lot in common with toddlers.
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Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale
A child’s worst nightmare – a lost lovie — is the basis for this cleverly illustrated tale from kids’ humorist extraordinaire Willems. That it’s found by a heroic set of parents (phew!) is a sweet bit of reassurance for our kids and us alike.
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I Am a Bunny
Available from:Parenting is so often about planning for the future, we forget the charm of a little backwards-looking nostalgia. This Golden Book offers retro delights with its sweet, simple tale of a red-overalled bunny who observes the changing of the seasons.
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Instructions
If your child’s sensibilities tend toward unknown lands and fantastical things, Neil Gaiman’s poem — accompanied here by Charles Vess’s glorious illustrations – will take you both on a slightly hypnotic journey through fairy tales and myth, then home again, all in about five minutes.
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Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me
We all know about The Very Hungry Caterpillar, but this lesser-known book from Carle is a beauty. Okay, maybe Papa is a little indulgent, fetching the moon for his daughter, but in five minutes, it’s a sweet reminder you’d do just about anything for that little person sitting next to you.
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Dear Zoo: A Lift-the-Flap Book
Even though we’ve read this one dozens of times, my son still laughs or shrieks with delight as he discovers (and rediscovers) the animals hiding behind the flaps.
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Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes
Pete is one cool cat. And when the day’s been long and hard, spending time with this laissez-faire cat is just what I need. In this installment, Pete’s white shoes get stained with all the colors of the rainbow, but Pete remembers it's all about the journey — a good metaphor for parenthood.
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Big Words for Little People
I’ve been reading this one to my son since he was a newborn. The rhythm is just right to make me feel musical and it gets to its ultimate message — how much he’s loved — without bogging him down in mush. And the big words aren’t bad vocabulary builders, either.
