Children

This magical story – with mesmerizing illustrations by Alison Jay – reminds me to pity those adults who do not regularly indulge in good childern’s books. If you’re only reading books written at “your age level,” you are ignorant of many of the world’s literary treasures. Catchpool has written a simple, beautiful story – the reason we read.

I have seen kids sit and stare at this book for hours, giggling at the funny photos of squirrels. Definitely a book you need in your library.

A couple of teachers pointed out that I have neglected to include a Jane Yolen book on any of my lists, which shocked me since I recommend about ten of her books in one of my poetry seminars. Jane Yolen is a MUST for any classroom or home library, as I would rate her up with Jack Prelutsky and Cynthia Rylant as one of my favorite poets for children. She has also teamed with a couple of incredible illustrators, like David Shannon and Mark Teague (who illustrated this hilarious third installment in their dinosaur series). Buy Jane Yolen’s books and your kids (and you) will enjoy reading, I promise.

 I think I am going to start sharing this book with my corporate audiences, as it shows how to embrace life’s messes. Better than half of the self-help books I’ve read in the past three months. Oh – and a very engaging read aloud for kids, too.

Idioms are one of the most difficult concepts for young children and English language learners to comprehend, and this book does a great job of presenting expressions (e.g. “it’s raining cats and dogs”) in short rhymes with illustrations and brief explanations of where the terms come from. I hate to admit it, but I always wind up learning a thing or two when I read a kid’s book like this.

Are you recycling? Read this children’s classic, and hopefully you’ll think about environmental preservation a bit.

From the illustrator of the wonderful Lemony Snicket series comes a tale of a lousy pirate who saves the day. Since every other kid I know has been acting like a certain pirate from the Caribbean lately, I thought this book would be a fitting story to delight any young audience.

Part of the Fact Finders series, my students get a kick out of the information about the Internet, cell phones and Wikis. Heck, I learned a lot reading this book. Since most of the text students face on standardized tests is nonfiction, I try to expose students to as much interesting nonfiction as possible. This book is especially popular with boys.

The sky is falling! This is one of my favorites to read with little kids because they always know more than the silly chicken (reminds me of voters vs. our elected leaders).

This is part of a wonderful series of Bats books by Lies, and his illustrations and rhymes are always a crowd pleaser with kindergarteners. In this episode it takes a librarian’s read alouds to settle the bats down, and the illustrations, as always, are fantastic. Just in time for Halloween.

Written for children with terrific illustrations by Lynne Avril, I think a lot of adults should check out this book to better understand our election process.

Everything Tomie dePaola writes and draws is worth owning. I love this retelling of the tale of the Mexican girl Lucinda who learned that “any gift is beautiful because it is given.”

Okay, I’ll admit: I love Christmas. I do not love what Christmas has become for many Americans: commercialism, bargain hunters pushing one another in department stores and loads of debt. Sometimes a book comes along that reminds all ages of the kindness and joy that Christmas truly represents.

If you are one of the poor souls who still has not yet read this Classic, give yourself an early Christmas gift. This is one of the rare instances where I love the book, and the movie manages to be just as good (if not, better). Beautiful illustrations and a terrific story for all those who believe.

This is the kind of book that I loved when I was a boy, and I see scores of boys flocking around this one to share with their friends. Filled with beautiful illustrations, photographs and even a poster and fold-out diagram (yeah, good luck holding on to those), this book provides tons of interesting facts, tidbits and insights into an extraordinary tragedy that continues to fascinate people 100 years later. I've seen books spend hours looking through this book.