We found this little book at a thrift store sidewalk sale and I immediately recognized it as a book I had when I was a kid. Children’s book legend Mercer Mayer’s 1978 Little Monster’s Neighborhood is for my money the best book in the Little Monster series (not to be confused with his Little Critter series). The plot isn’t really as the story features Little Monster simply describing different things in and around his hometown. Truthfully, the book is more of trip down memory lane for me as I remember the faces of the different monsters at the market, gas station and doctor’s office. Little Monster’s Neighborhood is one of those books that LTD reads to himself at bedtime and since that is a quiet activity that is the only recommendation needed.

Children’s book legend Syd Hoff tells a simple story in Captain Cat, a story that avoids the politics of the Military-Industrial Complex to focus on a cat who wanders on to an army base. The training soldiers adopt the cat and award him the (I assume honorary) title of Captain. The story is simple as Captain Cat joins the squad and has fun with the new recruits and even makes a best friend. However, the only reason I’m bringing any of this up is because last night when I was reading this to LTD I got to the part where one page had the all the soldiers marching in the rain and the mud and the next where Captain Cat was sleeping on the bed instead of joining the troops like he did when they went to the mess hall or KP duty. I started laughing out loud and then the little guy cracked up. He really didn’t know why I was laughing but he started laughing anyway, really hard and so I suggest Captain Cat if you want to wind up your kid before bedtime.

As long time Beyond the Car Seat readers know LTD has long been a big fan of Halloween and most things spooky and so for a few weeks all he wanted to read at bed time was the amazing Carl Reiner’s 2003 tale Tell Me a Scary Story…But Not Too Scary! The story centers on a young boy and his mysterious new neighbor. The boy does that I’m scared and don’t want to look but I know I’m going to look anyway thing. The story, which is told in the first person by the boy, begins each section with narrator stopping and asking if things are too scary and if he should continue or not. This disclaimer provides plenty of fun as the little guy says he doesn’t want to go on, then quickly says yes turn the page.

One of the plot points revolves around a glass eye that I told LTD was a marble. And with that in mind I will leave you with this incident. Last night, LTD wanted to read Tell Me a Scary Story… however what The Mommy and I heard was that he wanted to read the Richard Scarry book about marbles. It took about twenty minutes, but it all got sorted out in the end.

A buddy of mine was dealing with his 10 year old son the other day and he told him that he sounded like a broken record. Of course, his son quickly said what’s a record? With that in mind I present 2008’s Raining Cats and Dogs by Will Moses. The book offers simple easy to understand explanations for the everyday expression we tell our kids. Expressions that traditionally result in a toddler missing the point, for instance, when you tell a three year old that they are in a pickle the conversation goes off in an entirely different and unintended direction. One of the strengths of the book is that you can skip pages with ease (when you are tired) and the story doesn’t suffer since it is basically a dictionary. Each expression is followed by funky art, a straightforward meaning and an example of use in everyday life.

Spill the Beans: Someone is supposed to keep a secret-but instead tells all. “What was in the pail was supposed to be a secret, until Georgiana spilled the beans and told everybody.”

A shout out to another dad whose book comes out soon. Click here.