This book was recommended by a fellow Sep'06 mummy more than a year back. In fact, it was her mother who gave her this book as a present. We had this book in our house for more than a year now. I recall, when I attempted to read this story to T last year, she was not very interested in it. Not in the text (probably too long for her then) and neither in the illustrations. So we kept the book aside as I found it to be a very meaningful and lovely book and didn't want her to ruin it or ruin the experience for her by forcing her to listen to it. Just this weekend, we took this book out again and read it together. This time, she is able to appreciate the illustrations much better and was able to 'discuss' about why baby shouldn't be sitting and playing on the toilet floor. She had a bit of difficulty trying to understand where the the baby / boy go towards the end of the book, why is there a man in the story instead. I had to explain to her about how people and she will grow up.
I think she appreciates and understanding the deep love of the mother for the child and vice versa, cos as we read the story, she would cuddle close next to me and put her arms around me and ask me to put mine around her.
We've been reading the book everynight at her request for the last few days and would repeat it 2 to 3 times each night. Since young, I have been holding her finger to follow/point to the words as I read along so re-enforce in her concept of reading/writing from left to right and the rhythm of reading each word/sentence. Last night, I noticed that she is able to trace the words very well. Her finger will stop as I pause and slow down when I do. In fact, we managed to read through the whole story with her pointing / tracing accurately to the written text.
After 3 nights, she can now also read part of the book by memory.
Example (she recites the part in italics) :
The mother rocks the baby "back and forth, back and forth, back and forth",
Singing I love you forever
I like you for always
As long as I'm living
My baby you'll be
This book will definately be a keeper for us.
