[mamazee]

This is the flip side of "children's books I hate."

I LOVE love <3

The Very Hungry Caterpillar
Where The Wild Things Are
A book by the author of Little Bear called No Fighting No Biting that I loved when I was a kid
In The Night Kitchen

 

[gooseberry]

We really like The Year at Maple Hill Farm, and Our Animal Friends at Maple Hill Farm. That's my first thought. I'll have to check the shelves and come back again.

 

[mamazee]

I was thinking of young kids' books, but I also love Wind in the Willows.

 

[Binx67]

some new favorites i have discovered since becoming a mom:

Mole Music by David McPhail (i buy this for every child i know now)

Willa and the Wind by Janice Del *****

The Wind Boy by Ethel Cook Eliot (a magical chapter book for older kids)

Mama, Do you Love Me? by Barbara Joosse

and classics:

The Runaway Bunny

The Root Children

Frog & Toad stories (all of them!)

 

[kdorrain]

anything written or illustrated by Don and Audrey Wood:

The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear

The Napping House

etc.

We also love the Pigeon books (Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, et. al.)

Chica Chica Boom Boom

Llama, Llama books (Llama Llama Red Pajama, et. al.)

 

[mamazee]

My kids both love/loved The Napping House.

And we also love Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.

My younger one loves The Snowy Day, and I remember loving that one as a child too. When he puts a snowball in his pocket and takes a bath and then goes to find his snowball and it's gone, she loves saying, "It melted! It melted!"

 

[summatime]

Oh, this is soooo great!!!

We love:

"All the World" by Liz Garton Scanlon and Marla Frazee

"Boot and Shoe" by Marla Frazee

"This is Not My Hat" by Jon Klassen

"I Want My Hat Back" by Jon Klassen

"Extra Yarn" by Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen

"Little Beauty" by Anthony Browne

 

[Ma Cactus]

One Monster After Another, by Mercer Mayer (which led to a game we call 'you twerked my snerk!' whereby my 3yo squeezes my nose and then laughs himself sillly)

Everyone Knows What a Dragon Looks Like (Jay Williams and Mercer Mayer)

Any of the Richard Scary Busytown books, but especially the ones with Dingo and/or Goldbug

Bubble Trouble by Margaret Mahy

Anything by Chris Van Dusen, but esepcially the Circus Ship, and Randy Riley's Really Big Hit

 

[tinifry]

We love all of the Sandra Boynton books, especially Snuggle Puppy. Our newest favorites are the Betty Bunny series, they're funny and my daughter (and I) can relate to them a lot. Another cute one my daughter likes a lot right now is "That's when I'm happy" by Beth Shoshan.

 

[gooseberry]

Elsa Beskow books! My favorites are Children of the Forest and Christopher's Harvest Time. I also like any of the ones with Peter and Lotte.

Frances books! Bread and Jam, Best Friends, etc. Love those.

 

[Spasbinder]

This is great, I saw the books we hate thread too.. I am in the UK so we have some similar books and some different ones. I really like: Dear Zoo (Rod Campbell), Peace at Last (Jill Murphy) - I can recite that one backwards and still love it, Eric Carle books of course and Richard Scarry (although I saw several people hate his stuff on the other thread - I can't see what's not to like about most of his zaniness but maybe it's not as common over here so retains some freshness?)

My kids like the Dig, Dig, Digging series by Margaret Mayo and Alex Ayliffe too. Well, the younger one does. Big brother is really into Frog and Toad, Mouse Tales, May I bring a Friend, the Octonauts books (I only allowed him to have the Meomi ones though, not the TV series spin-off ones), Ezra Jack Keats books (we don't have him in the UK

but have imported them for my children!

For me, I like Frog and Toad and Little Bear and most of the Barefoot books too - especially Listen, Listen and Who's in the Forest?

 

[qifarmfam]

Wild Washerwomen byJohn Yeoman

 

[mamazee]

Oh, we also like Caps for Sale, where the monkeys throw their hats out of the tree. We copy the man shaking his fist and yelling, then both fists, etc. Lots of laughs with that one.

 

[mumkimum]

Favorites here are:

Owl at Home by Arnold Lobel

The Big Orange Splot by Daniel Pinkwater

Sleeping Ugly by Diane Stanley

We're Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen

 

[Dela]

Picture books...

Anything by Sarah Stewart. The Library, the Gardener, etc. They're beautifully illustrated, typically feature strong/eccentric protagonists, and have surprising depth and often historical context for picture books.

All the Places to Love by Patricia MacLachlan. I cry almost every time I read this book. I don't even know why, just the sweet simplicity, the love evident in the family portrayed, the beautiful illustrations and narrative.

Twilight Comes Twice and Hello Harvest Moon by Ralph Fletcher. Beautiful, poetic, complex but graspable for young children.

ALLLLLL of David Wiesner's books. Tuesday, Flotsam, June 29, Hurricane (just got this one and I read it, I'm saving it for the coming months known as "hurricane season" around here!).

ALLLLLLLLL of Barbara Lehman's books; Rainstorm is a perennial favorite amongst my children but we love the others too.

The Frog and Toad books.

Robert Munsch's The Paper Bag Princess. Having a bunch of girls, I love stories that empower girls (even under the title "princess") rather than putting them in patriarchal boxes. I love most of Munsch's books. Not all that fond of "Love you forever," and some of them border on crude, but I still like most of them.

The Little Bear books (and TV show too... I usually despise preschooler TV but Little Bear has a special place in my heart).

Pippi Longstocking and the Noisy Village series... yes there are things we don't care for in how adults treat some children, but those references are so minor and don't impact the overall themes and fun of the books, so we love them!

All of Jan Brett's books.

Don't even let me start on independent readers and tween/teen series!

 

[Daffodil]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gooseberry

We really like The Year at Maple Hill Farm, and Our Animal Friends at Maple Hill Farm. That's my first thought. I'll have to check the shelves and come back again.

Those were favorites of ours, too.

Some others I loved:

Little Fur Family by Margaret Wise Brown

Some Babies by Amy Schwartz

everything by Russell Hoban - How Tom Beat Captain Najork and His Hired Sportsmen, The Sea-Thing Child, The Rain Door, They Came from Aargh!, and many more

everything by Dr. Seuss

The Maggie B. by Irene Haas

Half a Moon and One Whole Star by Crescent Dragonwagon

First Tomato and The Island Light by Rosemary Wells

My Farm by Alison Lester

Funnybones by Janet and Allan Ahlberg

A Pocketful of Cricket by Rebecca Caudill

For older kids, I love Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner, everything by Astrid Lindgren, and Tove Jansson's Moomin books.

 

[katelove]

For children my LOs age (3) I love

All the Hairy McLary/Slinky Malinky books
John Brown, Rose and the Midnight Cat
Make Way For Ducklings
Anything by Alison Lester

As a child I loved the Anne of Green Gables series, Little House on the Prarie series, Pippy Longstocking, 101 Dalmations (the Dodie Smith original not the Disney version), the Muddle-headed Wombat series. And heaps of others I can't remember off hand.

 

[SweetSilver]

Second the Maple Hill Farm books

Very Young:

Whistle for Willie (Ezra Jack Keats)

Farmer Will (Jane Cowen-Fletcher)

Rabbits and Raindrops (Jim Arnosky)

Cars and Trucks and Things That Go (Richard Scarry)

Four Little Kittens (Golden Books)

Mr. Brown Can Moo Can You? (Dr. Seuss)

Please Puppy Please! (Spike Lee)

10 Minutes to Bedtime! (Peggy Rathmann)

Little Mouse, Red Ripe Strawberry and the Big Hungry Bear (Don Wood)

A little older:

Henry and Mudge books (Cynthia Rylant)

My Cat, The Silliest Cat in the World (forget)

Officer Buckle and Gloria (Peggy Rathmann)

Maple Hill Farm books (Provenson)

Older still:

We are just starting this section

Harry Potter

The Hobbit

Then there is Winnie the Pooh and House on Pooh Corner which I read to dd1 everyday when she was 2-4, but not sure where to put it.

I'm sure I have more favorites that we have loved and still love going back to, but this is the list off the top of my head.

 

[Jenny Vater]

Jamberry (Burce Degen)

The Blackberry Mouse (Matthew Grimsdale)

Going to sleep on the farm (Wendy Cheyette Lewison)

A quilt for baby (Kim Lewis)

Napping House (Audery Wood)

Piggies (Audrey Wood)

All the Places to Love (Patricia MacLachlan) our midwife suggested this book to us after my first home birth. Such a sweet story!

My 4 yr old son (who self weaned at 4) always pick Best Milk (Kate Carothers)

 

[gooseberry]

Quote:

Originally Posted by SweetSilver

Second the Maple Hill Farm books

A little older:

Henry and Mudge books (Cynthia Rylant)

My Cat, The Silliest Cat in the World (forget)

Officer Buckle and Gloria (Peggy Rathmann)

Maple Hill Farm books (Provenson)

We probably have 6 Henry and Mudge books checked out from the library right now. We're also fans of Mr. Putter and Tabby books, also by Cynthia Rylant. Who knew that stories about an old man and his cat could be so entertaining?