what's on my bookshelf wednesday {10}

Week 11:  Natalie's hanging book-holder (a 1st birthday gift from Erin!)

Our friend Erin made Natalie this amazing cloth bookshelf for our budgie's 1st birthday, appropriately using Very Hungry Caterpillar fabric.  It's such a cool addition to her big girl room (which is still a work in progress, but is finally coming together), I love it.  There are tutorials on how to make them, like this one, all over Pinterest if you're interested in making your own.  We keep some of Natalie's more complex stories in this hanging shelf, and she loves taking them out flipping through them even though she isn't quite at a point where she wants to listen to a story with a really lengthy involved plot.  Some of our favorites so far include:


- A collection of soft-cover Sesame Street Good-Night Stories, which Mike picked up in a bundle at a yard sale last summer.  They were a rather random purchase, but Natalie has loved them.  They each have a couple of stories with her favorite Sesame Street characters, and the pictures are great.  She loves pointing out the characters and naming the colors she sees on the page, even when she doesn't want to sit still and listen to the whole story.  Our hands-down favorite (and hers!) is Cookie Soup.


-  We got Click Clack Moo:  Cows That Type as a Christmas gift from Natalie's cousin Carly, and it's one of Mike's favorite kid books.  Natalie enjoys it enough to actually listen to it cover to cover, which is a small miracle in non-board-book world. 


Do those of you with young toddlers have any complex children's stories that your kids are willing to sit through?  I am counting down until Natalie is finally willing to listen to full stories like Caps for Sale, Curious George, Where The Wild Things Are, and Make Way for Ducklings.