Karate Hour, Soccer Hour, and Baseball Hour, all by Carol Nevius

This three book series is notable for its inclusivity and appealing to children who love sports.  All three books includes coaches and players of both genders and multiple races.  Karate Hour also includes a student using a walker (albeit just in the background in one photo).  The illustrations are realistic and gorgeous - the children look like your son or daughter's friends.

The books take children through practice (or class, in the case of Karate Hour) from beginning to end.  The prose is simple, descriptive, and rhyming, perhaps better for younger children - my 4 (nearly 5 year old) is a bit bored by the simplistic narration of what the children are doing, despite the fact that he is very athletic and takes similar classes himself.  However, if he encountered these books at age 2 or 3 I think he would have spent much longer pouring over them.

BUY SOCCER HOUR, BASEBALL HOUR, AND KARATE HOUR

(or request at your local library!)

My Pet Wants a Pet, by Elise Broach

A black boy asks his white mother for a dog.  She (finally) agrees, but then his dog wants a pet.  And then the dog's cat wants a pet!  The boy's mother gets increasingly frustrated until he realizes that she is "a special and important someone, who wasn't happy."  As a solution, he gifts her himself in a box because "whenever you take care of something, that something takes care of you" - a theme that is repeated throughout the story.

There are countless wonderful things about this book that both my son and I adore.  The writing is simple but catchy - the repetitive story leads to us both gleefully yelling out variations on "That worm is the pet of the pet of the pet of your pet!  He does NOT NEED A PET" over and over.  Both the illustrations and the story recognize the boy's mother as an important character with her own interests and needs - she is shown reading, doing yoga, washing dishes (with the boy's assistance), working at a desk, and gardening.  There is no father pictured, and they boy can be read as either her biological child or transracially adopted.

BUY HERE (or request at your local library!)