Books for Young Readers

Today, the second Tuesday in November, is National Young Readers Day. I've already talked about family literacy here, so today I'll focus this post on books that I'd recommend for young readers. Young readers are known for liking bright colors, big pictures, humor and patterns.

That's what makes The Very Hungry Caterpillar such a popular book with kids and parents. The very hungry caterpillar eats holes in things, leaving one more hole in each thing than in the last thing, holes that literally are in the pages. At the end, the very hungry caterpillar makes himself a cocoon, and children can theorize about why he was so hungry, predicting what's going to happen next. Eric Carle employs the same general formula of repetition (with slight variations) in a number of his children's books such as Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? and Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?

Then there's Curious George, in all his various stories and appearances. The reason that the active little monkey so fun for kids is that he is a kid; he gets into trouble without meaning to.  And it's rather reassuring that he manages to get out of trouble. The same story device--getting into and out of trouble unwittingly--is repeated in many other favorite kids' books, just one of which is Blueberries for Sal.

Speaking of getting in trouble, kids know what that's like. Sometimes things just happen, and your day gets worse and worse. Did I say this happens only to kids? Ahem. That's why both kids and parents end up loving Alexander and the Terrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. 

The Alexander book has now become such a part of our culture that when someone says, "I just want to go to Australia," after something bad happens, everyone knows exactly what they mean, good ol' Alexander coming immediately to mind.

One more recommendation from my early years: as a child I loved anything by Richard Scarry. His books were a mix between fantasy (clothed animals), adventuresome (there was that middle eastern dog with her harem scarf across her nose, reminiscent of I Dream of Jeanie), and instructional (many of the drawings were labeled, so you learned the names of the objects).

Richard Scarry was a great little way to pick up on social studies without knowing it!

One of the newer "best books for young children" in my world, I discovered when hanging out with my Grands and son-in-law at Barnes & Noble in California last spring. Grandson picked up Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! from one of the shelves and brought it over. He sat at the little table in the children's section and read it to me.

It was hysterical! Pretty soon we were all chiming in, "DON'T LET THE PIGEON DRIVE THE BUS!" It's one of my new favorites.

Speaking of new favorites, here's my very latest discovery, a children's book read by our pastor as part of a sermon a few weeks ago:

Earl's tail is always wagging (fwip, fwip, fwip!) and Mooch the cat is trying to figure out why. It's an absolutely delightful little journey through Mooch's journey of discovery. And while Wag is not a religious book, I think that once you read it you'll see why it could easily show up in a sermon.

So.  On this National Young Readers' Day, what's your favorite children's book, classic or new?

P.S. For more recommendations, you might want to stop by here.