I am a regular at our library.  I do take Gage, but find it near impossible to actually shop for books so for personal time I tend to go before I pick him up from school about once a week.  The limit for checkouts is 50.  I am always very close to that – right now I have 49 items checked out.  Books, audios, movies, play-a-aways, music cds…the majority are enjoyed by Gage.  He loves books.  We always have them on the table for before or after meal times and before bed.  I brought home these three books weeks apart (our library will let you renew indefinitely as long as no one is waiting for it) and he loves them all.

Harry is read often in this house.  At first I thought they might have too many words and be too long, but no worries he listens and looks the whole time.  The illustrations are so great. They are bold and big and easy to follow.

We started with Harry the Dirty Dog. In this book Harry doesn’t like to take baths and runs away from home and after he’s had all the fun he can handle he gets tired and hungry and returns home, only his family doesn’t recognize him because he is so dirty.  Gage may have initially fell in love because there is a train and any book with a train must be good.  So cute and my personal favorite.  It’s 32 pages and first published in 1956.

In No Roses for Harry he receives a sweater from grandma that he hates.  He tries to ditch it but has no luck until a little birdy helps him.  This one could be confusing at first, but after a few readings I think he started to get the concept of the sweater just being one long piece of wool.  32 pages and first published in 1958.

Harry and the Lady Next Door is the one I brought home this week and I haven’t warmed up to it yet, maybe part of it is the length, it’s 64 pages.  It took two tries to get through the whole thing.  Seriously, yesterday alone he wanted to read it at least 4 different times.  I also think Harry is not very nice in this one, always trying to drown out the lady who sings too loudly next door, but it’s a teaching moment 🙂  This was published in 1960.

I know there’s at least one more Harry book.  We’re sure to read it soon.  These are classics. but I don’t remember reading these.

Did you read the Harry books growing up?