As a curious Pratt Institute art school professor and loving parent of a daughter who has also written and/or illustrated sixteen children’s books I want to share my favorite books with other children’s book connoisseurs. It also helps that I have lots of opinions. Too many to count. And when someone actually wants to listen to my opinions I get very excited. I’m hoping one of my favorites becomes one of your favorites.
Do you wake up with a wiggle? Do you wiggle out of bed?
For energetic toddlers (are there any who aren't?), here's a book that invites them to wiggle along with the story. Told in rollicky, wiggly rhyme that begs to be read again and again, Doreen Cronin's latest romp will have toddlers wiggling, giggling, and then (hopefully) falling into bed, blissfully exhausted!
A ridiculous, hysterical old tale of a hat salesman who loses his hats to a bunch of monkeys and has to find a way to get them back.
I use to imitate the salesman and the monkeys while reading this book to my young daughter with a heavy Italian accent. I had more fun reading it out loud than any other book I’ve read.
Caps for Sale is a timeless classic beloved by millions...one of the most popular picture books ever published! Children will delight in following the peddler's efforts to outwit the monkeys and will ask to read it again and again. Caps for Sale is an excellent easy-to-read book that includes repetition, patterns, and colors, perfect for early readers. This tale of a peddler and a band of mischievous monkeys is filled with warmth, humor, and simplicity and also teaches children about problem and resolution.
This book by the author of Shrek and one of my favorite artist/authors is a story of an island inhabited by crazy awful disgusting creatures and how they make it a terrible rotten island until nature takes hold and corrects all that.
A great book when thinking about our planet and environment. And the artwork is magnificent.
What would happen if every creature on land and sea were free to be as rotten as possible? If every day was a free-for-all; if plants grew barbed wire; if the ocean were poison? That's life on Rotten Island. For creatures that slither, creep, and crawl (not to mention kick, bite, scratch, and play nasty tricks on each other), Rotten Island is paradise. But then, on a typically rotten day, something truly awful happens. Something that could spoil Rotten Island forever. Out of a bed of gravel on the scorched earth, a mysterious, beautiful flower begins to grow...
This book is illustrated by an artist friend and I also used to read this book to my daughter. But this time with the accent of a Bogeyman. A deep scary voice.
The writing is smart and flows gracefully as the author teaches us about the true nature of scary things that lurk in the night.
Written in the first-person voice of a creepy-crawly, blood-chilling, spine-tingling Bogeyman who lives under the bed, a novelist's debut picture book reveals the scary guy's secrets in order to clear his name.
One of my all time favorites and not very well known, this remarkable book deals with a very grown-up topic, war, in such an innocent and simple way that it is somehow a perfect children’s book.
How does one conquering group get taken over by the people they are trying to conquer? Read it and find out! Created by the man who created Elmer the Patchwork Elephant.
There once was a large country that was ruled by a General. The General would take his army and attack all the countries around him until they were conquered. Eventually, there was only one small country left to conquer. However, this one did not resist but welcomed the soldiers - leading to a quite unexpected result!
This classic teaches a bored child why it’s important to care.
With brilliant rhyming by the man who created Where The Wild Things Are along with a lion, this child learns a lesson that will never be forgotten. A helpful parenting tool for all overburdened mothers and fathers
An entertaining mystery on a 1894 trans-Atlantic steamship with an varied array of suspects, and a detective who must solve his case in six days to prevent international conflict.
Retired from the British Indian army, Captain Jim is taking his wife Diana to Liverpool from New York, when their pleasant cruise turns deadly. Just hours after meeting him, a foreign diplomat is brutally murdered onboard their ship. Captain Jim must find the killer before they dock in six days, or there could be war! Aboard the beleaguered luxury liner are a thousand suspects, but no witnesses to the locked-cabin crime.
Fortunately, his wife Diana knows her way around first-class accommodations and Gilded Age society. But something has been troubling her, too, something she won’t tell him. Together, using tricks gleaned from their favorite fictional sleuth, Sherlock Holmes, Captain Jim, and Diana must learn why one man’s life came to a murderous end.
In The Spanish Diplomat's Secret, award-winning author Nev March explores the vivid nineteenth-century world of the transatlantic voyage, one passenger’s secret at a time.
Captain Jim Agnihotri and his wife Lady Diana Framji are embarking to England in the summer of 1894. Jim is hopeful the cruise will help Diana open up to him. Something is troubling her, and Jim is concerned.
On their first evening, Jim meets an intriguing Spaniard, a fellow soldier with whom he finds an instant kinship. But within twenty-four hours, Don Juan Nepomuceno is murdered, his body discovered shortly after he asks rather urgently to…
10,000+ authors have recommended their favorite books and what they love about them.
Browse their picks for the best books about
monkey,
war,
and
islands.
