Book 169: Just a LIttle Critter Collection

Just A Little Critter Collection, by Mercer Mayer, Golden Books, 2005.  Preschool to Early Elementary.

My little boy got this book for his second Christmas:  He was exactly one year, six weeks and one day old at the time.  He didn't really get the humor then.  He is now four years and four months old.  He  gets the humor now.  In fact, some of these pages send him into fits of giggles that last so long that I have to stop reading.  I'm OK with that.

For the past month, my son has been at an "I'll do it" stage.  That stage is curiously close to Little Critter's "Just for You" stage and the "All By Myself" stage.  My son recognizes this, and the look on the mommy's face, and that's why these stories send him into paroxysms of laughter.  This collection has seven Little Critter stories, all of which capture a preschooler perfectly, and all of which I remember reading.

Little Critter is iconic.  When I saw him again as a children's librarian many years after having read his stories as a child, it was like catching up with an old friend.  I'm just not saying how old that friend is.  It doesn't matter -- now he is a new friend for my little boy.