MotherTalk Blog Tour-Bob Books

When MotherTalk first asked if I was interested in reviewing a set of books for beginning readers, I said yes even though my daughter hadn’t really started trying to read by herself yet. Well, I’m glad I did say yes, because Kaitlyn has recently started picking up books on her own and trying to read them, at 23 months old! So I was delighted to discover that what we were getting was a whole set of 12 beginning reader books:

The full title is Bob Books Set 1-Beginning Readers, text by Bobby Lynn Maslen, and pictures by John R. Maslen. I was curious to know more about the sweet and simple illustrations, so I went to the Bob Books website (which is wonderful, more about that in a minute) and learned that the Maslens met as students at the Rhode Island School of Design, that John is an award winning watercolor painter and architect, and that Bobby Lynn designed children’s clothes before becoming a teacher and creating the Bob Books.

In Set 1-Beginning Readers, each book teaches basic letter sounds and introduces the alphabet (except for the letter Q, I’m not sure why), with basic three-letter words, and short vowels. The first three books have a red cover, and black-and-white illustrations with splashes of red here and there. The titles are “Mat”, “Sam”, “Dot”, and “Mac”. As I read them to Kaitlyn, I point to the character I’m naming, and now, I can ask her “which one is Mat? Which one is Sam?”, and she points correctly! I’m sure it helps that Mat is sort of round, and Sam is sort of triangular-I like to think that she is making the connection between the shape of the character and their name. Her favorite book of these four is definitely “Dot”, who has a hat (one of Kaitlyn’s first words), a dog, and a cat. She points to the dog and says “uff, uff”, and points to the cat and makes her meow sound.

We haven’t gone past the first four books yet, because I want her to be able to say the words in each book before we move on. So far, she can say Mat, Sam, and something close to Dot, although the D sound is still a challenge for her. Once she is “reading” along, we’ll move on to the next three books, which introduce the short I and short U sounds, with the titles “Dot and Mit”, “Dot and the Dog”, “Jig and Mag”, and “Muff and Ruff”. These four are purple, with touches of purple in the illustrations.

The inside cover of each book lists the beginning sounds that will be introduced, whether a vowel or consonant. In the final four books of this beginning series, one of the books also introduces the numbers 1-10, and the plural s, and another covers the short E sound. These books are a lime green on the cover and inside, and the titles are “10 Cut-Ups”, “Peg and Ted”, “Lad and the Fat Cat”, and “The Vet”. I will be ecstatic if she is reading these by the time she goes to preschool!

For even more information about the Bob Books, and to get pages to download and color that go along with the stories, you should really check out the Bob Books website. It’s got the same vivid colors and sweet black-and-white illustrations as the books, a page to order all of the boxed sets separately or together, and my favorite, a 100% cotton Backpack featuring the Bob Books logo for only $4.95! Incredible deal!

I have to say, I wish I had known about these books when my boys were younger. Although I read age-appropriate books to them, we never had books that broke down the vowels sounds this way, or that started with just a few words and built from there using the same characters and words. I’m so glad we got these books through MotherTalk, and I plan to keep them where Kaitlyn can easily reach them and bring them to me to read to her. Or, perhaps like she did today, when she insisted that she wear her bathing suit, and then sat on the couch with her blankies and all the Bob Books spread out around her. That’s my girl!

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