Monday, November 17, 2008

Secret Mountain Books

Reading is a part of our bedtime ritual every nigh. So I really love getting new children's books in the mail to review! It is admittedly tough to break in a new book with my little crowd though. They have hundreds of favorites among the four of them, but each book in the favorite class has earned that spot through multiple (read: gazillions of) readings.

When we opened The Secret Mountain collection of books and CDs, including Dream Songs Night Songs: From Belgium to Brazil, A Duck in New York City, and Down at the Sea Hotel, I was anxious to see how they would be received.


We were not big fans of the Dream Songs Night Songs book. The illustrations and words to the story were a bit abstract for a kids' book, I thought. However, Down at the Sea Hotel proved to be a much better bedtime book selection for us. There are many beautiful lullabies on the cd. We've enjoyed listening to this one during afternoon rest times as well as at bedtime.




Our favorite of the set by far was the multiple award winning, A Duck in New York City. This quirky little duck is a match for the Little Red Engine with his excellent "Yes I Can" attitude in his escapade from the prairie to the big apple. The illustrations are done in bold, eye-catching colors and the accompanying cd includes 12 super silly kid songs... Broadway style. The girls love them, and I'm sure they will be singing them all non-stop as soon as they have the words memorized. This book is well on it's way into the favorite category around here.


According to their website: "The Secret Mountain is dedicated to the creation of children’s books, videos and audio recordings of the highest quality. Our main focus is to produce and publish stories and music that encompass the talents of songwriters, storytellers, singers, illustrators and animation artists alike." I certainly think they are hitting the mark!

So tell me, what are some of your favorite bedtime stories to read with your children... and do your kiddos enjoy new books instantly or, like mine, do they need a little bit of warm up time?


Monday, November 3, 2008

The Debut

I have been getting lots of requests for the girls and I to try out products and review them on the blog lately. Because I hope to make our family blog into scrapbooks for the girls one day soon and because our sweet extended family and friends far away could likely care less about the reviews, I am going to start posting all our reviews over here, all nice and consolidated. This way if someone is looking for updates on the four sweet and super silly sisters they can find them over there, and if someone is looking for 'what those same silly girls (and their mom) think about a particular product' then they can find those posts here. Hope this doesn't cause too much confusion for me, but rest assured, if it does I'll drop it like a hot potato!