One Gorilla and a Peanut's view of mommy

I picked up this book at the library without even flipping through it.

I was in a rush and was drawn to the cover illustration.

You can't tell because of the lighting but the pictures are bright, clear and vivid.

The author/illustrator uses watercolors and the result is amazing.

The book is called One Gorilla: A Counting Book by Anthony Browne

It starts as a simple counting book.

Simple in that it's a counting book, but I seriously didn't know the names of half these animals.

Peanut can now identify Macaques in a line-up of monkeys.

And then we get here and I start wondering if lemurs are monkeys.

But then John Mellencamp pops up and declares us all one big primate family!

This is a self-portrait of Anthony Browne, the author but does it remind anyone else of Mellencamp?

So here is where the book gets really fun.

We look at all the different people and ask Peanut which ones look most like our family.

The green circles are who I thought Peanut would pick for mommy and daddy.  

The blue arrows are the pictures that Peanut picked.

We all agreed on Peanut as the little Asian boy in the bottom right corner.

I thought the Asian man with glasses would be B but the one Peanut picked made sense also.

But who do you think Peanut picked for me??

Take a good look.

I know there isn't really a good match for me but I assumed

either a woman with dark hair or an Asian girl.

I was so very wrong.

Every. single. time. Peanut picks this lady.

Is it the red lipstick?  I do love red lipstick, although lets admit that the blue eyeshadow is overkill.

B tries to make me feel better by saying it's the big smile.

What is it about this lady that resembles me…

or have I looked like a blonde crackhead all these years and never even known it?

Peanut's Book Journal

Back in September for some unknown reason 
I decided that I should be cataloging the books that Peanut is reading.
Or that I am reading to Peanut.  Or that we are reading together, depending on how you look at it.

I think it had something to do with discovering the Goodreads scanner on my phone.  I spent an hour that night scanning books in a frenzy.

And so I signed Peanut up for Goodreads and started rating and sorting.

Then I started separating them into bookshelves of holidays, favorite illustrations, etc.  Both for my own references and for other parents who ask me for recommendations.

I couldn't even begin to remember all the library books we've checked out over the last few years.  
I'm glad to keep track now so that I may find and revisit old favorites.
We randomly pick up a lot of books as we pass shelves at the library and sometimes we have a hard time remembering what they were months later.

We don't review books until we've had them a few weeks.  
Like food, I find that kids are sometimes uninterested the first time around.

As we go through and fill out reviews, I've separated them into both "Mommy" and "Peanut" reviews… because we obviously don't always have the same taste.  
Ratings are averaged between the 2 of us.

Sometimes we revisit old books and he really takes to them all of a sudden.
Some books are instant classics for the both of us.




Won't this be great to look back on when he gets older?
Or is it just me in my book nerdiness?

So if you want to keep up with our book reviews
 you can find us on Goodreads HERE!

I'd love suggestions for books to read!

We are always looking for something new and I love hearing what your family favorites are.

True Story

Exactly.