So, in no particular order (well, in the order I thought of them), here are some of my favorite childhood books now making their appearance in a second generation of book lovers:
I remember my parents reading this to me, and I remember reading it to myself when I got older. I read it to my little brother and to a little girl I babysat, and now I am happy to read it a million times to my own kids.
I love how there's something fun or funny in every picture. I used to like tracing the maze that the dogs go through. I thought it was funny that the dogs' cars had crashed. And I could pore over the final dog party for ages (well, childhood ages). We always loved the pages where the dogs would say, "Do you like my hat?" and, "No, I do not. Goodbye!" But my mom would usually skip those. Now that I'm old enough to over-analyze things, I guess it is kind of sexist that the girl dog should want the boy dog to like her because of her hat. But we read it anyway. And speaking of over-analyzing things, it stands out to me as VERY American that each of the dogs drives his OWN car to the big dog party at the end. If it were a Chinese book, they would have taken the bus. (And all the dogs would be Shih-tzus.)
I just think this is a really funny story about an alligator who hatches in a bird's nest. If I ever have to teach an English class about the parts of a story (beginning, rising action, climax, etc.) I would be smart to use this book. But that's the nerd side of me talking again. She should can it for a second.
I memorized this book well enough that on our last vacation, I could just tell Penny the story practically word for word while we drove in the car.
Who doesn't love Goodnight Moon? For several months after giving away our cats, I couldn't read the page about the "two little kittens and a pair of mittens" without crying.
The most overdone children's books are counting books and ABC books. But there must be so many because of the catchy, cute, successful ones like these. I remember reading this when I was little, and I could never quite remember how to read "ceiling." My favorite pages now are X, Z, and probably S.
For the longest time I had been looking for this book. But all I could remember was that it was tall, had a bunny under a toadstool on the cover, and had a page about butterflies. When my mom would read this to me, I'd always have to stop on the butterfly page and choose which one was the most beautiful that day. All the pictures are just exquisite and sweet. I don't know if Penny loves it as much as I did, but I certainly love reading it to her!
How about you? Which children's books did you LOVE as a child and now LOVE reading to your own kids?
3 comments:
I loved:
The 5 Chinese Brothers
How the Grinch Stole Christmas
and all of the Sweet Pickle books! The Sweet Pickle books are so great!
Go Dog Go now has a special place in my heart because it's the first book Logan and then Josh read by themselves. It is silly (which helps keep their interest and keep thing light in that frustrating first time through) but still simple.
Growing up, I liked If I Ran the Zoo and The Eye Book and, yes, that ABC one. I loved everything Richard Scarry and Berenstain Bears and Little Critter. And I specifically remember when "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" was a new book -- we read it during school library day -- and I got to check it out to take home.
I think it's really neat that you have memories of your mom reading aloud those books.
"Socks for Supper", "Popcorn", and "Where the Wild Things Are".
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