Wanna talk about children's literature?

[Dea]

I have to confess, my favorite genre of literature is classic children's literature. One of my most prized possessions is an early printing of Little Women.
Anyhow I was wondering what some of your favourite children's lit is.
I have a huge long list, but anything classic makes me swoon. I also love, love, love Robert Munsch, especially his "I Love You Forever" it makes me weepy. I do appreciate contemporary children's books too, and also wonder which ones you'll be buying or already have?

[MommyHammy]

I have a nearly complete collection of Seuss and a complete collection of Silverstein. I also have alot of books from my childhood by authors like E.B. White, Judy Blume and Joy Berry. I am a big fan of old Fairy Tails and Myths. My favorite now is a collection of creation myths from around the world and different times.

(Not to mention Harry Potter)

[smokeylo]

I am a huge children's lit fan, and already have quite the collection amassed.

I love Robert Louis Stevenson's Children's Garden of Verses books.
Gyo Fujikawa wrote and illustrated beautiful stories.
I love anything illustrated by Eloise Wilkins, especially the children's poetry book she did (you can get a board book of it that I have, LOVE!).
Robert the Red Rose Horse is a favorite, by PD Eastman.
Go Dog Go also by Eastman, for fun.
Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! by Mo Willems
My favorite book to give at birthdays is The Little Mouse, the Big Hungry Bear, and the Red Ripe Strawberry by Don Woods
I also love the Dinosaur books by Jane Yolen.
The Cat Club by Esther Averill (this is out of print but is in the 20th C. Children's Lit Treasury they sell in most book stores) -- absolutely love this
Fairy Tales by Terry Jones <-- amazing!!

[day-by-day]

Oooo! My family loves reading! We read our first chapter book together when my oldest daughter was 2 yrs. old - Charlotte's Web. She loved it!

We've also really enjoyed other books by E.B. White as well as the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. We've read through the Cronicles of Narnia and a simpler fantasy, the My Father's Dragon series by Ruth Stiles Gannet.

As far as picture books, some of our favorites are the Frances books by Russell Hoban, the original Curious George books by H.A. Rey, anything by Robert McCloskey, and stories by Bill Peet.

I could go on and on. Our house is filled with books!

[ratlover]

We love good books, too. Elsa Beskow has some beautiful, old fashioned books. In particular, Pelle's New Suit is a nice story of how a little boy gets villagers to weave his wool into yarn, weave it, dye it, and make it into a suit. Children of the Forest is good, too.
Astrid Lindgren has some gems. "Mirabelle" is about a poor little girl who receives a seed, plants it, and finds a doll growing in the garden. Besides the longer versions of Pippi Longstocking, there's a good picture book adaptation called "Do you Know Pippi Longstocking?". Some might find it strange, but my daughter loved "Most Beloved Sister" by Lindgren.
Some of the early readers are charming. Arnold Lobel has some wonderful ones like, "Mouse Tales" and "Mouse Soup", along with his "Frog and Toad" books. And the "Little Bear" books (illustrated by Sendak) are nice.
We love the Little House on the Prairie books, but if you're looking for picture book versions for younger kids, there are the My First Little House books that use excerpts of the original text and illustrations in the style of the original books.
I could go on and on!
Janine

[eilonwy]

I just started re-reading The Water Babies last week. I also remember loving Tom Sawyer as a child, and thinking that the book of The Wizard of Oz was *far* superior to the movie.

My kids like The Secret Garden. That may be Bean's favorite book of all time. He's also recently discovered a love of Beatrix Potter.

[Dea]

Oh I love all of the books everyone is recommending. I think I will buy them all. I'm really excited about the "My First Little House" series. I've read the chapter book series about 10 times. I love to rereads books I read as a child and see what I take away from them at different times throughout my life. As a child I loved how the Little House books talked about how to make things and how they lived then, then as a teen the love story was my favourite part, then as an uni student studying history and anthropology I was fascinated with the historical aspect of the books and how Laura and her family related to those around them, especially when they were on the prairies.
What about the Anne of Green Gables Series. No ones mentioned them yet and they are so wonderful. I especially love the 8th book in the series, Rilla of Ingleside. It's quite historically accurate and so poignant.

[sunkist33]

My daughter is 5 and we've started reading Roald Dahl~ her favorite is The Twits, which we've read over & over. We also love Stuart Little (E.B. White).
For picture books, we love Kevin Henkes (Wemberly Worried, Cyrsanthemum, Julius, Baby of the World, Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse, etc.).
I was never a fan of Little House on the Prairie (and it's full of racial slurs), I was more of a Nancy Drew girl : )
That's funny that you love "I'll Love You Forever" because I find that book somewhat creepy (though I do like his other books, in fact we just read "Andrew's Loose Tooth" tonight).

[Teenytoona]

I love you Forever, I first heard that when my aunt brought it home to read to her kids and bawled most of the way through it. She sang the little song, which is how I hear it in my head now. And seriously, I'm getting teary just THINKING of the book!

My DSC are really fond of Eric Carle, especiallyThe Very Hungry Caterpillar. We still read that to them at bedtime! I'm quite fond of his books, though we only have the caterpillar one, and check out the others from the Library.

"Fairy Tales by Terry Jones <-- amazing!!" Smokeylo, is this the Terry Jones of Monty Python fame?

Dr Seuss is always fun and gooftacular!

[snozzberry]

I loooooove children's books! We will probably try to get copies of our favorite picture books to own, but for the rest we will use the library. That'll be as good a time as any to learn how wonderful the library is!

Here are some of my favorites...

Picture Books

• Big Momma Makes the World
• Click, Clack, Moo
• Duck for President
• Horton Hears a Who
• If You Give a Pig a Pancake (I absolutely love all things pig!)
• The Lorax
• A Monkey Among Us (kids love the rhythm)
• Mrs. Biddlebox
• The Old Woman Who Named Things
• The Sissy Duckling
• Our Tree Named Steve
• All the "George and Martha" books...they crack me up!
• All the "Henry" books about Henry David Thoreau...they're really cute

Novels

• Anne of Green Gables
• Because of Winn-Dixie (wayyy better than the movie!)
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
• Charlotte's Web
• The Folk Keeper
• Harry Potter!
• Holes
• Hoot
• Ida B...and Her Plans to Maximize Fun, Avoid Disaster, and (Possibly) Save the World
• The Little Prince
• The Mysterious Benedict Society
• The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place
• The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy
• Pippi Longstocking
• Seedfolks (short and so, so beautiful)
• Well Wished
• A Wrinkle in Time (series)

YA Novels

• Feed
• A Great and Terrible Beauty
• Speak
• Witch Child

[Writerbird]

I have almost all of these, as well as a collection of YA books - I went to graduate school so I could teach high school English, and "had" to read teen lit to pass I have four boxes of books for the nursery, and I registered mostly for books...

One note about racial slurs in the LH series - the Little House books have Ma expressing hatred born of fear towards the Native Americans, but Pa disagrees with her... except in regards to using the land (he thinks the white settlers use the land "better" and therefore deserve it). Laura, on the other hand, feels something is wrong with both of those attitudes, and it shows. It's a very complex relationship and one that made for a lot of good discussions with my own parents (who are very committed to justice and equality). In other words, I think it's too good a jumping off point to skip the books for a kid of the right age. Also, Little House In The Big Woods has no racial issues at all, and it's the easiest to read of the books - the series ages just as the readers do, not unlike good ol' Harry Potter.

There is one fairly hideous "minstrel" show in one of the books that I intend to just skip the first time I read the book aloud, and use as a teaching moment later on.

This is one of the only series that have girls as main characters that boys also enjoy. For many of the guys my age, this was the ONLY series they ever read with a strong capable female as the lead.

I love Louisa May Alcott's books (I haunt antique stores for them, I have most of them in first or second edition!) but even a devoted fan can see how the author's political awareness changed from one book to another

I think many of these older books can really show a kid how history and perspective changes, without being dry and dusty.

[phillybama]

I am an Adult/Teen Librarian, so children's literature is definitely not my specialty, but here are a few sites that have booklists and such.

http://www.booklistonline.com/defaul...=booksforyouth
http://www.ala.org/gwstemplate.cfm?s...ws/default.cfm
http://www.ala.org/ala/alsc/alscreso.../booklists.htm
http://www.fairrosa.info/

Enjoy!

I happen to love Mo Willems' Knuffle Bunny though!

[nolonger]

I'm reading the Wrinkle In Time series to the 13 year old I tutor (and also to bean, of course) and remembering how much I love it. A lot of the issues she brings up really are burning issues of adolescence that can be spoiled by lewtting the younger kids, who will just see it as another "make bvelieve" story rather than an allegory, but I was never able to wait that long.

ds had some very precocious tastes in literature and probably understood more than we gave him credit for.

On our own, I read bean my favourites from Seuss, Munsch 9I also love Love You Forever, but it made me cry the first time I read it to my youngest child because it resonates pretty strongly about how I feel about my adult child and teenager), Ferdinand, and other books that have special meaning to me.

I wish I was better about reading to my belly bean, but there never seems to be enough time. Eighteen years just isn't long enough to share all the wonderful stories I love!

My mother says I learned how to read when I was three, but I think her definition is when she could quiet me by sending me off by myself to read independantly. I have no memory at all of being unable to read fluently. I was a shy, isolated child who was misdiagnosed by the school system as being emotionally disturbed and mentally retarted, so I didn't have many IRL friends. The characters in my stories were my playmates and the information in nonfiction books were my education.

[eilonwy]

I must confess that I do not read to my fetuses. : It feels silly to me, and I don't really have the time. On the other hand, I do read to my older children, so what SeaMonkey hears, he hears. If he comes out spouting random geography facts, I'll know that something got through. :

But yes, books and reading have always been very, very important to me and to Mike as well. Thus, it has already played a significant role in the lives of the kiddles.

[Dea]

Oh this is my favourite thread ever. (I'm such a geek!)
Writerbird>> you said everything I wanted to say about the Little House series. I love those books so much. Have you read any of the ones written by her daughter?

noordinaryspider>> maybe you could read when you were 3. My inlaws swear my DH could read when he was 2.5. They were travelling somewhere and had given him a map to amuse him and they were talking about where a turn off was and he was able to tell them, based off of the map. He had also made various comments about land marks from signs he'd seen. He was a brilliant child and is now a very brilliant man. I was also able to read very young and I have memories of sitting in my closet with my toys that lit up all around me so I could read. My mom tells me I was 3. I also was a solitary child, I was so shy and I would read to have the adventures I was too shy to have otherwise. Then later I would use books as an escape, and to this day I still do. Sometimes I want nothing more than to lose myself in a book, and it always helps me to feel better.

I really really hope my children have the same love for the written word as I do.

[smokeylo]

I was a very early reader -- 3 or 4 years old.

YES, the Terry Jones is the same from Monty Python. If you haven't seen the book -- it is really beautiful and interesting, lots of one or two page stories and the tales are ones I've NEVER encountered anywhere else. I was fascinated by this book as a child and can't wait to read the stories to my kids.

I am not a huge Seuss fan. I know, sacrilege, right?! They're sooo long and nonsensical, I wasn't a big fan as a kid and I hate reading them aloud as an adult.

I plan to read/share the Laura Ingalls books -- I read them as a kid on my own and didn't come out racist. I think if it's explained that the book is old so some of the ideas are old, kids can handle the smattering of racist content. I remember the stuff like making maple syrup or slaughtering pigs - the how-to stuff that seemed amazing to me, not the racist stuff so much.

I also love the Anne of Green Gables books. LOVE!

A few other good ones:
The Westing Game
Harriet the Spy

the Carl the Dog books (only picture books, but adorable, esp. if you love dogs)

Anything by Margaret Wise Brown, including but NOT limited to Good Night, Moon.

I hope my kiddo is a little like me and DH.

[Mama2-4]

I totally the My Father's Dragon books! I have been turning the house upside down looking for our copy...I know my 5 year old would go crazy over this one!

NOS, the Love Your Forever book chokes me up every time I read it....my kids think I am a sap! I really can not get through it without blubbering!

[flapjack]

Some of the books currently on the go in our house:
The Machine Gunners by Robert Westall (DS1 is a history buff, and Westall is a genius.)
Philip Pullmans' books- Northern Lights, Amber Spyglass and Subtle Knife.
Kidnapped and Treasure Island.
Skye is reading the books about Little Zeb, but I don't remember who they're by. Lovely artwork.
We do like Lauren Childs as well.

[eilonwy]

And yes, it's *totally* possible for a three year old to read. I read within a month of my second birthday, and I know of at least half a dozen other children who did the same.