Children

A nice look at the grand U.S. of A.

I love rhyming books.  A great way to learn animals, this book includes illustrations from the wonderful Steven Kellogg.

This is one of my favorite children’s books, as it includes several hilarious different takes on traditional fairy tales.  Kids crack up at this book.

Another laugher that kids adore, especially when they get to particpate:  “Click, clack, moo!  Click, clack, moo!   Clickety, clack, moo!”

If you want to get a jump-start on Halloween, this book is a load of laughs.  Friendship is also its theme, but this book has a happy ending.

Bizarre and brilliant, this beautifully illustrated book is a great stimulus for children’s curiosity.  Wiesner is to children’s books what Picasso was to art:  constantly challenging our notions of how things are supposed to be.  Watch out for flying frogs in the middle of the night!

Hate to end on a somber note, but this book is appropriate for this month.  This is a great book for teaching children about 9-11 on this, its second anniversary.  First graders wrote it, and all of us can learn from it.  Published by Scholastic, if you have a difficult time finding it.

If angels exist, Shel Silverstein is one of them.  I imagine this man has single-handedly made people of all ages smile.  Like the producer realizes in the 1941 film Sullivan’s Travels, that’s a mighty powerful thing.

What a great lesson this book teaches, and with pictures by Eric Carle, this is a crowd pleaser.  There’s nothing like a short, funny book that rhymes.  Johnny Cash (RIP) could have made a great song version of this book.

I saved the best for last.  This is just a sweet, inspirational story.  I have no idea why there is not a major motion picture about this incredible human being.  Read this book if you are tired of events on the nightly news.

The author’s mom, Helen Tabibian, gave me a copy of this book, and I immediately recalled reading it to my students many years ago.  This is a great book for sparking students’ curiosity toward science and history.  Great illustrations, as well.  This will get kids looking out their bedroom windows and using their imaginations.

The beautiful story about a poor Appalachian girl who proudly wears a coat made from the rags of her neighbors, only to find herself ridiculed by her classmates.  Touching and uplifting, and a good lesson.

I thought I’d throw in at least one funny kids’ book.  This hilarious retelling of the three little pigs, as explained from the wolf’s point of view, is sure to make you laugh.  Like he says, poor wolf just had a horrible case of the sneezes one day.

This is one of my all-time favorite books.  I rate this and Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove as the two greatest television adaptations of all time.  Who would think I could draw a comparison between those two classics?

If the author looks familiar, it’s because he co-wrote “The One-Minute Manager” with Ken Blanchard.  What I really admire Spencer Johnson for is this inspiring series of “value stories” that show children examples of people who valued patience, determination, etc.  There are a bunch of these books, and I selected this one because I often find the best way to get me interested in a person or subject is to read a brief children’s version first.  Louis Pasteur was an amazing person – so amazing he has an adjective and a verb named after him.