Favorite children's books author
 

Just thought I'd ask as I was reading Lafcadio the Lion by Shel Silverstein. Perhaps those of you with kids will have more insight, but I'd have to say there isn't a Shel Silverstein story I've read that I didn't like, even now. It has a certain readability that stuff like Dr. Seuss or Where the Wild Things are just doesn't have. Even today I can pick up The Giving Tree, Where the Sidewalk Ends, The Light in the Attic... without feeling stupid.

Any other favorite children's books authors for you guys?

The giving tree is the best childrens book ever....

I've always loved Richard Scarry's work. "What do people do all day?" was my favorite childhood book, and my son has picked up with it where I left off.

My kids love Maurice Sendak, in addition to Shel Silverstein.

Where the Sidewalk Ends is a bedtime ritual - particularly the poems Hungry Mungry and Peanut Butter Sandwich

Some of Dr. Seuss' stuff is really good - in particular, The Lorax and Horton Hatches the Egg.

The Giving Tree. Man...the story still makes me tear up.

According to my 2-1/2 year old, whoever wrote the 4-book board book set for Finding Nemo is a genius (the one that has one book for Nemo, one for Marlin, one for Dory, and one for Gil).

Since there seem to be several people here with kids of the picture book age a particular favorite of mine, more for being fun than great literature, is Click, Clack, Moo. Good more for the 3+ yos.

But I agree that Sendak, Silverstein, and the serious Seuss (such The Lorax and the Butter War) are terrific pieces.

I worshipped Light in the Attic and Where the Sidewalk Ends for about the first 15 years of my life. Oh, the nostalgia. I haven't seen them in years, yet as I write this poems and illustrations are streaming through my mind.

my favorite kid books are the really short ones!

Great book ideas. I've just ordered "What do People Do All Day?" That looks perfect for our son. Thanks.

Some of our favorites for toddlers (our children are one and three years old):
Big Bad Bunny
Goodnight Gorilla
If Dinosaurs Came to Town
Piggie Pie
Where the Wild Things Are

Almost everything by the Woods, including:
King Bidgood's in the Bathtub
Silly Sally

Almost everything by Eric Carle, including:
The Very Hungry Catepillar
His books we usually just get from the library. Our kids like them, but they tire of them quickly.

Although Dr. Suess' good stuff is quite good, my wife and I have found some of his stuff to be just awful, and when we do it usually bores our kids to death as well. Having said that, we really like about half his stuff, and there is so much that you can do with The Cat in the Hat Dictionary that it makes it a great purchase.

Any parents out there have books that bore you to death as parents but that your kids love? We have this Barney flap book with a little row of Barney character/animal sound buttons on the right side. Barney is obnoxious enough by himself, but the writing in this book is meaningless and the pictures are blah to boot. But our son loved it when he was in the "flap-book" stage and now our daughter is in that stage and she loves it too. This book should be banned by the Geneva convention as cruel and inhuman punishment for parents. I have read that book a thousand times, and that is 999 times too many. I have heard Barney say "Surprise!!!!" at least a million times. Once our daughter moves on to more complicated books, I intend to mutilate, shred, and burn the damn thing. I will be happy then.

Good thread.

My current favorites are The Foot Book by Dr. Seuss and Guess How Much I Love You.

"Mike Mulligan and the Steam Shovel" is another oldie but a goodie.

I just asked my wife, a fifth grade teacher, what kids in her class are choosing to read this year:

1) Spiderwick series (elves, fairies in the backyard)
2) Lemony Snickett series
3) Artemis Fowl series

Harry Potter is a bit beyond the average fifth-grader, she says.

Wow.. Thanks for bringing that memory to the surface. That was a great book for me as a kid. I'm gonna be looking for that one.

My daughter loves the Seuss stuff. I don't think we have a Barney book in the house. She is five and in Kindergarten now, so I've been reading her books that are more "books", than the Seuss picture books. Lately We have graduated to "Wynn Dixie" from "The Magic Treehouse" and "Junie B Jones" series. I've also read some of Judy Blum's Fudge series to her. All of the above has been well received.

My Father in law owns a land leveling business, so we have plenty of access to BIG humungous heavy equipment. Both of my kids are very into seeing that stuff in action, so the Mike Mulligan book sounds great.

My wife and I have been reading through the Lemony Snickett series (they can be read in about 2 hours each but finding that 2 hours is always tough). If I had kids, tho, I just couldn't see letting my kids near those until a little later on. Don't get me wrong- they're quite entertaining, otherwise I wouldn't read them. But they're really macabre for "childrens" books as there's lots of dark material in the books and in at least half the books someone dies, usually in a somewhat gruesome manner.

Also, there's quite a few jokes that would be lost on a younger audience without a halfways decent vocabulary as there are a lot of wordplay fun. But that's not a good reason to have someone not read a book, rather what makes it fun for older people to read them, too

SI

Nat Nat the Nantucket Cat is also a good one for 4-7 year olds

Well, when I was a kid I made sure to grab all of RL Stine's Goosebump books every month.

Have not read anything of his in a while though so I could not tell you if he is actually a good author or not.

Mike Mulligan first; Virgina Lee Burton

BUT Dan Brown is a close second ;)

My son likes two books. He will sit with rapt attention for Dr. Suess' "The Foot Book" and "Good Night, Baby" a picture book for bedtime that is read to him (surprisingly) before bed, every night.

We try like hell to get him to listen to anything else, but every time you try to read him anything else, he goes looking for the foot book.

Not that it is relevant to the discussion in any way, but I thought a children's book thread was the appropriate place to bitch about it. If anyone needs one of those repeated from memory however, I'm your guy.

I have a blast reading Oh Say Can You Say by Suess. My kid is okay with it, not a huge fan. He likes Yertle the Turtle quite a bit. He loves Cars and Truck and Things That Go, by Scarry, but beware, it's lengthy. Mike Mulligan is great. The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Is Your Mama a Llama are two favorites in our house. So is Madeline (thought I don't get that one). Anything by DK publishers is good for pictures. Not much fun for the reader though. My favorite childhood book is called The People Who Come to Your House, but it's old an might not be around any longer. Same with a little-read Suess book called The Many Mice of Mr. Brice.

Echo the endorsement for Click, Clack, Moo.

Along with Giggle, Giggle, Quack, these two Doreen Cronin books are top notch. Diary of a Worm isn't bad either.

I was less impressed by Duck For President, as the writing style changed quite a bit (sailing over the heads of some younger readers, apparently aiming more for the parents), but the other 3 mentioned are winners IMO.

Me too...





Disclaimer: That was NOT a political statement!

I think one of the points of books like Snicket and Potter, with their darkness, is that kids can handle much more than we give them credit for.

WARNING: Click, Clack, Moo may be construed as anti-organized labor. If you are sympathetic to that cause, do not read this book.

Possibly. I don't know- I don't have kids so I don't have any personal experience to fall back on so this is just a first blush impression. I suppose at that age, I was reading Hardy Boys casefiles which tended to have a person kidnapped or whatnot.

The counterargument, tho, is that just because something is written for a particular age group doesn't mean they are able to properly handle it, either. Something to the effect of "South Park has stuff that is funny to 5 year olds but I don't think I would want mine watching it" would be an example.

SI

That may be a counterargument, but most kids that I know that have read Potter are fully able to grasp all the bad stuff as well as the good stuff. They know Voldemort has killed, etc.

I think you might be onto something ;)



SI

VOTE: Shel Silverstein


Also, growing up I read Curious George and a book about a bull named Ferdinand. I look back now and realize that Ferdinand (the bull) was gay.

...and Curious George smokes a pipe.

My 7-year-old and my wife are currently reading the Harry Potter series together - they alternate pages and it has been a boon for his reading skills. Nothing more gratifying than when he reads bedtime stories to his three little brothers.

28 posts and nobody mentions Roald Dahl????

I thought you fuckers were sophisticated.

Nothing Like a little Karl Marx or Mein Kampf before betime to put the little ones to sleep

Hehe, I thought of it after I posted. I think I read every book he ever put out as a child. The kind of author that writes books for younger audiences without talking down at them in the slightest. I ate that shit up.

LMAO!

On the Click Clack Moo bandwagon here as well. It is just plain fun to read to the kids. Also in the same vein is "Don't let the pigeon Drive the bus". Good Fun stuff.

this mp3 is on topic, clean and funny as hell:

http://www.abctechnical.com/other/Br...ns%20Books.mp3

Anything by Richard Scarry.

My wife bawls every time she reads "Love you forever."

She heard about the book before she had our first child, Lily, this past April, but thought she wouldn't cry. Then, before Lily was born, her sister bought her the book and she started tearing up before she even got to the end.

It is a touching book.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...ve you forever

my own favorite:

Katy and the Big Snow

and Graham's current favorite:

Oh Say Can You Say (Dinosaur)

which we had to read about 6 days in a row.

another one he loved a lot
Graeme Base's Discovery of Dragons

Peter Mayle, the genius who wrote "What's Happening to Me?"

Author Weaves Violence Into Kid's Book Thu Sep 22,11:04 AM ET



ADELAIDE, Australia - As children's books go, this one is a bit of a departure: depictions of children running across a busy road with their eyes shut and a boy setting fire to his head.

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"The Bad Book," by Andy Griffiths, has also captured the attention of South Australian lawmaker Vickie Chapman, who wants it withdrawn from primary school libraries in the state.

"This book is completely unacceptable . . . and I urge all teachers and principals to ensure their school does not own a copy," Chapman said Thursday. "It also could encourage children to participate in some life-threatening behavior."

On his web site, Griffiths defended his book, saying it is a "hilarious and irreverent collection of cautionary tales and violent demonstrations that serves as a warning to children and their parents everywhere."

But Chapman questioned what type of message it was sending to children.

"On one page of the book a child says to his mother: 'Mummy can I run across this very busy six-lane highway with my eyes shut?' to which the mother replies: 'Well, I don't know'" she said.

"The child later runs across the road with a picture of him getting hit by a car.

"Another page of the book states: 'Little Willy took a match and set fire to his head. Said little Willy as it burnt, soon I will be dead.'"

The Bad Book was published in 2004 and was recently voted the favorite children's book in Queensland state.



Penny McRose picked her nose
Morning, noon and night.
She picked it until her head caved in
And her family died of fright.

Ok, I don't think that's probably something best for kids, but I find it funny as hell :D

SI

I believe that's pretty much a parenting classic at this point (and if not, then it probably should be).

And, since this made me think of it, for in-utero reading, I highly recommend

Oh Baby the Places You'll Go

You are so old school. I wonder why? ;)

Just wanted to bump and say thanks for this suggestion. We got it for my son for Christmas. He loves it. Constantly asks questions about it and laughs at the pictures. Great book with lots of rereading milage to it.

Coug, you scare me sometimes. That was my favorite as well. We went over to my father's house about a month ago and dug them out. My daughter loves it, as well. :)

My son's current favorite is "Cars and Trucks and Things that Go" by Scarry. He makes us read it to him every night. It's amazing how much he's learned about vehicles from it. He knows what a freaking cherry-picker is and why that's different from a crane. And he's only 18 months old. I swear, I didn't know that until last year!

:)

I was re-reading this thread and couldn't keep myself from smiling at the mention of a couple books:

A Very Hungry Caterpillar: Anthony LOVED this book and actually had it memorized it at the age of about 2 1/2, I'd put him on his lap, he'd put the book in his lap and he'd "read" it to me...he turned the pages where he thought the breaks were, but sometimes was a little off and that made it even more wonderful! Oh - I miss those days!!!!

Guess How Much I Love You was a bedtime must for many years...Little Nutbrown Hare and Big Nutbrown Hare are two of the sweetest characters - he even had a little stuffed Little Nutbrown Hare he slept with. When he got older he'd read the LNH parts and I'd read the BNH parts...good memories. Whenever someone I know has a baby they get these two books as part of their baby gift with a note written inside the cover of each :)

Ah, great. I was thinking to grab some more of his books. I'll take a look at that one.

Hmm...current reading list for the daughter includes at least one "Babybug" magazine checked from the library, "Bear Snores On", "Wocket in my Pocket", "Goodnight Moon", "God Makes Nighttime, Too", "Go, Dog, Go!", "My First Word Book", and "A Hole is to Dig". We know things are sinking in because the other night she was actually "reading" one of them to one of her stuffed animals. She's only two, but she's had the books read to her often enough that she recognizes which pages go with which statements (thus, not really reading, but recalling from memory what we've said). She still mangles it a bit, but it's pretty close to accurate. Not a little startling, either. :eek: