Does anyone ever really outgrow a great picture book?
April 28, 2014
Earlier this month, at the ABC Children’s Institute in San Antonio, there was a lively discussion about the unfortunate current trend to push children toward chapter books—maybe a bit too early—and away from picture books.
Lets not forget the book that makes us exclaim: “Oh, I loved that book as a child!” Picture storybooks are a child’s first love and the books they will remember. They are the books they will return to as adults with their own children. Don’t even think of making the mistake that as soon as children learn to read we need to wean them from one of mankind’s greatest achievement—the picture book! Noting lasts longer in memory than a child’s fist love of a story. These books become their literary inheritance. Here are a list of some of my favorite picture book that will surely enchant children, and adults, of all ages.
And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, by Dr. Seuss
Animal Faces, by Akira Satoh and Kyoko Toda
Doctor De Soto, by William Steig
Harry the Dirty Dog, by Gene Zion
The House on East 88th Street, by Bernard Waber
Leo the Late Bloomer, by Ruth Krauss
Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse, by Kevin Henkes
Millions of Cats, by Wanda Gag
The Moon in My Room, by Uri Shulevitz
Mr. Gumpy’s Outing, by John Burningham
Owl Moon, by Jane Yolen
Seven Blind Mice, by Ed Young
Readers are all powerful
April 6, 2014
If kids only knew how much power they wield when it comes to bringing a book to life. In the same way that it took love to make the Velveteen Rabbit become Real, it takes readers who love a story or a poem, to make it real and bring it to life. “Real isn’t how you […]
Reading nourishes your child’s imagination.
March 16, 2014
I recently read a story of how a tourist walked off an Australian pier while checking her Facebook. I felt badly that she plummeted into chilly waters, but I was most troubled how oblivious she was to the beauty she was surrounded by. What came to mind was a quote by Albert Einstein (3.14.1879), “ […]
Shalom Aleichem & Dr. Seuss share the same birthday—what a delicious coincidence!
March 2, 2014
Separated by 45 years, Shalom Aleichem (b) 1859 and Dr. Seuss (b) 1904) were masters at portraying both the splendid and the not so splendid moments of our humanity. Shalom Aleichem was a leading Yiddish author and playwright whose stories about Tevye the dairyman was the basis for the musical Fiddler on the Roof. In […]
