While waiting for my children to tire of playing on the library’s computers (wait. Everyone’s children don’t visit the library for more screen time?), I browsed the board book section.
Public library board books make me feel a little icky, because board books were created to endure drool, baby mouths, and goodness knows what else. But, hey. I blindly assume library books sit on the shelves long enough for all other people’s germs to die (this is how I sleep at night). Plus, we add plenty of abuse to library books as well, so tit for tat. (I googled that phrase to make sure I had it correctly, because I feel icky writing it as well).
On that particular day, I spotted a black-and-white border collie named Momo. Olivia has a current fascination with “woof woofs,” so I tossed the book into my adorable (i.e. reusable Publix bag) library bag and waited some more. After checking it—and the giant pile of library holds I had waiting for me—out, I strapped the kids into their car seats, handed Olivia her new book of woof woofs, and headed home.
WARNING: If Linda the librarian is reading this, you MAY want to skip the next section. Or not. I get what I deserve in terms of sharing secrets in such a public forum.
About halfway home, I hear this horrible “shhhhhhhhhhhhhh” sound. I hate that sound. It’s the sound of my children terrorizing a library book. Or any book. They really do make the same sound. For the record, someone else’s hooligan had started peeling the back cover off the back-cover cardboard. My curious little munchkin just finished the job.
At a traffic light, I snatched the book away from her chubby, baby hands and briefly hyperventilated.
In case you’ve been out of the kid-book game for awhile, I’ll have you know that most every children’s book I’ve checked out from the library has tape, scribbles, or some other repair. So, it’s not only my children! This does not make me a bad mom!
And so, when I got home, I hastily found my Scotch tape and began taping the back cover onto the back-cover cardboard. Good as new, people!
Anywho, back to Momo.
Let’s Find Momo! is a hide-and-seek board book by Andrew Knapp. Mr. Knapp is a photographer with an adorable, apparently incredibly well-trained, border collie. Like all look-and-find books for kiddos, Let’s Find Momo! has pictures with hidden objects and pictures of those objects. The kids, obviously, have to find the objects within the pictures.
In this book, though, Momo is hiding in every picture. It’s brilliant, and my kids love it, especially Olivia who knows about six-ish words. She squeals, “Momo! Momo!” and points every time she sees him. It sounds a LOT like “Mama!” but I’ll let it go. To be honest, she’s better at finding things than George was at this age.
Before venturing into the world of board books, Knapp produced a photography book called Find Momo: My Dog is Hiding in This Book. Can You Find Him? He followed it up with a nationwide road trip (Find Momo: Coast to Coast) in a 1977 Volkswagen Westfalia van, which puts Momo in beautiful photographs from—you guessed it!— coast to coast. Knapp also has a gorgeous Instagram full of his spunky puppy. I’m not going to steal his photos for you, so click here if you’d like to see the adorableness firsthand.
My kiddos love spotting Momo in all three books, and I think they’d be a great activity for kids to do without Mama’s help. Those are some of my favorite options. Plus, I love that I found something my kids adore somewhere other than the juvenile section.
What are your kids loving today? Share in the comments!
Thank you for sending us to Mr. Knapp’s Finding Momo site. It was fun for this old lady! Took awhile to find him in the snow. I need some younger grands. Mine have outgrown Where’s Waldo.(Sorry, I don’t know how to underline with an iPad.)