Trouble At the Dinosaur Cafe by Brian Moses, Illustrated by Garry Parsons

An angry T-Rex comes into the happy Dinosaur Cafe and decides that he wants to eat the other dinosaurs. But Terry Triceratops saves the day!! This book is hilarious and reminds me of a western shoot-out. The illustrations are amazing and your child will ask to read this book again and again. I am a firm believer that illustrations need to be just as strong as the story in picture books in order to grab and sustain your child's attention. I think this book will be good for demonstrating sequencing when the time comes for Ricky. If your child is working with Sequencing activities in pre-school or kindergarten, this story has good examples of cause/effect relationships. If your child likes dinosaurs, add this book to your list!

We're Going On a Bear Hunt by Michael J. Rosen

This book tells the story of a family who goes on a bear hunt and the consequences of their curiosity. I don't think Mark and I will ever go on a deliberate bear hunt, so when I saw this book, I had to get it. Why not live through other people's experiences - even if they are fictionalized?

This is a book that Ricky likes, but I try not to read it too often. It requires lots of repetition - which is good for kids, but if your child expects you to read about 10 books in one sitting like Ricky, you will definitely lose your voice when you read this one. My husband is not fond of this book because of the noises you read (ie "squishy, squashy, squishy, squashy) but I appreciate this book for its sense of sequencing of events. Sequencing is an important pre-school concept, so I am all for reading this book once in a while - when I am only reading 2 books in one sitting.