Picking Favorites

I guess I shouldn't be surprised at how fiercely my students become attached to certain books, songs, and activities, but it never ceases to amaze me that they can be just as amused today with "Eight Silly Monkeys" as they were 18 months ago.

One of my students in particular is very attached to that book, along with "Down by the Station". Every week, I pull out new books in the hopes that he will move on, but it just hasn't happened yet. He will happily listen to the new book, even participate and answer my questions, but when it's over, he will without fail walk over to my bookshelf and pull out the two old standbys. He will flip through the pages, hum the melody to himself, even answer the questions he remembers me asking about the book. Then he'll close the first one and move on to the second book, doing the same.

I've considered my options: 1) remove the books from the shelf, 2) stop him when he goes to take them off the shelf, or 3) continue to let him do what he's been doing. For now, I'm sticking with option 3 because he is not resitant to the new books, and his skimming through the old ones only adds about three minutes total to the session. He completes every task I present to him, and his behavior is almost always impeccable during individual music therapy.

So what would you do?