The Important Book by Margaret Wise Brown and Leonard Weisgard

We love this book. First spotted on a Dinner a Love Story post about great presents to give a new baby, I thought I should get it quick before my son got any older. It turned out that it is the kind of book that grows with them - he is three now and I can see we'll be plucking this from the shelf for quite a while. Also, his older brothers have all taken an interest in it.

What the author does is take some simple things a child encounters most days; apples, shoes, the sky, a flower and writes what she thinks is important about it. Even though this was written in 1949, it has not dated. Excepting the cricket, which my kids have really only encountered in childrens books (and thats because we have grasshoppers here in Ireland, not crickets, or maybe we just call them grasshoppers?) , everything she chose, they see every day.

The first time or two we read this, I got a spoon, an apple, a shoe, a glass and a flower and after we read about the object, we discussed it. What is important about your shoe? Now I just have to produce the book and he's off without prompting, getting the apples and spoons etc and lining them up.

Its just  a great, great book. Beautiful and simple and thought provoking. We both love it.

P.s. Apologies for the less than clean feet. I got the chance to take the pictures and had to run with it, grubby toes and all.