Aiden loves to read. Without being diverted, I’m pretty sure he’d spend his entire day reading (or rather, being read to). Even at Strong Start, he’ll ask to sit down and read with me several times during the morning and will read until I shoo him away to play. I have many personal conflicts in stopping his reading, which feels like discouraging his interest, but there really is only so much time you can spend reading.

With that in mind, you can imagine that we have a LOT of favourite books. I buy a lot of books for Aiden, particularly at big library book sales. If we go to the library, we would spend a week sitting on the couch reading those books after, so I tend not to take out as many books as you’d expect. Still, our library is quite impressive.

These are some of Aiden’s favourite books at age 2:

• Curious George - Original set or the newer Treasury – Aiden reads one or more of these stories every night, and sometimes also during the day. “Daddy read the Curious George book” is common with most bedtimes. The original series is very old-fashioned in its morals, almost criticizing curiosity, so we have steered Aiden to the newer collection. He loves that the index page has pictures so he can choose which story to read.
• Hide and Seek First Words - this one book could keep Aiden occupied for an hour. He loves to choose things to find, to be challenged to find things in a new way, to count items, to talk about the pictures, etc. There’s no end to how creative you can be with a series of photos and no story.
• Busy Trains - this is a very old book and very cluttered, but with so many things to look at, the story varies often. Aiden likes that.
• The Little Engine That Could – this book was popular, though it may now be waning. He likes the pages that describe the contents of the train the best.
• Chugga Chugga Choo Choo - this was a favourite long before Aiden was 2. It’s very musical if read cover-to-cover, but also plays to Aiden’s desire to have a ‘changing’ story. I know I spent several months pausing to do the Humpty Dumpty rhyme on the page with that toy. Very whimsical.
• Poky Little Puppy (not exact link) - we have the story about Poky wanting to join in the Golden Book Land Games race. Silly story, but he likes it.
• The Polar Express - we just put this away, but it was a staple of our nightly reading all month. He was crazy for it.
• Cars and Trucks and Things That Go - the pages are so cluttered and creative that it always changes.
• Train Song – I actually made up a tune for this one, so probably that’s why Aiden likes it.
• Whatever Wanda Wanted – a funny story about a little girl who was spoiled, whisked away, and learned a lesson in humility

Aiden doesn’t read any of his board books anymore, nor does he enjoy the ‘first word’ type books, in general. They were big for a long time. He prefers books with stories or with lots of pictures that can be extensively examined. He has little patience for books by Dr. Seuss, though he will happily sit through Winnie-the-Pooh. From time-to-time he will go back to Mother Goose rhymes (we have many compilations).

I try to rotate books around every 3 months or so, moving books from Aiden’s room to his shelf downstairs and reorganizing his shelf in his room. I try to bring other books to his attention, but he often has favourites that he’ll return to. He’s most likely to explore a new book if it’s in his play area, though if he doesn’t like a book, he’ll stop asking for it very quickly.

What books do your kids like at age 2?