Aimeekitty- This looks like a wonderful book. I'm always looking for fun and interesting books for my nieces and nephews. Thanks for the recommendation :) Here is a link that might be useful: Curious Garden

I have a 3 yo. He likes the books that relate to him. Some of his favorite books are the "No, David" books by David Shannon. The character, David, in the books acts like DS, but has the same name as one of DS's friends. DS thinks these books are great. DS is also at a stage night now where books without a storyline appeal to him. My fil introuduced DS to magazines that sell big construction equipment like bulldozers, backhoes, etc. These magazines were just ads for selling the stuff. No storyline. DS can sit and look at these magazines for hours. DS also likes the books that rhyme. Right now he likes books that only have about 4 lines per page, but he is getting better about paying attention to the longer books. As a parent reading a book to my child, I prefer a storyline. Regardless of what my child picks out, I have to find the book interesting. If I don't like the book, that book may not get read again. Books I don't like...disappear. As far as certain topics like smoking, drinking, etc., I would never let my child read those books. I would probably ask to have them removed or placed in a seperate section if I saw them in the kids section of the library.

And here is Grandma (me) with 4 week old baby brother, Kieran! It did my heart good to go cuddle grandbabies for the weekend. There were a few pains, knowing that I'm missing one (Maison) but I know we'll be reunited with him one day, and in the meantime, I'm going to have all the cuddle time I can with the grandbabies we still have with us.

Is nonsense poetry OK? If so, try Jack Prelutsky. My sister (an elementary school librarian) gave me one of his books when I lamented the loss of my absolute favorite book of children's poetry, the Arrow Book of Funny Poems. :) It contained such classics as Eletelephony ("Once there was an elephant/Who tried to use the telephant/No No! I mean...), Grandpa Dropped His Glasses ("in a pot of dye/and when he put them on again, he saw a purple sky"), When Daddy Fell into the Pond, and so on. Prelutsky's work is similar to these great nonsensical rhymes. Of course, there's TS Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, as well as AA Milne's Pooh poems, Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, Longfellow. There are several picture books which illustrate single poems as well: for example, Alffred Noyes' The Highwayman illustrated by Charles Mikolaycak, Robert Frost's Birches illustrated by Ed Young... Also, check Inside Out & Back Again, by Thannha Lai. A memoir in verse of a Vietnamese girl whose family fled Saigon in 1975 and ended up in the southern US. It covers her last year in Vietnam, as one of the Boat People, and her first year in the US; she was 10 or so at the beginning of the book. Although it describes her personal experience of the culture shock from Vietnam to the US, it has universal appeal - when I put the book down, I was vividly remembering my own experience starting a new school in a new town when I was 12!