The Poky Little Puppy
Short and sweet today. What are the books you read to your kids? Or that books that you used to read to them? A couple of months ago the library had an art exhibit dedicated to the Little Golden Books series, and it was like a time machine.
What books do your children ask for? Which ones make you want to say “Again?”
We’re currently in a fixed state with:
- The Poky Little Puppy
- My Truck Is Stuck!
- My Shimmery Colors Learning Book
- A couple of pictures from The Hobbit
- The complete Calvin and Hobbes books, pictures only
And of course, which books did you love when you were still sitting on your parent’s laps?
Josh
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{ 26 comments… read them below or add one }
POKY LITTLE PUPPY!!!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE THAT BOOK!
Other good ones that I ahve read to my neices: Where the Wild Things Are, The Christmas Witch, Georgie the Ghost, Madeleine, It’s Halloween!, and lots of Sesame Street books about numbers and colors and why everyone needs to use the potty. Everybody Poops is a family favorite too!
OOooo! Oooo! Ooooooooooo!!!!!!!!! There’s that whole series about the Sheep, too1 Sheep on a Ship, Sheep in a Jeep, and Sheep Out to Eat! Good stuff!
Bread and Jam for Francis, Bedtime for Francis, Best Friends for Francis, all by Russel Hoban, illustrated by Garth Williams. Christian the Lion. Corduroy. The Quiet Book by Deborah Underwood, illustrated by Renata Liwska.
These are our ultimate on-demand, dont-leave-the-house wothout-favorites.
Oh and the Francis series was my favorite throughout childhood which is what makes it so special to share with my mini-me.
The Poky Little Puppy was one of my very favorite books when I was a child. I read it probably a hundred times for more. Great memories.
We’ve been reading The Poky Little Puppy also. Our books tend to rotate often, the latest few are Pinkalicious, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, an illustrated book of fairy tales, and a number of Disney books (last night was Alladin.)
I never had kids to read to, but I have given friends several copies of one of my childhood favorites, “Nibble, Nibble” by Margaret Wise Brown.
I don’t have any kids yet, so I can only say what my favorites were. I second Where the Wild Things Are, and my brothers and I always loved I Am a Bunny by Ole Risom and illustrated by Richard Scarry along with The Best Christmas Book Ever by Richard Scarry. I also loved loved loved James Herriot’s Treasury for Children, Only One Woof and The Christmas Kitten.
I fully plan on at least passing these along to my 18-month-old nephew very shortly!
Have you read much of Sendak’s other work? I had no idea he had written so many other books and I’m playing catchup.
My granddaughter, now 4 1/2 yrs old, liked Harold and the Purple Crayon and its sequels, The Cat in the Hat, and all the Golden Book editions of the various Disney films – Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, etc. – also Winnie the Pooh in Golden Books. More recently, I read her Roald Dahl’s Danny Champion of the World, paraphrasing when she had difficulty understanding the text. Look forward to reading her the Wind in the Willows in a year or so.
Harold = fantastic. I still love the Milne books, and Roald Dahl is the greatest.
I loved the little golden books as a child, but my kids have always loved The Hungry Little Caterpillar, which is something my mum read to me!
Tough to beat Eric Carle.
Dr. Seuss got a lot of reading time when the lad was younger. Erza Jack Keat’s books too (The Snowy Day, etc.). There were a ton of others, but I’d have to check the shelves.
I love The Snowy Day!
When they were little, it was the standard fare of Dr. Seuss, etc. When they got older, I used to read the Harry Potter books. They were always asleep before I finished the first page, so I’d end up reading the rest of the chapter to my wife.
Todd, how old were your kids when they’d actually sit still for Harry Potter?
I want to say that they were 5 or 6 when we started. We always did this at night, after they had their bath. Falling asleep was just a matter of time. Bwaaahahahaha
Michael Ende’s Momo was a huge success in my night sessions with my kids.
That looks like a strange book. Thank you.
The Dr. Seuss and Curious George books are among the top of our list.
I haven’t been able to get him interested in Seuss other than One Fish Two Fish, but we do read a lot of Curious George.
Baby Goes Beep by Rebecca O’Connell is a big favorite for the young ones. We wore out the library copy as much as we dared, then got our own copy. Then any of the Sandra Boynton books, especially The Going to Bed Book, Hippos Go Berserk, Moo, Baa, La La La. Plenty of Dr. Seuss. Richard Scarry. Anthologies of children’s poetry. Margaret Wise Brown, especially Goodnight Moon. I had never really understood the appeal on that one until I got into a rhythm of reading it and saw how much it appealed.
If you like the rhythm of Goodnight Moon, then check out her book of poetry I mentioned above, Nibble, Nibble. Plus the illustrations are lovely and “non-Disneyfied”.
Some bugs pinch
And some bugs creep
Some bugs buzz themselves to sleep
Buzz Buzz Buzz Buzz
This is the song of the bugs
Thanks for the recommendation, Chris! I’ve already gone through and put all the books mentioned here on my Amazon wishlist.
Christmas will have a lot of them under our tree!
My younger son has loved Virgina Lee Burton’s Katy and the Big Snow for at least 5 years. We read it a couple times a month. When my older son was 1-2, he insisted on being told Goldilocks and the 3 Bears every night. Literally, I probably told it 700+ nights. I had several different versions depending on how late it was.