Smart Bitches Trashy Books | All of the romance, none of the bullshit.

I have no children yet, but if I ever do, there’s an entire collection of books that I’m probably going to give to them.

Anything by Sandra Boynton (I don’t think I spelled her last name right, but oh well), Alexander and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day, Dr. Seuss (of course), and Harold and the Purple Crayon, among others.

In the “slightly older kids” department, we have the lovely and adorable Magic School Bus series (as a child of the 90’s, these were an ESSENTIAL part of my elementary schooling), The Jolly Postman books (never did find all the pieces to the Humpty Dumpty puzzle from one of the books), and the lovely Dinotopia books, which are fairly long to read, but always beautiful to look at. Plus! Dinosaurs!

We had Boynton Books out the wazoo when Boy and the Diva were babies.  Moo, Baa, La la la was the huge favorite.  Then when they got a little older, it was the Betsy Cronin/Doreen Lewis books.  Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type was the first one and we were irrevocably hooked.  Also the version of St. George and the Dragon that was illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman still resides on our bookshelf.  Anything by Jon Sczieska, Graeme Base, or Berke Breathed.  The cool thing about a lot of these books is that we still have them, prominently displayed on our shelves and every now and again, we pull them down and read them and enjoy ourselves all over.

Now they’re reading the Warriors series and Percy Jackson and the Olympians.  Heh.  I got me some readers.

When my daughter was born, someone got us Love You Forever by Robert Munsch.  This was a cruel thing to do.  Hormones + That Book = Crying.  Loads and loads of crying.  Reading it as a bedtime story ever after evoked some kind of Pavlovian response harkening back to reading it that first time and I cried EVERY TIME I read that damned thing.

I can’t wait to give it to my daughter and do the same thing to her some day.

Oh, goodness. Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny, along with assorted Dr. Seuss, two different fairy tale books and one called Tales from the Ballet were mainstays of my childhood. I still have most of them, albeit beaten up and in storage. But my parents mostly told me stories—an assortment of Indian folktales, mythological things, and the occasional adaptation of some book my father liked.

I have, however, started collecting books I read in school that have since gone out of print, like Allan Eckert’s The Dark Green Tunnel, Bruce Coville’s ghost story trilogy (which I liked so much better than any of his alien books), and anything by Zilpha Keatley Snyder. I’m also vaguely tempted to find my old copies of Enid Blyton, even though I know they’re formulaic, because I remember how much fun they were to read when I was nine or so.

When I was a baby, my mom (who worked at a drugstore at the time) found a book called “Two Kittens.” The two kittens happened to have my name--one has my first name and the second my middle name. I’ve treasured that book for almost 30 years now. I also have an ancient nursery-rhyme book (I think it belonged to an aunt or a great-aunt before me) that I adored as a child, and look forward to passing down.

I’ve been sending my six-month-old nephew his father’s favorites ("The Little Red Caboose” and “Go Dog Go!"), both of which I love because I remember how much my brother loved them. Actually, aside from the nursery rhyme book, I don’t remember which books I liked best. Mostly, I remember what my brother liked.

Hands down, my two favorite books as a young kid: Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak and The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein.

“Two Frisky Cats”, a board book about a mother cat & her kitten. Long trashed now, but I loved to read it to my firstborn & probably could still recite its entire text (there wasn’t much) from memory.

“Love You Forever”, instant tear-yanker. ‘Nuff said.

Rosemary Well’s “Max” books.

“How Droofus the Dragon Lost His Head,” Bill Peet.

“Tales of the Ghost Whale.” Don’t look for this in stores. These are bedtime stories my husband made up on the spot when they were bored with their books. I did the puppet part. Mortimer Jonah, the ghost whale, could fly either in water or air. He would drop in at night and pick up one or both of my daughters (known by their aliases, Tritistee and Triteria), and have adventures.

Guess you hadda be there.

With my kids we loved PAT THE BUNNY, GOODNIGHT MOON, MOON CAKE, WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE, and so many other books that we loved to read together.

Does anyone remember a book about a mother who would rock her son and tell him how much she loved him, and even when her son was grown and married, she’d climb up into his bedroom just to hug him (it was really cute) and then at the end it was the young man holding his frail older mother saying the same thing she always said to him. It still makes me teary to think about that book.  I wish I could remember it.

My word is play 51 Maybe I should play today. :o)

I second the love for all things Sandra Boynton.  Especially ones with hippos: Hippos Go Berserk!; But Not the Hippopotomas; and The Belly Button Book.  Also No Matter What is a sweet tale about love.

I’d forgotton about it until we found it at the library, but The Monster at the End of This Book is excellent fun for toddlers.

For somewhat older children, which I read to my toddlers anyhow, Shadow Castle is a great fairy tale chapter book.

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Security word Change79—I surely changed a lot more diapers than that!

I loved the Secret Garden as YA.  I still have the original version that I read all those years ago. 

For my boys, when they were little we mainly used education books.  Right now they are 10 and 11.  My oldest doesnt read much but my youngest is like me.  He is reading Lego’s Bionicle series, The Percy Jackson and the Olympians series , Animorphs and Goosebumps.  In school he just finished reading The Black Stallion.  The school actually let them keep the book.

The 3 of us are reading Star Wars I, II, & III.  This is a combined book of all the stories.  I was surprised at the quality of the writing.  I didn’t expect it to capture me too! 

It seems easy to find books for when they are little, but harder as the grow. My youngest reads 2 grades above his reading level.  So we have to be careful about content.  I am so HAPPY that he reads so much and at such a young age.  I didn’t start finishing books until I was in my early teens. 

Thanks so much for this post today!!

Two words (well, actually six): Pippi Longstocking, that crazy little bitch. And nearly anything by Dr. Seuss and Roald Dahl.  Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.  And most traditional fairy tales.

Cheyenne--that’s Love You Forever.

A friend gave it to me right after my mother died. Amazing how well it resonates for adults and for children.

I don’t have kids right now, but I’ve got a whole library stashed for their future.

The one that stands out for me, is Little Witch by Anne Elizabeth Bennett to me, and I’ve bought a few copies for the future. My mother used to read this to me from 4 on, and its one of my fondest memories. 

She also always read the Night Before Christmas to me. A lot, mostly because I’d beg for it. So in mid-June, I could hear my favorite poem.

And I have a really large encyclopedia of children’s folklore and fairytales that was a favorite as well.

someone got us Love You Forever by Robert Munsch.  This was a cruel thing to do.  Hormones + That Book = Crying

I agree. I love that book though!  Corduroy is another favorite of my kids. 

The “Little Critter” books were well loved in this house too.

Favorites of mine ( when young) have all been passed down in my house to my kidlets:
“Where the Wild Things Are” - Sendak
“The Giving Tree” & “Fallin Up” Silverstein
“Mama, do you Love Me?” - (can’t remember- must go look!)
Any of the Junie B series, when they got a bit older

And the #1, hands down favorite is “Fox in Socks” by Dr. Seuss.
I mean come on- seeing your parents ( or me now!) get tongue-tied every evening? PRICELESS!

Is Your Mama a Llama? by Deborah Guarino and Steven Kellogg was the first book I could read as a kid, I loved it that much.  Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson and anything by Maurice Sendak (especially the little books, like Chicken Soup with Rice) also stand out in my memory.  The “Little Critter” books were a fav, although moreso for my little brother than me.

For fans of poetry, Jack Prelutsky is great.  To this day, “I Love You More Than Applesauce” from his It’s Valentine’s Day anthology is my favourite poem.

My kids love Jane Yolen’s “How do Dinosaur...” books and my older kiddlet is currently into Magic Tree House books (pirates, dinosaurs- adventure!  What more could a young boy want?)

My favorite book from when I was a youngster is now OOP- Richard Scarry’s ”Busy Busy World” It’s horribly un-PC filled with tons of stereotypes from around the world, but a bunch of great stories none the less.  I also loved ”Oh, What a Busy Day” by Gyo Fujikawa.  Just a beautiful book.

(hope I got the codes right… never tried posting a link here before)

No kids of my own, but I’ve given the nieces and nephews Where the Wild Things Are, The Lorax and Where the Sidewalk Ends. They also liked things like Pat the Bunny, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie and Down by the Bay when they were small. As they’ve gotten older they read authors like Dianna Wynn Jones and Harry Potter, and I was very proud to introduce my niece who wants to be a writer to Neil Gaiman via Coraline.

I’ve hung onto or bought for myself the Narnia Chronicles, Winnie the Pooh, Alice in Wonderland and The Phantom Tollbooth.

One of my favorites that I haven’t been able to find a copy of as an adult is The Best-Loved Doll. It’s about a little girl who’s supposed to bring her favorite doll to a party, so she brings the one with a missing eye and cut hair, etc. (it’s been a while so I’ve forgotten the details). At the party every doll gets a prize, and hers gets Best-Loved.

Er, books like. Not authors like. I know Harry Potter’s not the author. *cringes*

Pat the Bunny
the Little Bear books
Dr. Seuss (especially One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish)
Sara’s Granny and the Groodle (long out of print, and fabulously psychedelic in both story and illustration)
Where the Wild Things Are
Winnie-the-pooh and The House at Pooh Corner
Make Way for Ducklings
A Book of Americans

And I used to beg my mother to read me the intro to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (I had a version for children I got when I was three), in middle English.  One of my favorites!  (She’s an English Ph.D)

Along the Boynton line, one of her latest is Personal Penguin about a little penguin trailing after a hippo wanting to be best buddies.  Very cute.  And then you get it sung by Davy Jones.  VERY CUTE!  Personal Penguin video

Since we have favorite bedtime songs as well as bedtime books, this works for both.

My favorite book of all time was out of print when I discovered it at my grandparent’s house back when I was in fourth grade. Copies can still be found on sites like Alibris.com. It is The Thirteen Clocks by James Thurber. My boys love the book as well, and I have found a couple of audio books, but none of them capture the book as I see it in my mind’s eye.

Cheyenne--that’s Love You Forever.

Thank you, Leslie. I was sitting here asking my 20 y.o. if he remembered that book and was all teary just asking him. He remembered it, but not the title. Thank you!

I adored Where the Wild Things Are as a child.  I’d do the actions on the parts where the monsters were rolling their terrible eyes and showing their terrible claws, and my mom did a fake-sinister voice.  Good times.  :)

I also loved Little Bear, the Frances books (A Bargain for Frances is the only one I remember the title of), anything by Richard Scarry...When I got a bit older my favorite was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

I don’t remember a lot of really young children’s books, except for Big Dog, Little Dog which my father bought for me when I asked him to teach me how to read (because I felt left out of the family passtime).

I do, however, cherish the memory of my mother reading Black Stallion to me.  She would carefully read ahead and always ask me if I wanted her to read the scary or the sad parts or skip them.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there!

My kids range in age now from 25 to 15, but we did a lot of reading when they were younger.  And I saved all the books for when I have grandchildren!

I am amazed at how much of this will be repeat.  Good Night Moon, Where the Wild Things Are, Love You Forever (total weep fest), Make Way for Ducklings, Winnie the Pooh. Those were all huge favorites.

My kids were especially fond of poetry, so Dr. Seuss was big (Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs and Ham were probably their favorites), and also Shel Silverstein (although NOT The Giving Tree) and A. A. Milne ("They’re changing guards at Buckingham Palace / Christopher Robin went down with Alice").  Sandra Boynton was big, too.

The Stinky Cheese Man and Math Curse by John Scieszka and Lane Smith were read over and over.  Man, great books.  We also got good mileage out of the Thomas the Tank Engine books, since the kids loved the show.

I don’t think anyone else has mentioned P.D. Eastman’s Are You My Mother.  We wore that book out. 

My sisters and I all loved a book called Not Enough Beds for the Babies by Mary Ann Hoberman.  We have quoted it to each other for decades.  I didn’t have a copy when my kids were growing up, but I recently bought a used copy (for far too much money!) for my sister.  We will have it for our grandchildren.

This has been a great trip down memory lane for Mother’s Day.  A nice gift; thanks.

My favorite book of all time was out of print when I discovered it at my grandparent’s house back when I was in fourth grade. Copies can still be found on sites like Alibris.com. It is The Thirteen Clocks by James Thurber.

just so you know, Kat, the New York Review of Books (man I love their children’s reprints) is reissuing the 13 Clocks in a couple of months.
http://www.nybooks.com/shop/product?usca_p=t&product_id=7953

and Mellie, Sterling has been reissuing the works of Gyo Fujikawa in the last year (the Mother Goose collection is one of my favorites from childhood). You may want to keep an eye out for “Oh What a Busy Day” if they continue through all the back catalog.

Thanks!  I’ll keep an eye out- my copy is totally worn out from many, many years of reading.

I loved the picture books by Tatjana Hauptmann:
Ein Tag im Leben der Dorothea Wutz (Engl. title = A Day in the Life of Petronella Pig)
Hurra, Eberhard Wutz ist wieder da! (This is the sequel to the Petronella Pig book; I think this has also been translated into English, but I couldn’t find the title.)
Adelheid Schleim (Adelina Schlime)

Other books I greatly enjoyed include
Sigrid Heuck’s Pony Bär und Apfelbaum (has been translated as “Pony, Bear, and the Stolen Apples"),
several books by Richard Scarry, among them Ich bin der kleine Hase (the German translation of “I Am a Bunny"),
and three books of bedtime stories (I’ve listened to them and later read them so often that even today I still remember several of them).

David Wiesner’s “The Three Pigs” (metafiction for children! wheee!), Olivier Dunrea’s “Boo Boo”, Jackie French’s “Diary of a Wombat” (oh, so adorable!), Antonia Barber’s “Catkin” (love, love, love the illustrations by P.J. Lynch), and Sven Nordqvist’s Petterson & Findus books are favourites of mine among the recently published children’s books.

The Napping House - fun to read
Miss Bindergarten books - wonderful illustrations
Little Critter books - adore the sense of humor
If You Give a Mouse a Cookie

I miss reading to my kids - my youngest is 6 and reads to himself now.  Sometimes he’ll read to me which is always fun!

Goodnight Moon is a favorite here as well, I remember as a kid, something about those illustrations just made me feel all calm and sleepy.

Other favorites from my childhood that my daughter loves too are the Little Miss and Mr books.

We have started reading the old Nancy Drew books, a chapter a night before bed...right now in the middle of The Secret of Lilac Inn.

New favorites include, as someone mentioned, the If You Give A Mouse A Cookie and Pig A Pancake books.
And her all time favorites are the line of Charlie and Lola books by Lauren Child (we had to have the Charlie & Lola dolls shipped over from the UK for Christmas last year!)

Jenna - I had that Best Loved Doll book when I was a kid - need to search the shelves at my mom’s house, see if I can find it!

I’m not a parent, but love to give books by Mem Fox and they are usually illustrated by remarkable illustrators. Maybe my favorite is Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge, illustrated by Julie Vivas. I can’t read it aloud, of course, because I sob from the tenderness.

A chapter book for a little older child is by Rebecca Caudill, Up and Down the River showed me life in Appalachia in the early part of the 20th century, while the All-Of-A-Kind Family books introduced me to early 20th century urban life.

For an edgy, modern urban picture book, Black Cat by Christopher Myers:
http://www.amazon.com/Black-Coretta-Scott-Illustrator-Honor/dp/0590033751/ref=sr_1_30?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210544329&sr=1-30

Humbug Rabbit by Lorna Balian was always a favorite with my brother and me.  Christmas in America by Beverly A. Scott was important in our house, too.  Good Night, Gorilla by Peggy Rathmann is more recent, but totally adorable.

Sandra Boynton, Dr. Seuss, and Robert Munsch are all staples in my house.  (I have a four-year-old and an eighteen-month-old.) Pat the Bunny, If you Give a Mouse a Cookie, Mo Willem’s Pigeon books and Eric Hill’s Spot books get read over and over, too.  Oh, and The Monster at the End of this Book.

Funny how at least half of these are really carry-overs from my own childhood…

Re: Munsch--I must be the only person in the world who doesn’t like Love You Forever. The first time I heard it it struck me as creepy and a little stalker-ish, and I’ve never been able to shake that feeling. I love The Paper Bag Princess, though!

For little kids, I have to join the chorus with Goodnight Moon, anything by Maurice Sendak, anything by Sandra Boynton (I especially liked Oh My Oh My Oh Dinosaurs). I have to add Dear Zoo, a lift-the-flap book that my kids just loved. A little boy writes to the zoo for a pet, but the animals they send keep being too big, too jumpy, etc.

For any older kids who liked Magic Tree House books but has outgrown them by just a little bit, try the Time Warp Trio books. They’re a hoot. A popular series my 4th grader just discovered, but is read by 2nd and 3rd graders too, is the Warrior books by Erin Hunter, about a society of cats.

Are You My Mother by PD Eastman - what’s not to love, it has a SNORT in it. My kids adore this book.
Any of the Hairy MacLary or Slinky Malinki books by Lynley Dodd
The Big Hungry Bear by Don and Audrey Wood, pictures are priceless and not to forget Owl Babies by Martin Waddell.

“Bark, George” by Jules Feiffer has to be one of my all time favorites.  My kids love that book.  They are huge Boynton fans as well, but George is fun for everyone.  Also anything by Mo Willems is awesome.

Whenever I help throw a baby shower (which as my friends and family are extremely fertile is pretty often), we always ask attendees to bring their favorite kid’s book to start the baby’s library.

I always gift “Stellaluna” because I love the part where “even though we’re different we can still be friends”, Sandra Boynton’s “Barnyard Dance” because it makes you and the child dance around the room as it’s read and “The Hand Art” book because nothing is better than helping children be creative - and the sea monster and dog created by outlining your child’s hand looks fabulous on the refrigerator.

And I often add “Put Me in the Zoo” because I have great memories of my best friend giggling like crazy when it was read to him even when he felt like crap (he died from Luekemia when we were 6).

I can’t read LOVE YOU FOREVER without weeping and snot running down my face.  Most embarrassing. 

You and the others have named some of my favorites--the Boynton books, BILL AND PETE GO DOWN THE NILE, GOODNIGHT MOON, HAROLD AND THE PURPLE CRAYON, but may I suggest some books for your Yid Kid?

JOSEPH WHO LOVED THE SABBATH--by Marilyn Hirsch
BROTHERS--A HEBREW LEGEND--Florence B. Freedman
THE BEST OF K’TONTON by Sadie Rose Weilerstein
HERSCHEL AND THE HANUKAH GOBLINS by Kimmel

When they’re a little older, look for WHAT THE MOON BROUGHT, also by Weilerstein.  My copy is over 50 years old, and I was thrilled to be able to share it with my children.  Now I’m saving it for grandchildren.

Oh, I had forgotten Put Me in the Zoo!  I remember reading that one to my little brother.  And my 21-year-old son, who was reading this over my shoulder, insists that I second “anything by Maurice Sendak.” He always liked In the Night Kitchen best, he says now.

He also says we should chime in on The Monster at the End of This Book.  It was among the kids’ favorites, but I wasn’t allowed to read it—only Grandpa could do the right Grover voice, so it came out when he visited (about once a year) and got read dozens of times while he was there.  Same thing with How the Grinch Stole Christmas—if Grandpa was visiting for Christmas, out it came for multiple re-readings.  If not, just watch the TV version, Mom.

I have to say that Love Your Forever is a weird one for me, too.  It makes me get all weepy and sad, and I can’t say I find it “stalker-ish,” but I didn’t read it to my kids much.  It was a gift from another couple when my middle daughter was born, and I think I read it once to her older siblings (then 8 and 5) when we first got it.  But it never got to them the way it got to me.

The Velveteen Rabbit
The Sandra Boynton Books
Where the Wild Things Are
Nightmare in My Closet
Nightmare in My Attic ? is that it?
How Does a Dinosaur Say Goodnight
And just aboutting with pigs in it.... Olivia, fer example

BTW- that was “just about anything”

I have a fondness for Belinda’s Bouquet by Leslea Newman (she of Heather Has Two Mommies).  BELINDA’S BOUQUET is for a child who may be overweight or small or otherwise teased about her size.  The wise woman in the book tells her that the garden is full of flowers, each beautiful in their own way: the tall, skinny irises and the short, chubby pansies, and all the rest.

children58 is the word in the box below on Mother’s Day!

I have my original copy of Horton Hatches the Egg. My dad doesn’t need it anymore, as he still has it memorized.

Other books that come to mind that no one has mentioned:

The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins
Millions of Cats
My Cat Likes to Hide in Boxes

good night28…

As a kid I had a nicely illustrated set of Just So Stories by Kipling - those were my favorites especially the one about the Elephant’s Child.

I liked Richard Scarry and anything illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman, and Dr. Seuss.

Now that I’m older I read a lot more picture books than I did as a child.  I like a recent one called Thank you, Bear, and find Lois Ehlert’s books fun to read aloud.

Bear Snores On goes over *great* with my storytime folks.  I love Thatcher Hurd’s Art Dog, Dav Pilkey’s Dogzilla and Kat Kong, a recent one by I forget who called “I would really like to eat a child” (about a crocodile who is a picky eater).

You guys have hit most of my favorites, especially Pat the Bunny.  My mom favored darker children’s books, so I read Beastly Boys and Ghastly Girls by William Cole a lot to my younger sisters.  All about rotten children meeting terrible fates, but very cleverly done.  Couldn’t find a copy when my kids were of an age to need (er, appreciate) being threatened.

P.S. Thanks for changing the default setting for the notify box.  Half the time I forget to un-check it.

Guess How Much I Love You is a tearjerker for me. I have to be honest and say I find Love You Forever kind of creepy. Also, I dislike *any* book that tries to manipulate your emotions too obviously, and I feel that book does.

Love Dr. Seuss, esp. The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. Also Little Bear, and Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs, which I’ve read nine nights running now to a certain four year old who can’t get enough…

Are You My Mother was the very first book I ever read on my own!  I’d gotten tired of waiting for my mom to have time, so I did it myself.  That’s also the reason I tied my shoes myself for the first time, and made my bed myself, and got dressed myself.  Man, she was slow. :)

My siblings and I also tore through Dr. Seuss and Beatrix Potter.

I think our favourite for several years was Seuss’ Bartholomew and the Oobleck.  We sure dug that green slime.

In Grade 2, my teacher read Johanna Spyri’s Heidi to us, a chapter a day, and I got all impatient and started reading ahead.  I can still remember Heidi and her grandfather munching down on bread with cheese melted on a shovel by the fire.  Mmmm.

I never got into Nancy Drew, but I LOVED Trixie Belden.  And I read Laura Ingalls Wilder into tatters.  (As an adult, I CANNOT STAND those Ingalls.)

In elementary school, I read a novel called Jancy, after the title character, a boy in Hungary prior to WWI, and its sequel The Singing Tree.  I’ve been looking for those books ever since.  They seem to be out of print and forgotten.

And Louisa May Alcott, who wrote a swack of books suitable for pre-teens.

Okay, stopping now…

volume54!  Oh, I have WAY more than that!

The Littel Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry, and THE BIG HUNGRY BEAR by Don and Audrey Wood was one of my favorites, and my son loves it now, too. We still have my old copy from the 80s!

Also, I adore The Giant Jam Sandwich by John Vernon Lord and Janet Burroway. Such a fun book!

I could never stand Love You Forever as a kid. I’ve never read it as an adult, and can’t say I’ve ever been particularly inspired to do so.

I’ll love you forever, I’ll like you for always, as long as I’m living my baby you’ll be. That’s what came to mind as soon as I read your post and I see I’m not the only one. I gave that to my mom one year for Christmas long before I had kids of my own.

I was very fortunate to have a dad who worked in the publishing industry when I was a child so there were always tons of books around. Victoria’s Pocket, A House is a House for Me, The Snowy Day, Arthur’s Christmas Cookies, and so many others I can’t even think of. My dad’s been gone 15 years now, but I have a box of books he showed me when I was a teenager and said they were for my kids when I had them. I get all sniffly now when I’m able to take out a book and say Papa John gave you this.

I love the Sandra Boynton books. I’ll add Each Peach Pear Plum and The Hungry Caterpillar which I don’t think have been mentioned.

For older kids, Roald Dahl, Anne of Green Gables and Edith Nesbit.

People already named some of my favorites (Dr.Suess, Ronald Dahl, Shel Silverstein) but noticed a few missing:

Wayside Stories
The Bernstein Bears (I think I learned morality from those suckers)
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do You See? (genius!)
Goosebumps (mostly my brother, but I read a few)
*Does anyone remember the girl with pig puppets, and she was going to sell them, and then she lvoed them so much she couldn’t? (I read a lot of books about pigs when I was younger)
*The series where you turn to page 17 if you think he went left, pg. 49 if she went right
then, of course, Judy Blume

And I agree. I Love You Forever was creepy.

Ok, got to find my old boxes of books this summer!

This is enough to draw me out of lurkdom. My kids are now in their early teens, but I just loved reading to them when they were small and now I love hearing all about their latest book find.

We read and reread all the usuals ( Seuss, Boynton, Milne). One author no one mentioned yet is Kevin Henkes. We loved Chrysanthemum and Owen even more than Lily’s Purple Plastic Purse.

He’s even written some novels for young readers that my daughter loved.  In that vein, there’s also Andrew Clements, the author of The Report Card.  I read it to my daughter when she was home sick from school and feeling rather low. I think that book totally changed my then 4th graders view of school and grades.

I’m lucky that I have very young nieces that I get to read to now

”Harold and the Purple Crayon” by Crockett Johnson

”The Animal Family” by Randall Jarrell

My father ruined me by giving me the ”Charles Addams’ Mother Goose”. Normal was never to be my milieu.

These are the three that resonate most with my childhood. Since I don’t have kids of my own, I give these to friends’ children. Each of these books is out of the ordinary, celebrating the individual and each person’s quirks.

orangehands, you’re thinking of The Wonderful Pigs of Jillian Jiggs by Phoebe Gillman. I wanted one of those pigs so badly - I’m pretty sure I made one when I was small but it wasn’t nearly as cool as the ones in the book.

I gotta say, my son LOVES the Mo Willems books (Pigeon, Edwina, Piggy, and Gerald are particular favs), Jane Yolen’s How Do Dinosaurs...? books, and Kevin Henke’s Kitten’s First Full Moon. Oh, and of course The True Story of the Three Little Pigs.

I love kid books!

My favorite book when I was little was totally, hands down, Under the Moon - NOT to be confused with Goodnight Moon, because Under the Moon was (astonishingly, I know) a million times better.  It was about these two mice - a mother and her child - as they were finding their way home, and the mother kept on asking, “Is this where we live?” and the child would respond with all these amazing descriptors and eventually say, “No, this is not where we live, we live under the moon!” or something like that (it’s been a while, okay?) - and I just loved it, because everything was so real and the illustrations were gorgeous.

The Velveteen Rabbit still makes me cry when I read it. I get so sad when the bunny is sad and so happy when he is happy. I also loved The Last Little Puppy and a book called Marshmallow that was about a white bunny. It wasn’t until after I got real pet bunnies a few years ago that I did like a lot of rabbit books when I was a kid. Funny, that.
Don’t have kids, not sure we ever will. All my favorite books and toys were animal related, never dolls or people. I think that’s also relevant to who I am today. Hmmm....

One of my favorite books is The Paper Bag Princess by Munch! I’m so envious that you have a signed edition. I also adore Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney and The Lorax by Dr. Seuss.

The Monster at the End of This Book (starring Lovable Furry Old Grover!) is my favorite book I read as a kid, and my favorite book to read to a kid. You can have a lot of fun getting the kids to “turn the page really hard” to overcome all the obstacles Grover puts up, and in the end when he’s so sheepish they always burst out in giggles.

When I went away to college, I made a tape of myself reading that book for my little brother back home.

Oddly enough, I remember having a version as a kid that was a little bit longer than the Golden Books version they have out now, with more obstacles (at one point he paints the page blue and hides in it). I’ve been looking for years for the copy I remember, but no luck.

And I love Tommy dePaola and William Steig and Richard Scarry - the illustrations are great. My very favorite book when I was little was the Disney version of Peter Pan. I had it memorized by age 3. I also really liked this book called something like “Over the rolling sea” that was a song. I remember part of it “Rolling over, rolling under, while the captain roared like thunder, ‘stand at attention like a soldier’, counting one-two-three.” Something about the illustrations, lions and other animals as pirates, captivated me. And I was facinated by the classic children’s book People by Peter Speir.
I bought the Boy Who Loved Words for a friend recently. The pop-up book Tails is a good one too.

Sheesh. I could talk about children’s books all day! When I have a house I’m going fill it floor to ceiling with children’s books. (Don’t tell my husband!)

My favorite for older children (late elementary-middle school) are:

The BFG by Roald Dahl
Cheaper by the Dozen by Frank Gilbreth and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey (NOT the same as the horrid movie of the same name with Steve Martin)
The Dark is Rising Sequence: Over Sea Under Sky, The Dark is Rising, Greenwitch, The Grey King, and Silver on the Tree by Susan Cooper (Also NOT the horrid movie looooosely based on the Dark is Rising.)
The Enchanted Forest Chronicles: Dealing with Dragons, Searching for Dragons, Calling on Dragons, and Talking to Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede
Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell
Juniper and Wise Child by Monica Furlong
Matilda by Roald Dahl
My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George
Peter Pan by Sir J. M. Barrie
A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, and A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L’Engle

Cheaper by the Dozen by Frank Gilbreth and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey (NOT the same as the horrid movie of the same name with Steve Martin)

I thought I was the only one in the world who had read that book!  The tone was so different from the movie (I’m thinking of the movie from the 1950s; never seen the more recent version).  As in many cases with books made into movies, I thought the book was far better.

I thought of another book my daughter loved as a toddler: Tell Me Something Happy Before I Go to Sleep.  The illustrations were fantastic and I was quite sad when my kid killed that book one day (she loves “experiments").

Thank you, Bitches, thank you!

I have two girls aged 3 and 1 and am always desperate for new books to borrow to read to them. This list will keep me going for MONTHS!

My personal experience is obviously in the very young bracket ... Annika’s favourite book of all time is Koala Lou, by Australian author, Mem Fox.  “I love you, Annika Lou” is our nighttime signoff, in fact.

Next favourites are any and all of the Hairy McClary books (NZ author Lynley Dodd) and a very old favourite my husband had as a boy, The Quangle Wangle’s Hat by Edward Lear.

And The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Guess How Much I Love You. Owl Babies. Down in the Jungle. Farmyard Hullabaloo ...

The little one has just in the last month or so really got into books and is currently most taken with anything with real photos. The Bright Baby books “farm”, “puppies”, “bunnies” actually leave her in gales of laughter!

My kids love Sendak, Silverstein, and Seuss. They’ve also got a couple of Disney collections.

I didn’t know much about kid’s books until after my first baby. My grandmother was of the opinion that reading was a waste of time and any time spent reading was pure self-indulgent laziness. Didn’t matter what sort of book it was either, novel or text book was all the same to her. I think, knowing my self as I do, that it’s part of the reason I often enjoyed reading so much as a child. A bit of rebellion, but mostly just my plain contrary nature. In some ways, I guess I can’t really blame her. Her mother was so uptight that she pulled her out of school after one day of class because the teacher was a man. That one day was all the schooling she ever had so she never did see much use in educating women. Though I do think there was a part of her that envied us our education and opportunities because she was never given the choice. There were no kids books or bedtime stories around my house. When I had my son I decided that he was going to have all that. That I was going to encourage my children to love reading as much as their father and I do. I got my son on of those leap pads when he was still too young for it, but he loved it right off and was reading by the age of 2. He’s 9 now and he just loves to read. His heathen younger brother can’t sit still long enough to read more than 10 pages in one go and so he finds reading to be boring and take too long. Figures!

In addition to all the classics listed above, here are some of my family’s favorites:

My children really loved Curious George - we have two large hardback books with most (if not all) of those stories.

Beatrix Potter - my late MIL gave us a collection of tiny hard back editions. These are wonderful because there is a wonderful range in age - some are very short and simple and others are longer and more complex. The Tale of a Fierce Bad Rabbit is a favorite of my son’s.

Frances the badger by Russel Hoban - Bread and Jam for Frances, Bedtime for Frances, Best Friends for Frances, etc.

I cannot read Love You Forever - it makes me cry. But I also find it manipulative. I deliberately made it creepy in my head so I could get through it. It got “lost” when we moved…

Oh! Forgot to add a more modern favorite: Julia Donaldson. My kids love The Gruffalo, The Gruffalo’s Child, Monkey Puzzle, Room on the Broom, and The Snail and the Whale. I like them because I like reading in verse :)

Okay, I had to chime in. 
Anything by Ezra Keats but especially A Snowy Day
Anything by Don and Audrey Woods: A Napping House, King Begood’s Bath, the “Bear” story as it’s called around here.
We Girls hold up the World by Jada Pinkett Smith.  I usually don’t like celebrity books but this has a great message.
Don’t forget Patricia Palacco who makes me cry and think every time I read one of her books

Also pretty much anything by Martin Waddell. I think my favourite was ‘Rosie’s Babies’ where a little girl is talking to her mum about her babies - stuffed toys - and what she does with them. Really she’s trying to keep her mum’s attention from their baby. He has that quality of being nice to read aloud, and saying a lot with the words he chooses.
And Jill Murphy - books like ‘Five Minutes Peace’ where the mummy elephant is trying, against all the odds, to have a quiet moment.
I agree about the Ahlberg books - we reread those endlessly - books like ‘Peepo’ and ‘The Baby’s Catalogue’ and, at a slightly later stage, Burglar Bill and the Happy Families series.
Also - really unsuitable for babies, but they love it - the ‘Most Amazing Hide-and-Seek Alphabet Book’ by Robert Crowther. We had two copies, neither of which survived unscathed, but every child I ever read it to loved it. The letters are in large black font about three to the page, and then animals pop out from each letter. It’s lovely.
And the Spot books, of course.

No kids yet, but my favourite books as a child were;
the Grug books (possibly only in Australia)
Clifford the Big Red Dog
Moo, Baa, lalala
Dr Seuss, especially Green Eggs and Ham, and One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish
Where the Wild Things are
Possum Magic by Mem Fox

and Enid Blyton and Dianna Wynne Jones as I got older.
Unfortunatly we gave alot of our kids books away when we moved a few years ago… I still haven’t completely forgiven Mum for that…

->I loved Shel Silverstine (specifically his poem about breaking dishes)

-> My ma and da read me lots of poetry, some of my favs were Anabelle Lee by Poe(LOVED THAT ONE BEYOND BELIEF), The Children’s Hour, and The Highway Man, and the Smuggle’s Song by Kipling(i think)

-> I loved when they would read me from Genisus, they had different translations that they would read and so I got to hear the same stuff but in diffrent words, love it

-> Blinda, or the cat who wore a pot on her head (not sure about who wrote it)

-> The Gorilla Did it by Barbara Shook Hazen

->My Mama Says There Aren’t Any Zombies, Ghosts, Vampires, Demons, Monsters, Fiend by Judith Voist

->

Oh, there was on that I loved the illustrations - It was about looking for some majecikal rabbit, and at the end of the book the authors said that they had actually hidden a jeweled rabbit that the book was a treasure map for.  I would love to get a copy of the book cause the illustrations were so excellent, but neither ma nor I can remember the actual name or author.

It had very little text, but I remember just staring at the illustrations for hours and hours and hours and sometimes trying to reproduce them, which given that I have absolutely NO artistic talent, never turned out well.  Well, also as an adult looking back, I think trying to reproduce what must have been oil paintings or something equally cool in crayon and marker might have contributed some to the awfulness of my attempted reproductions. 

Its funny, but I never tried to reproduce any other art from any other book, so that one must have hit SOMEWHERE special.

The Pokey Little Puppy and In a People House.  Still have them, gonna give them to my step-son’s kids someday, I hope.

I’m not sure why they stuck with me, but those two I IMMEDIATELY thought of as kid’s books.

For YA, I got my neice Robin McKinley’s Blue Sword duo, LOVE those stories.  Also, The Black Arrow, which I read several times, even though it’s not the most kid-friendly writing.

I’m glad you asked!  I could go on for days.  I was raised on a steady diet of classics—Goodnight Moon, A.A. Milne poems, Dr. Seuss, Roald Dahl, Shel Silverstein, Margaret Wise Brown, and Rumer Godden.

However, the single most important book of all time is Carl Sandburg’s The Wedding Procession of the Rag Doll and the Broom Handle and Who Was In It, which my father used to read to me when I was three, and which my parents tracked down for me last Christmas, twenty years later.

In the front of the book there’s a picture of the Rag Doll and the Broom Handle on a swing together, and I don’t care what my mother says, I want that image on my wedding invitations.

My kids liked Fredrick and A Color of His Own by Leo Leoni as well as most all of Eric Carle’s books.

My favorites as a kid were Dr. Seuss’ Sneetches and a book about a little ghost called Georgie.  Can’t recall who wrote that one.

My favorites are Mo Willems’ Pigeon books, anything by William Steig, and the Frances books (especially the one where Frances gets cheated out of the money she saved to buy a tea set. Best line “Do you want to be friends or do you want to be careful?") I also love Velveteen Rabbit, Make Way for Ducklings, and books by Peggy Rathmann.

My current favorite is Everywhere Babies by Susan Meyer and Marla Frazee. I love books that Marla illustrates.

I must agree with those who find Love You Forever creepy.  He’s a grown man and she’s sneaking into his house to rock him to sleep? Where’s his wife when all this is going on?  And The Giving Tree makes me angry.  I always substitute “tree” for “girl/woman”, and the way he treats her makes me hate the story.

My mom read WHERE THE RED FERN GROWS and ISLAND OF THE BLUE DOLPHINS to me and my brother when we were little.  Those two books still leave me an emotional wreck.  So good.

My daughter loves GOODNIGHT, DINOSAURS and THE MOUSERY.  Also WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE.

Anyone mentioned Cynthia Voight’s HOMECOMING?

We (and the kiddos both) love Mommy Hugs, and the companion book Daddy Kisses.  The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Brown Bear, Brown Bear are always a hit too.  If you don’t mind books being destroyed we’re on our third copy of The Wheels on the Bus papercraft book.  And the littler one loves the touch & feel books (animals, shapes, etc.)

If you want a real book, that’s a bit longer, Pooh is a great one.  Alice in Wonderland is for a bit older kids.

These are all books that I can still read for the 1000th time without wanting to kill myself.  Unlike, for example, The Big Red Barn, which makes me want to rip my hair out (although the kids love it). 

For later, I still fondly recall Swallows and Amazons, Dr. Dolittle, and too many others to list.

I blogged about a couple of my favorites (and my kids’) here: Some Classic Children’s Books - the Flip series, by Wesley Dennis (hmm, probably why my 6 y.o. is starting riding lessons this summer), and “A Fish Out of Water”, by Helen Palmer & P.D. Eastman.

And no one’s mentioned Virginia Lee Burton (I still can’t get through “The Little House” without choking up, and how environmentally prescient was she?), or “I Am a Bunny” (Ole Rissom & Richard Scarry), or “The Golden Egg Book” (Patricia Scarry) or “Go Dog, Go” (also P.D. Eastman), which my daughter just realized she could read all by herself - “Do you like my hat?” “I do not.” and then finally, “I do. I do like that party hat!” :-)

For Suze: It was the Good Master by Kate Seredy about Janzy and Cousin Kate. I found it on Alibris.

I loved the original Cheaper by the Dozen and also I Remember Mama. 

All of Mo Williams, but maybe the Knuffle Bunny and it’s sequel are my favorites.

Also, if any of you bloggers are interested in classics for older kids, check out The Newbery Project. I swear I had flashbacks reading From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, The Hero and the Crown, A Wrinkle in Time, and Julie of the Wolves.

Make Way for Ducklings and Blueberries for Sal , both by Robert McCloskey.

EEE!!  Thank you hollygee!  I can’t tell you how many years I’ve been looking for those books.  (My Googlefu skills are weak, and cause me shame.)

The thing about Love You Forever is that it is *sick* and my boyfriend gets all snide about it and it always cracks me up and it makes me cry *anyway*. (We’re bad. Have you seen Beatrix Potter’s Tale of the Bad Bunny? “This is a man with a gun.")

Before I had a kid I was on the side of the gorilla but now I am totally the zookeeper. And I have a very fragile, much-beloved copy of To Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street that we read, plus a paperback copy of Wanda Gag’s Millions of Cats from my childhood.

When my little boy was even littler he liked me to read him Charlie Parker Played Be Bop, and now he likes to “read” it to me (he’s almost 3 but he has it memorized) with drum solo & be bops.

We’ve been reading Stuart Little out loud to him but what he really, really likes are Jane Yolen’s Commander Toad books - we call them My First Geek Books. They’re full of puns and total dorkiness. Very cute.

And, oh! We got the best picture book at the library the other day:
Pink by Nan Gregory and Luc Melanson. The little girl wants a doll she can’t afford and some other little girl buys it before she saves up the money, but her mom and dad take her on a pink picnic and later her dad talks about something he wants and can’t have, and plays music while she dances. It was so sweet, and not all super happy ending.

Also one about a crocodile kidnapped from Egypt and put on display in Paris who escapes and lives in the sewers. It’s a Regency even (the whole Napoleonic war era is Regency, right?)

I am really enjoying having a good reason to browse the kids section. Did you know Louise Erdrich and Dar Williams wrote kids books?

...The Monster at the End of This Book.

No, not deep. Not “it made me cry” or “I read it to my parents fifty times.” However, it has always made me laugh. Always.