children’s books

Reading with Mio

May 20, 2011 By Misono in Mio Tags: baby, books, children's books, Dr. Seuss, gifts, Mio, newborn, Oldies & Goodies, vintage books

We had started receiving and collecting children’s books in both English and Japanese before Mio was born, so that we could make sure we had ample reading material for her when she arrived. We got a lot of books at our baby showers and also after Mio was born as well!

One of the clients I work with at our company sent us this awesome Dr. Seuss book collection!

It includes all the classics: The Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, Fox in Socks, One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, and Hop on Pop. We love Dr. Seuss, and this collection will be a family treasure for years to come! 🙂

Our friend Ali also sent us these neat books! Another Dr. Seuss book — Thidwick The Big-Hearted Moose. I wasn’t familiar with this one, and it was a great addition to Mio’s Dr. Seuss collection. 🙂

The other book, What will I be from A to Z, is a very cool vintage book from the ’70s! It’s in great condition, and is interesting to read because there are some occupations that are no longer around, or have since become very rare.

The illustrations inside are a lot of fun to look at!

Ali and her husband Tim have an Etsy shop where they rescue vintage books and put them up for sale to find new loving owners for them. Take a look at their Oldies & Goodies store and accompanying blog for some beautiful vintage literary finds!

Our friend Estella (who also happens to be one of my amazing coworkers!) brought over this Baby’s Book of Animals for Mio last week when they brought over a delicious sushi dinner for us. (Did I mention how much I’ve missed sushi?) It has some really cute photos of baby animals, along with all the sounds that they make.

Mio now has quite an impressive assortment of books in her little library. She is all set on the road to becoming a bookworm like Mommy!

Here is a sweet photo I took of Daddy reading one of the books to Mio. (She seems a little disengaged from all the creepy crawlies on the page… I don’t blame her!)

Japanese Children’s Books

January 16, 2011 By Misono in Pregnancy & Parenthood Tags: bilingual, children's books, Japanese, Japanese books

The hubby came home safely from LA this evening — a couple hours earlier than expected — and he brought back a surprise: Japanese children’s books!

Whenever I go down to Southern California, I love stopping by BookOff, where they sell used Japanese books — you can get books and magazines so much cheaper than at regular retail price, and they’re usually in pretty good condition! 🙂

We don’t have a BookOff up here in Northern California, and we had looked at some of the children’s books at Kinokuniya the other weekend, but they are all so expensive because they’re imported from Japan and are brand new. I had asked Dan if he could stop by BookOff this weekend and check out their selection of children’s books if he had the chance, but he had told me they likely wouldn’t be able to this time, since they would be in Pasadena and the BookOff locations are almost an hour south, in Gardena and Torrance. So I decided not to get my hopes up and told myself there’d be other opportunities in the future.

It turns out he actually did have some time to stop by this morning before they made the 7-hour drive back up, and he got a whole bunch of baby/children’s books in Japanese. Dan can’t really read Japanese (except for hiragana), so he had to guess and pick which ones seemed good. Apparently he spent forty minutes at the store, carefully mulling over which ones to buy and bring home, while his brother and friend had to wait for him to make up his mind. haha* I’d say that he did a great job and picked up a pretty good selection — there’s a few classics in there that I remember from my own childhood!

I’m so excited that we have so many books to read to the baby, both in English (Thanks again, Celia!) and in Japanese. We have a couple hand-me-down Japanese books from my cousin Yuko that she gave us in Arizona, too. She is doing a really amazing job of raising bilingual children, and she’s given me a lot of tips and coaching on how to do so successfully, so I’m inspired and determined to follow her example. Raising kids to be bilingual can be a really big challenge, but being raised bilingual myself, I really understand and value how much of an asset it can be later on in a child’s life. Thankfully, we live in a region where there is a strong Japanese influence, and there are preschools that incorporate Japanese language and culture into their curriculum. Preschool and Japanese Saturday School are things we won’t have to worry about for a few more years, but these books will get us off to a good start! 🙂

Books for Baby!

January 7, 2011 By Misono in Pregnancy & Parenthood Tags: baby, books, children, children's books, Scholastic

Yesterday, we received a large box in the mail that looked like it was about to burst! The return address said it was from Scholastic, and I was initially perplexed because we hadn’t ordered any books from them.

When we opened the box, we found that it was packed full with adorable books from Scholastic, accompanied by a card from my friend Celia. Celia is an assistant manager for Scholastic Book Clubs in the Baby to Kindergarten Clubs in New York City, and she had generously sent us a whole bunch of sample books for our baby daughter! I remember her offering to send us some a couple months ago, but I had completely forgotten, and hadn’t expected that she’d send so many… and all brand new!

Look at all these books! There are definitely some classics in there that I remember from my own childhood. 🙂

There was even a Classic Pooh book in there! It goes perfectly with our nursery theme… I love Classic Pooh. â™¥

One of my fondest memories from elementary school was getting the monthly (or was it quarterly?) book order forms from Scholastic that were passed out in class. I’d excitedly circle all the books I wanted and would rush home to give the form to my parents, and they’d write a check for me to bring back to my teacher with the order form the next day… I couldn’t wait to receive my order of books every time! :)Â And the Scholastic book fairs! Those were some of the pinnacle events of the school year for me. (Can you tell I was a total bookworm as a kid?) It’s heartwarming to think that I’ll be reliving those days — not as a child but as a parent — in a matter of years.

We’ve been happy and grateful to receive a handful of hand-me-down baby/kids books from my boss, cousin, and friends, but these will be the baby’s first set of brand new books that will be all her own! Thank you so much, Auntie Celia! 😀 We will treasure the books for years to come.

I believe that the gift of reading is one of the earliest and most valuable gifts that you can give to a child, and one that will stay with them much longer than all those adorable onesies and layettes they’ll receive (although those are very nice, too!). Dan and I can’t wait to read to our daughter, both in English and in Japanese. I have a feeling she’ll grow up to be a bookworm, just like mommy… with her head in the clouds, and her nose in a book.