children of dust: 2009

Ezekiel has finally gotten to a season in life where he enjoys reading 5 or 6 books at a time, one right after the other. Its never been so easy to stop what I'm doing and play with my child. He always points out books when he sees them and when he wants to get my attention he demandingly says, "REAH!" On the good days he selects one book at a time, carefully replacing the recently read book before pulling a new one off the shelf. "My what a good parent I am," I think smugly to myself. On the other days he sweeps all the books off the shelf, steps on them, picks a few, dumps them on my lap and settles in next to them. When he's finished reading he just runs away and appears to forget his own name as I call after him to "put back" the books.

I've quickly learned which books I enjoy and which ones I emphatically do not want to read even once a day, much less 5 times a day. These latter books have been stored in a dresser drawer. The remaining 20 or so books are beloved by me and the child. But 20 books seems like a paltry collection for the child of a book lover. I sat down last week and began a list of my favorite childrens' books that I would like to read over and over again to my children until they proudly announce that they can read it themselves. I want to watch them carefully turn the pages at the proper time, reciting each word, and not caring that the book is upside down.

My favorite things about childrens' books are original illustrations (especially Caldecott winners and Little Golden Books) and timeless plot lines (with basic themes of creation, fall, redemption, and gospel themes about messed up, broken, unlovely creatures who find love and a place to belong).

My least favorite things about childrens' books are knock-offs, series created only because the first book did so well (but the author doesn't seem to know why), new or bad illustrations, meaningless or stupid stories, stories that find their relevance from pop culture or television, sentimental self-congratulatory books, manipulative stories that try to modify behavior or teach the kid to just try harder or do better next time, overly didactic moralistic stories (especially Bible stories), well, you get the point.

I swear I'm not that picky. I just like the classics. Most of them. I'm not a fan of The Little Engine that Could. Or The Poky Little Puppy.

I guess I justify my pickiness because 1. I'm the mom so I get to choose (for now) what my kids will read, 2. either these books form an imagination or they don't which is another way of saying that what they read now matters a lot, 3. stories that come alive tell a child about how much, why, and under what circumstances they are worthy of love and respect almost as much as real life, 4. beauty is an objective thing that we learn to love and ugly illustrations don't tell the truth about beauty, and 5. good stories might make a child a lover of books while stupid stories will almost certainly turn them off to reading. I could probably come up with more reasons but those come immediately to mind.

Here is my (incomplete) list of cherishable young childrens' literature. I wish I were cool enough (or tedious enough) to include an amazon link to each title. But I figure its a better use of my time to let you type in the titles yourself at amazon. What are your favorite young childrens' books that I've forgotten? What do you look for in a child's book that makes it worth dropping the money?

Katy No-Pocket by Emmy Payne
Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
The Going to Bed Book by Sandra Boynton
Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans
Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel by Virginia Lee Burton
Dr Seuss, esp: Oh The Places You’ll Go, Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, Horton Hears a Hoo, ABC's, Mr Brown Can Moo Can You?
There's an Alligator under My Bed by Mercer Mayer
Jumanji by Chris Van Allsburg
The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams
If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Joffe Numeroff
Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney
We're Going on a Bear Hunt by Helen Oxenbury
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst and Ray Cruz
Courderoy and A Pocket for Courderoy by Don Freeman
Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina
The Giving Tree and Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstien
Bread and Jam for Frances and Bedtime for Frances by Russell Hoban
Ira Sleeps Over by Bernad Waber
Stone Soup by Marcia Brown
Richard Scary
The Ugly Duckling by Hans Christian Anderson
Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown
The Story About Ping by Marjorie Flack
Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey
Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey
Tiki Tiki Timbo by Arlene Mosel
A Child is Born by Margaret Wise Brown
A Child’s Treasury of Mythology by Margaret Evans Price
Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See? By Eric Karle
Counting Cockatoos by Stella Blackstone and Stephanie Bauer
Curious George by H. A. Rey
Charlotte’s Web, Stuart Little, and The Trumpet of the Swan by E. B. White
Everyone Poops by Taro Gomi
Frog and Toad are Friends by Arnold Lobel
Babies and Baby Animals by Fujikawa
Gossie by Olivier Dunrea
Guess How Much I Love You? By Sam McBratney
Harry the Dirty Dog by Gene Zion and Margaret Bloy Graham
Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones
Mama, Do You Love Me? By Barbara Joosse
Moo Moo Brown Cow, What Do You See? By Jakki Wood and Rog Bonner
Prayers for Children by Eloise Wilkin
Raggedy Andy by Johnny Gruelle and Kim Gruelle
Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister
Barnyard Dance, Blue Hat Green Hat, Doggies, Opposites, Pajama Time, and What’s Wrong Little Pookie? by Sandra Boynton
Snowy Day by Keats
The Mitten by Jan Brett
The Real Mother Goose by Grace Maccarone
Time for Bed by Mem Fox
Where is Baby’s Bellybutton? by Karen Katz
Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll
The Complete Works of Beatrix Potter
The Complete Works of A. A. Milne (original illustrations and page lay-out are very important)
Pete and Pickles by Berkeley Breathed