Editor’s Pick: “Why Do I Sing?” and “Where Do I Sleep?”
Our littlest children may not be heading back to school quite yet, but their minds are learning every minute of every day, whether we’re on our parenting A-game or not. It’s common knowledge that even babies can benefit from being read to, and I can’t help but believe that we parents learn and grow a little too, each time we set aside our never-ending to-do lists and snuggle up with our baby, toddler, or preschooler to enjoy the sounds, words, and pictures in stories about the most basic facets of life, like our bodies, foods, the alphabet, nature, animals.
Author and illustrator team Jennifer Blomgren and Andrea Gabriel have created two winsome rhyming narratives that introduce young children to parent-child animal pairs in their native Pacific Northwest environment. “Why Do I Sing?” and “Where Do I Sleep?” (2015, Sasquatch) are board books filled with beautiful and soothing watercolor illustrations portraying spotted owls, fin whales, crickets, bald eagles, and other wildlife as they sleep and sing (or croak, or howl, or screech, or whistle) in their natural habitats. The books help connect children to nature and their own Pacific Northwest home, and are perfect for bedtime.
