Monday Favorites
The Monday endorsement theme continues, with kids’ stuff!
A friend asked last night which children’s book authors I’d recommend for their expanding library. Specifically, she wanted stuff without too many words and lovely pictures, which rules out the beloved Frances series and William Steig (love love Doctor Desoto).
But we can provide a list. Here goes.
I complied all of the below titles (and toys) here at Amazon- you can even shop through us!
Byron Barton makes great graphically illustrated books. Rosy loves Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs.
Taro Gomi is one of our all-time favorites. Especially My Friends and Bus Stops.
Anything by Peter McCarty is beautiful and simply worded.
Rosemary Wells. The Yoko books are some of our favorites.
The Ella books by Carmela D’Amico are a bit more involved, but still simple and sweet.
The Blue Kangaroo series by Emma Clark
The classics by Maurice Sendak- Wild Things, the Night Kitchen, the Nutshell Kids. We love them all.
Vera B. Williams and Julie Vivas are my other favorites.
Graduating from pure picture books, our favorites have been:
The Little Bear series by Else Minarik
Arnold Lobel’s Frog and Toad series, and Mouse Tales.
For old classics, I love Ruth Krauss and Crockett Johnson, and Robert McCloskey.
And for Sophie, the Angelina Ballerina series continues to resonate.They’re short enough that I don’t mind wading through them night after night.
We are bringing some books to the boat, storing some more, and will be relying heavily on libraries along the way. Our toy collection has also been pared down to the select special things and costumes. The most popular toy in our collection, hands down, has been the Haba doctor kit (at far left in the picture). We had a plastic one but after the crazy toxic plastic scare a while back, I tried to replace our best things with “better” versions. The Haba kit is a little collection of vials and bottles with cork tops. Nothing like the American kits with blood pressure cuffs and such. But it gets played with every day. They love it. We recently added some elastic and triangle bandages, and a real stethoscope (so cheap!) and it’s gained a new lifespan.
Their other favorite? The dragon. We have read and listened to Puff the Magic Dragon dozens of times over the past few weeks. Rosy calls any lizard or crocodile she sees a dragon- today we visited the pet store and she almost fainted at the sight of the iguanas in the glass boxes- “DRAGONS!! BABEEEE DRAGONS!!!!”
Happy reading, and playing!
I would also reccommend anything by Maurice Pledger for little ones. Beautiful nature picture books with lovely rhymes, touch & feel, and hide and seek things too.
Also you need to find the book Buoy: Home At Sea by Bruce Balan. May be out of print, but worth tracking down. Hands down favorite for ALL ages. It’s a short chapter book with almost poetic verse and sweet, sweet tales of life on the ocean.
Baaabbbbeeee Dragons! I LOVE it!