Passion? fetish? Ah, who cares. When you're a kid, it's the ONLY TIME in your life that you can eat, drink, and breathe dinosaurs for years at a time (without an advanced degree). So go for it.
Special interests: trains
Check this out. I just found it by accident.
Rail bookstore sells train books. Oh my goodness. The answer to many a little boy's dream! And husband, actually, in case you have a train freak on your hands. Great books.
Special interests: firemen
We are going through an intense fireman time right now. Here is a killer site. It's www.firehouse.com and they have a section called hotshots which contains photos of firemen fighting fires. If you're a 3 year old boy, this is heaven!
This is an amazing book called Hotshots! It's about the men and women who set fires to put fires out, and we love it.
Special interests: rescue
Special interests: knights
I just went to a birthday party at the house of someone with a six-year old son. My son will be four soon and has never seen a gun so I was a bit dismayed by all of the GI Joe dolls with the guns lying around and such. I actually ended up just picking them up quietly and putting them on a shelf (the toys shouldn't have been scattered out during a party -- honest.). At any rate, the mom told me that her son just in the last year became interested in guns because of peer pressure. She was emphatically not happy about it. When I saw this list on Amazon, I remembered what my friend Susan was doing with her six-year old son: she'd directed his "gotta fight" instincts toward broadswords and knighthood. Much more palatable than uzi's, imho. At any rate, here's a list from Amazon that was put together by a parent, suggesting books on knighthood. Also, I'll ask Susan for favorite books and will include any more that I hear of.
Special interests: princesses
I know that there are wonderful princess books out there, and the ones that I like are NOT DISNEY. Period. I have no data on this, and I know that many valuable members of society grew up loving Barbie (all my friends just liked to torture and burn theirs, but therein lies another story), but I strongly suspect that girls raised on a steady diet of Disney princesses always think of their husbands as their "first" husbands, you know? (And where CAN one be be obnoxiously knee-jerk if not in one's own website? If you don't like it, create your own. Oh -- WAIT. No need! Disney has pumped billions of dollars into their "you can find icky romantic love by the age of three" marketing campaign! Plenty of pre-made websites there!)
OK, so here are some princess stories that I like:
The Paper Princess (age 3 and up)
I just read a recommendation for a book called The Paper Bag Princess, by Munsch. The princess is attacked by a dragon who burns up all of her clothes and steals away the handsome prince that she's wild over. She chases the dragon down and saves the prince, who chides her for her clothing, at which point she notes that he's good looking and well-dressed but ... kind of a drag.
Special interests: fairies
I just saw a recommendation for a book called Good Night Fairies. It looks wonderful. (age 4 and up)
