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Mix Up Bedtime Reading with Wordless Books

Are you burned out reading the same bedtime books to your child night after night after night? You both know the words by heart and, frankly, you've been phoning in your performance. One idea is to try a book without words so you and your child are free to invent your own story every night of the week.

 
 

We love the book, Popping Through Pictures, pictured above by artist Amanda Vissel for it's intriguing artwork with endless possibilities for storytelling. Besides helping beat the boredom, child-led storytelling can give parents fascinating insights into what's on their child's mind.

What wordless books do you love?

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books, guides & resources, Parenting

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Comments (11)

wonder bear! such a fantastic tale and beautiful drawings.

posted by groverhog on October 21st 2009 at 12:35pm
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Tuesday by David Wiesner. One of my all time favorite books!

posted by Jeen-Marie on October 21st 2009 at 12:37pm
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Anything by David Wiesner. He's amazing. My 2 year old loves Hug by Jezz Alborough (though technically it's a 3-word book).

Just as a side note - although the repeated readings of a favorite story can be mindnumbing for you, they're actually great for the brain development of your kiddie. Not that we have to do that kind of thing all the time, but I thought it worth mentioning.

posted by ksg on October 21st 2009 at 12:49pm
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Peter Spiers anything. We own "Rain", "Noah's Ark", and "Christmas".

posted by marcelli on October 21st 2009 at 1:38pm
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I absolutely adore the four books Winter, Spring, Summer and Autumn by Gerda Muller.

posted by bookworm77 on October 21st 2009 at 1:49pm
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While poking around on thinkgeek.com the other day (after following the Tauntaun sleeping bag link) I saw this book -- ABC 3D.

SO COOL!

I ordered one from Amazon for $7 shipping.

posted by mere1975 on October 21st 2009 at 1:52pm
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We love "A Boy, a Dog and a Frog" series by Mercer Mayer. My husband loved them when he was a kid and introduced our son to them. There are about 4 books in the series. We love them.

My son also makes us tell him 2 stories every night that have him and his best friend as main characters. It started with us making up the stories as we told him, but now he lets us know where he went and what he did- we then have to create the story around his idea.

posted by tjsm on October 21st 2009 at 1:53pm
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I can't believe I'm the first to mention Goodnight Gorilla. It's only mostly wordless (the zookeeper says goodnight to each of the animals) but you have to narrate the rest yourself. It's one of my toddler's favorite books.

posted by robinm on October 21st 2009 at 2:55pm
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Nobody has mentioned Good Night Gorilla. My daughter enjoyed it; but my son LOVED it. We read it with him every night for almost a year and it still comes into rotation. My daughter loves Flotsam by David Weisner. Even though she's reading words now, I regularly find her reading it to herself in her room.

When I babysat, I would read one story per each child and one that I chose. Then, we'd tuck everyone in and all take a turn making up a story. It was quiet fun! I haven't ever tried it with my kids though.

posted by PNWGal on October 21st 2009 at 2:55pm
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We also love Peter Collington's books. "A Small Miracle", "The Tooth Fairy", "Clever Cat."

posted by marcelli on October 21st 2009 at 4:35pm
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I wrote a blog post about books with out words last year, we find they are great to use in reading partnerships. I really recommend Flotsam by David Wiesner aimed at older children.

posted by richanx on November 13th 2009 at 9:24am
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