In honor of International Children's Book day, we thought we would talk about a few of our favorite children's books. These are books that we loved as kids and continue to love and plan to share with our children now and in the future.
Shannon's Favorites:
Favorite picture book: Purple, Green, and Yellow by Robert Munsch
This was my all time favorite picture book as a child, I wanted my parents to read it again and again. It's an adorable story about a girl who really really wants coloring markers, but her mom is unsure. She assures her mom that the kind she wants are washable, well when these markers get boring she wants the next kind and the next kind. Until eventually she wants super-indelible-never-come-off-till-your-dead-and-maybe-even-longer coloring markers....and what can go wrong there? This book has beautiful illustrations and has a repetitive theme which is really great for small children.
Children's Fantasy: The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo
The Tale of Despereaux is a beautifully written story about a brave mouse, a greedy rat, a wishful serving girl and a princess named Pea. This book is written in four parts and narrated by an omniscient narrator whom isn't related to the story. This reads like a fairy tale and teaches some wonderful lessons about life, love, and adventure. While I personally have read this book on my own I think it would be a great story to read aloud to children. It has vivid detail and some small sketches to help the reader envision the characters and the story as a whole. I have read this book many many times and recommend it to everyone.
Sarah's Favorites:
Favorite Picture Book: I have two favorite picture books. The first (in no particular order) is Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes. Chrysanthemum is about a little mouse named after a flower. She loves her name, until some mean kids at school make fun of her. This story teaches a great lesson about bullying, and the illustrations are so cute! My second favorite book is Hooway for Wodney Wat by Helen Lester. Rodney Rat is a little rat that can't pronounce his R's. He is teased for this at school, until he finally stands up to the bully Camilla Capybara. There may be a theme here, both are focussed on a small rodent, and both deal with the topic of bullying. These are great books for any child to read, especially when they are young, to teach about the detriment of bullying.
Favorite Beginners Chapter Book: My favorite beginners chapter book or in this case books is Magic Tree House. I loved all of these books. For those of you who haven't read them, the books are about a brother and sister that find a treehouse in the woods near their house. When they climb into it to investigate they find it filled with books on every topic. As they are looking at the books, the tree house whisks them away to different places to go on quests. I always loved when my mom brought these home for me to read. I would finish them in one sitting, and still have plenty of them on my shelf. I am impatiently waiting for my girls to be old enough for me to read them to them!
Favorite Children's Non-Fiction: Snowflake Bentley by Jacqueline Briggs Martin is my favorite nonfiction. It is about a man that figured out a unique way to photograph snowflakes. In the edition of this book that I had, you could see many of his photos, and the snowflakes were so captivating!
Favorite Middle Grade: My favorite middle grade (when I was younger) was The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. This book plays on words and literary elements to create the adventure of a lifetime for a young boy named Milo. Middle grade is probably the genre that got me into reading. Sharon Creech, and Kate DiCamillo were my favorite authors, and I still hold their stories dearly. Now that I am older I have read a lot more middle grade novels, especially recently. Some honorable mentions are The Graveyard Book by Neil Geiman, The Wonderling by Mira Bartok, and The Elephant's Girl by Celesta Rimington.
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