The Cat Who Walked Across France

This is a lovely book about Love and Loss and Home.  The illus­tra­tions, as always, are gor­geous.  Kate Banks’ books often read more like poetry and each page makes one want to linger and dis­cuss what’s unsaid on that page and what the words mean.  Depend­ing on your child, this book might be bet­ter for an older child, maybe 4–8 because in begin­ning the old woman dies and we spent time when my daugh­ter was 4 talk­ing a lit­tle about what death means.  It’s not scary it’s just a fact of life.  This story is also about strength and per­se­ver­ance through dif­fi­cult times.  Once again this team deliv­ers a heart­warm­ing story that can be read again and again.

Close Your Eyes

This won­der­ful book by Kate Banks and illus­trated by Georg Hal­lensleben is one of our all-time favorite books.  I have been read­ing it to my daugh­ter since she was 18 months old and she is now 5 1/2.  The illus­tra­tions are so beau­ti­ful and sweet.  The prose is calm­ing and reas­sur­ing and I think it goes with­out say­ing that I am 100% behind any book that pro­motes SLEEP!