While She Knits - Kiddie Korner

[idiosyncreant.livejournal.com]

Last time I asked about comfort books, and this is almost more a specified version of that question.

What are your favorite childrens' books? I mean picture book/early reader style children's books, not middle grade.
What were your favorites?

And, of course, WHY?

Have you given up picture books? Or do you still occasionally pick up a Berenstein Bears if it's one you never saw before?

*guilty!* 

Comments

[sandtree.livejournal.com]

I never read picture books any more, but my absolute favourite when I was a kid was 'The Patchwork Cat'.

[fabricalchemist.livejournal.com]

They won't let me reshelve the children's books at work unless they're absolutely desperate, because last time I think it took me two+ hours. I am a complete sucker for good illustration.

Chris Conover's The Wizard's Daughter is one of my favorites.

[chocolatepot.livejournal.com]

Well, my mom's favorite is Tommy at the Grocery Store. I think it's because it's so bizarre. The mother leaves her child at the store and people think he's various products: "he's a potato! he has eyes!" and such.

As for me, I love the Chris Van Allsburg (so does she) ones. Oh, oh, and the Little Dog books. We still say "Little Dog, Little Dog, that is not for you!" at each other in my family.

[cleo]

There is a children's version of "The Cantebury Tales" that is beautifully illustrated. I used to love it just because of the pictures. I always loved "Owly" too...and even moreso now because my little boy loves it. It's nice that my copy has lasted that long.

[traboule.livejournal.com]

Hey, do you have an Amazon link or something for the Canterbury Tales? I think I know someone who's looking for that edition - or at least a beautifully-illustrated children's version.

[emerald-happy.livejournal.com]

I don't read them anymore, but the Mog books.

They got me liking cats, I think

[philia-fan.livejournal.com]

Haha, Wildcat liked Mog. My husband hated them and kept threatening to throw them out when she wasn't looking. I rather liked Mog and the way she thought "dark thoughts."

[keestone.livejournal.com]

Oh gosh! So many books!

East of the Sun and West of the Moon as retold and illustrated by Mercer Mayer is still a favorite (points to icon). Spectacular beauty of the illustrations aside, I loved that the girl was the one who went on the quest to save the prince. (Dude. If I were some sort of biological reductionist, I'd be looking for the feminism gene.)

There were two absolutely beautiful picture books in my local library where I grew up that I'd love to track down. One was a retelling of the Demeter and Persephone myth, the other was a story about Harlequin getting his distinctive costume (oh, hey! It looks like it was Harlequin and the Gift of Many Colors illustrated by Remy Charlip). And, there was a gorgeous retelling of Tam Lin that totally started my obsession with versions of that ballad.

I also loved Tomie De Paola's Strega Nona stories, Nana Upstairs Nana Downstairs, The Clown of God, and I could have sworn he did a book about the swallows of San Capistrano, but I can't any references to it. Tomie came to a local bookstore when I was tiny, and he taught us how to draw sheep!

Let's see... what else? Practically anything by Maurice Sendak or Dr. Seuss (particularly Fox in Socks ... evil children love to make their parents read that out loud fast). I think all my siblings learned to read on Go Dog Go, and I can still make family members laugh by saying "Hello, do you like my hat?" at random. We also had a beautiful but fragile and unwieldy edition of Andersen's fairy tales that had belonged to my Grandmother.

[keestone.livejournal.com]

Ack! I missed a close tag there.

[philia-fan.livejournal.com]

Yes, I too loved Fox in Socks and Go Dog Go, as well as all things Maurice Sendak. Also Ferdinand the Bull and Bedtime for Frances (and the other Frances books). I discovered Tomie de Paola as an adult, and The Art Lesson makes me choke up every time I read it, seriously. Bill and Pete are also big de Paola favorites. Allan Ahlberg's The Bravest Ever Bear was probably Wildcat's favorite. I also love Kate Banks and Georg .... oh, shoot, I'm going to have get back to you on his last name, sorry. And, as Leslie mentioned a few weeks back, The Big Jump.

[hikari-cyhan.livejournal.com]

I don't have any of my picture books on hand right now, since they're all at home, so the title may be different...but I've always loved Jesse Crosses the Sea. It's about an immigrant girl coming to America from some non-specified European country during the early twentieth century. Even back when I was little, I thought the art was absolutely gorgeous.

Also, I don't know if these are early reader or not, but I am a HUGE American Girl fan. LOVE LOVE LOVE.

[aged-crone.livejournal.com]

American Girl books didn't come out until I was a grownup and a librarian. However, being a book collector *and* a doll collector, I have all the books and all the dolls and all their things up through Kit - Samantha, Molly, Kirsten, Felicity, Addy, Josefina, and Kit. I decided to stop collecting when the Kaya books came out because they changed the titles and I figured I had to stop somewhere before the perilously bulging walls of my house actually exploded.

(But I did succumb to a coupl of accessories that the newest AG, Julie, has. She's from the 1970's, and I had to buy the little record player and the little Barbie styling head. Apart from that - not even tempted. I can think of few decades with uglier clothes for girls than the 1970's.)

[savvywriter.livejournal.com]

I like Green Eggs and Ham. My little brother Samuel (4) likes to read the part of Sam-I-Am, and I read the other guy.

I'm also liked a book called "No Flying in the House" about a little girl who was part fairy and had a white dog named Gloria who was three inches high and could talk.

[savvywriter.livejournal.com]

OH yeah, and Winnie the Pooh (the original stories). *cheesy grin*

[boxofpencils.livejournal.com]

yay a topic i'm very familiar with :D

1. the boy who was raised by librarians by carla morris

i feel any description i try to give this book will do it a great injustice! but it's my favourite book to just curl up with and daydream (though since it's a picture book, it's very short). it's about melvin who loves books and finds comfort in the orderliness and the vast knowledge of the library and it's librarians. hmm. yeah i was right, that description did not do it justice. *sigh*


2. the giving tree by shel silverstein

classic! i love how it has something for every age group. i read it to my students (who are 3 years old) but i also love reading it over and over again and pondering over the issues in the book, hidden by symbolism. so delicious :)

[elsa12790.livejournal.com]

This thread made me think of all the little phrases that we quote in our family:
"Let the wild rumpus start!"

"A dog party! A big dog party!!"

And two that might not be so familiar but are from awesome, awesome picture books:
"Eat your greasy bloaters!" from How Tom Beat Captain Najork and His Hired Sportsmen by Russell Hoban and illustrated by Quentin Blake. If I had to name one book in which the words fit the pictures, and vice versa, perfectly, it would be this one.

"Something went terribly wrong..." (said in a voice of awful foreboding) from Dodo Gets Married by Petra Mathers. She also has other books including these characters but we like this one best.
These two books are particularly fun to read out loud because I get to use over-the-top accents.

And my favorite picture book is Boodil, My Dog by Pija Lindenbaum. I can't recommend this highly enough for anyone. Lindenbaum also has other books that we all (me, husband and two kids) adore, such as Else Marie and Her Seven Little Daddies. Very loopy and delicious with sharp little details.

My kids are 10 and 7 so we're more reading books like Harry Potter these days, but we still return to these.

[aged-crone.livejournal.com]

Did you know there's a second Tom and Captain Najork book? A NEAR THING FOR CAPTAIN NAJORK, I believe it's called.

[gauroth.livejournal.com]

The Hairy Maclary books by Lynley Dodd. Wonderful pictures, and great verse. This is a writer who makes words sit up and beg!

[philia-fan.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, those are good!

[kilerkki.livejournal.com]

My favorites were always Margaret Hodges' retelling of St. George and the Dragon, illustrated by Trina ... (*goes to look up her name*) Trina Schart Hyman! First book I bought for my niece--when she was about 6 months old!

And all the Francis books, for which we have hunted high and low in order to give them to my little niece.

And, of course, Edward Lear's The Owl and the Pussycat. We still quote that to each other. My dad has the whole thing memorized.

[aged-crone.livejournal.com]

I got very extremely cranky when they colorized the Frances illustrations. Fortunately, I had already bought them, in hardcover, with the original illustrations.

Do you know the poem book, EGG THOUGHTS AND OTHER FRANCES SONGS? One of them always makes me laugh; it's a poem about Lorna Doone cookies. "You are plain and you are square / And your taste is only fair..."

[aged-crone.livejournal.com]

Since I still read all kinds of children's books (one of the perks of being an elementary school librarian), I'll do my very best to list only the ones that I remember from when I was little.

-Margaret Wise Brown's THE COLOR KITTENS, illustrated by Alice and Martin Provensen. I had (and have) the Big Golden Book version of it, and I just love the soft, bright colors, and Brown's beautiful language. I can't remember the poem at the end, where the roses change color, and I'm too lazy to go get the book and look it up, but I remember how much it delights me. And one of my very favorite picture-book illustrations ever is the glorious swirl of colors that the two kittens cause when they knock over the paint buckets. "And there were all the colors in the world..."

-THE ANIMALS' MERRY CHRISTMAS, by Kathryn Jackson, illustrated by Richard Scarry. A collection of Christmas stories, beautifully (of course) illustrated. The little bear with the golden sled is one story that we cherish - my mom not so long ago found a painted pewter ornament in Heidelberg with a bear on a sled that she bought because of that story. I was very happy that they reprinted the book last year, and bought a copy for my nieces, but was livid that they changed some of the illustrations.

-THE BIG JUMP and THE KING'S WISH, by Benjamin Elkin. Each of them has several stories in it, and I loved the cleverness that the characters show.

SNOW, by Roy McKie, and SUMMER, by Alice Low but illustrated by Roy McKie. That little doggie with his funny whiskers just delights my heart. The fireworks picture is gorgeous. SNOW stayed in print, but for some reason SUMMER was out of print for quite a while. They reissued it recently, and again I had a fit (on Amazon in a review, for example) about the fact that they had changed the hair color of one of the children *and* left out the picture of the dog getting clamped on the tail by a crab. Why why why do they have to change pictures????

Hilda Boswell's TREASURY OF FAIRY TALES had a nice selection of the tales, and I really liked the drawings.

MOTHER GOOSE, illlustrated by Eulalie, had wonderful illustrations, too. I was horrified when I discovered that my mom, a first grade teacher, chopped up the book to use the pictures as room decorations. I was able later to get an other copy, and did some surgery and transferred the innards of the replacement into the cover of the old one, where I had written my name as a child.

CAPS FOR SALE by Esphyr Slobodkina is fun. So is CURIOUS GEORGE (and its sequels), by H. A. Rey.

I could go on and on, but I'll spare you!

[filkferengi]

I did my very first book report ever on _The Big Jump_, in third grade & still remember it fondly.

[alineadrklrdsis.livejournal.com]

I always loved: THERE'S A NIGHTMARE IN MY CLOSET & IT LOOKED LIKE SPILT MILK. I don't know who wrote them though. Then there's CAT IN THE HAT and GREEN EGGS AND HAM and THERE"S A WOCKET IN MY POCKET... basically anything by DR. Seuss. I never much liked picture books though, I'd get the book on tape or memorize the words. Nowadays I sit in front of our little kids bookshelf and spend hours staring at the pictures.

[aged-crone.livejournal.com]

THERE'S A NIGHTMARE IN MY CLOSET is by Mercer Mayer.
IT LOOKED LIKE SPILT MILK is by Charles Shaw.

[rosaleeluann.livejournal.com]

King Bidgood's in the Bathtub and he Won't Get Out! Oh, who knows what to do?
Fun story, fun illustrations. Also, The Napping House By the same author/illustrator.

Round is a Pancake
I just remember liking to read this book because of the rhythm of the words. I wonder if mom still has our old copy...

The Ice Cream Cone Coot and other Rare Birds
In second grade we took turns reading books to our class, and this is the one I chose. I remember being so nervous and excited before reading it to my class. The illustrations are fun and clever. It talks about alot of different kinds of 'birds', which are really everyday things.

Ferdinand
My Grandpa would read this book to my mom with a very exaggerated Spainish accent, and then when we were little mom would read it to us imitating his accent. She had my grandpa do a recording of it on a cassette tape, so we could hear the 'original.'

[rosaleeluann.livejournal.com]

Also, the Amelia Bedelia books. I was always very amused by her misinterpretations of instructions.

[estarria.livejournal.com]

The ones I remember best (besides Dr. Seuss) were the Oliver and Amanda Pig books...and I used to have quite a few Golden Books, which are all packed away now. I liked "The Poky Little Puppy."

[aspectabund.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I don't remember most of my childhood books (apart from Dr. Seuss, of course), but there's one that I can't quite remember the title of that I liked.

It was about a squirrel, who had the most beautiful tail and fur. And one day, someone asked for bits of her fur in exchange for nuts and things. And she goes "okay," but eventually she gets sad and depressed about giving her fur away, and I remember a panel with her crying and holding a acorn in one hand, and her tail is wrapped around her.

Loved that book. Yeah. Gotta love how my favourite book could be interpreted as "prostitution is bad." XD

[(Anonymous)]

How has no-one mentioned "Where the Wild Things Are?

[keestone.livejournal.com]

I mentioned anything by Maurice Sendak, and someone else quoted, "Let the wild rumpus begin," so you can probably consider it covered. :)

[appellations.livejournal.com]

The Boxcar Children series by Gertrude Warner Chandler! They were my 6-8 year old daily staple.

[sclerotia.livejournal.com]

You know, I've gone pretty blank. The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown is the only thing I can come up with at the moment from my preschool days. I remember particularly liking the picture of the mama bunny as a tree and the baby bunny as a bird. I can remember my mother reading the Uncle Wiggly books and Mary Poppins stories to me, though. And fairy tales. We had one of those old books with only two or three color plates glued in. I loved the pictures, but the stories they went with weren't the ones I particularly liked so I don't even remember the stories that went with the pictures. There was also a book called A Little Oven by Eleanor Estes but I didn't like it for its pictures, but because of the story. A child mistakes a friend's mother saying "a little lovin'" for "a little oven" and asks her mother for "a little oven" and they go all over looking at toy ovens. There was another story I loved to have read to me called "The Reasonable Rabbit" I remember it was in a book with another story called "The Boss of the Barnyard" which was also a good story, but not a favorite. I remember the illustrations, but once again it was the story I loved rather than the pictures. We did Dick and Jane at school when I was learning to read. I have heard a lot of flack about the Dick and Jane books (they aren't PC by modern standards) but I can remember once when the teacher let me bring one home and that I read it cover to cover 2 or 3 times that night and thought it was wonderful. When I worked at a library in the 70's the little ones all liked the Ant and Bee books which are out of print now. They, the Seuss books, the Eastmans, and Milne were the only ones we shelved in a particular spot as we didn't keep the JE books alphabetized.

Margaret Wise Brown

[peggy-2.livejournal.com]

And Goodnight, Moon, by Margaret Wise Brown! I had forgotten all about Goodnight Moon! That book was read to pieces when my kids were little. I remember Golden Books, Easy Readers, and the Dr Seuss books, mostly, from when I was little. I loved the rich colors of the Golden Books. We had an easy reader called One Kitten is Not Too Many which is sort of a family joke now (the family agrees they cannot get a kitten, but everyone of them walks past the pet store window and comes out with a kitten because "one kitten is not too many"), and another called The Boy Who Fooled the Giant which were read until they fell apart. And there was a little book called "A Goat named Soda Pop", maybe, about a goat who loved to drink soda pop, that I loved.

[peanut13171.livejournal.com]

I don't remember any picture books from my childhood (it's too long ago!), just those I bought for my nieces & nephews in the last 25 years. My absolute all-time favorites are the Mouse books illustrated by Monique Felix. I've bought multiple copies of those to give away. There are no words so it can be very interactive as you explain the story and ask questions. The illustrations are charming.

Another recent favorite is Terry Pratchett's Where's My Cow. It sits next to my bed and I look at the pics before going to bed if I've had a bad day.