I’m a librarian by day and a mom, well, all the time.  Okay, technically I’m a librarian by night sometimes too, since we have night and day shifts.  So I’m a librarian and a mom. Our house is chock-full of books, and I mean literally, there are stacks of picture books waiting for another bookshelf to be bought to house them.  (“Friends of the Library” book sales are my kryptonite.)

And yeeeeeet.

Despite the plethora of choices, I find myself unable to decide what book I should read my almost-four-year-old daughter first.

No no, not like that.  This kid has has picture books read to her since birth.  I mean the real meaty kind of reading: bedtime chapter book readalouds.

There are so many options though!  I could go real deep and try Harry Potter — the millennial version of teaching a kid to ride a bike before they’re ready?  Or something? But the truth is, I want that experience to be remembered, and I fear she’s too young to get it.  Maybe she’d get it in a perfunctory sort of way, but I think you have to have a taste of longing in your heart in order to appreciate the wish-fulfillment that is part of Harry Potter’s appeal.  If you don’t have the wish, you can still enjoy it, but I want her to get the full effect if possible. Still, I’m open to it.

But there are other choices too.  Beloved classic Charlotte’s Web comes to mind, but is she ready to deal with the end?  I specifically left off Where the Red Fern Grows here for obvious reasons…  But maybe she can deal. Or there’s Flora and Ulysses, another gem.

Then there are the graphic novels.  They’re short and sweet if I pick something for an easy reader.  Harriet the Hamster is a charmer, so is The Princess in Black, a kind of chapter/graphic novel easy-reader hybrid.  

Obviously you can see my dilemma here.  There can only be one first chapter book readaloud, and I want to pick the right one.

So that’s where you come in.  Give me your input and share your wisdom here by voting in my survey monkey, aka, making a parental decision the millennial way.  https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Y79LWW3

ORRRRR share your thoughts about the perfect first readaloud in the FB comments, or post comments here.  I pinky-swear I’ll take everything into consideration before making my final verdict.

Here’s your chance, y’all: help a librarian out.

(But no Where the Red Fern Grows y’all.  There aren’t enough tissues in the world.)