My daughter had a new little literacy milestone last night. I was reading to her in bed when she rejected the pile of available books. She instead pretended to hand me an invisible book, and said that I could read it by looking at the shadow of the words. I was a bit taken aback, but I started with "Once upon a time," and paused. She then chimed in with her idea for a story (involving two sisters who were serially kidnapped by a witch, and then had to rescue one another).
I am sure that there will be other opportunities, because my daughter, who turned four in April, was positively giddy with the fun of making up her own stories. I eventually had to steer her back towards the printed books (the non-invisible ones), because she was getting too wound up to be able to sleep. What I loved most about the whole thing was that the storytelling was completely instigated and led by her - I was just going with the flow. Definitely a fun stop on our pathway to literacy.
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Newsletter Update: In this relatively brief issue I have four book reviews (picture book through middle grade) and two posts with links that I shared on Twitter recently. I also have a post documenting some recent literacy moments with Baby Bookworm. 
We were very nearly late for her birthday party (which we held out at her gymnastics place), because she wanted me to read her "just one more" Little Critter book. We incidentally let each child select a book as a party favor. The Fancy Nancy books were the most popular.
She had to stop in the middle of opening presents to ask Daddy to read her the newly unwrapped Mo Willems book (The Pigeon Needs a Bath). Yes, I did get that on video. When things do not go her way, she says: "Hmmpf." She does not seem to realize that she picked this up from the Pigeon. But we do. 
Appreciating new formats: We read Herve Tullet's 
Making Connections between Books and Life: On her first wearing of a new dress received from Nana, my daughter said: "I love it already." Then she laughed. "Just like Penny." She was, of course, referencing 
Playing with Language: after reading 
Acting Out Books: We regularly act out scenes from Bonny Becker and Kady MacDonald Denton's 
Assessing and Recommending Books: She just came in to show me the book that her babysitter had read to her, 
Recognizing Authors: The other night my daughter said, pointing to the stack of books we had selected: "I want to read the Mo Willems book, Mom." I'm not at all surprised that Mo is the first author that she recognizes. He does a nice job of linking his books together. (The Pigeon makes cameos in other books, for instance.) This particular title was an Elephant & Piggie book, 
This weekend my daughter and I experienced a new literacy milestone. We read our first book aloud together. She had requested 
She was admittedly in a silly mood last night, but she was positively hysterical with laughter over 
We also read 
Thus, a stack of five books was sitting on the table. My eagle-eyed daughter spotted them, and asked me to read to her while she was eating breakfast. I said: "Just one. I have to get dressed." She picked the most text-dense one (
After we finished that one, she managed to finagle two more books out of me: 
But, being the aspiring mother of a young bookworm, I thought to myself, "Hmmm, guess I should keep a bigger stack on the table for days when we don't have to rush off to school." It's not like I haven't seen this recommendation in lots of places ("keep books in the kitchen"). It's not like I've never read to my daughter during meals. We just haven't made it a habit. (Truth: I am addicted to reading the paper.)
I was glad to have seen this, but I regretted having interrupted, because as soon as she saw me she put the book aside. It was like I had caught her doing something that she wasn't ready to reveal.
She had a little pile of books from the 
I suggested that she read me more of the books on our way to the party, but she wanted me to be able to see the pictures, so we had to stop. But I was happy that even in the midst of a weekend of holiday craziness, we made time for another little literacy milestone. (And don't tell Baby Bookworm, but she's receiving the 
Anyway, we got to the end of the book and Baby Bookworm said: "Let's read another book. That one didn't have much story" (or something to that effect). This is the first time I've seen her consciously aware of whether a book contained a story, or just other things (vocabulary, pictures, etc.). 
We also watched the movie Wall-E this weekend, my daughter's first viewing. I was pleased to note that she had no problem staying engaged during that first part of the movie, when essentially no dialog takes place. She needed us to explain what was happening, but she didn't need the movie itself to have words. I doubt she would have stayed still if there hadn't been a good story, though. 
On the recommendation of Jim Trelease in 
Pretending to play in the attic, when we have no attic, because that's what the Berenstain Bears do in the 
Initiating a spontaneous acting out of 
Making me recite "Peter Piper" over and over and over again, thanks to 
Recognizing Trixie on the cover of 
A side benefit of this memorization is that my daughter can "read" to herself, when no adult reader is available. I have a delightful iPhone video of her quietly reading a book to herself in the back of the car. (My husband was driving - I suffer from motion sickness and can't read in the car.) I've also enjoyed seeing her "read aloud" to her dolls from time to time. 
Now, I'm pretty sure her babysitter had read her the book earlier, so it's not like she was actually sounding out the words from scratch. She was remembering them. But still. She read the letters, and knew that they made up the words of the title, and read it aloud to me. I was pleased. And, of course, we promptly sat down to read the book.