Classics, Nonfiction, and Children's Literature
I’ve got a winner to my contest! No one guessed the most popular book searched for on Rebecca Reads. The book that I get the most searches for is a children’s book. It is one that I think almost everybody has read at least once: Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown. I wrote a post
Poetry for Young People: William Shakespeare (edited by David Scott Kastan and Marina Kastan and illustrated by Glenn Harrington) goes beyond Shakespeare’s sonnets. In just 50 pages, the editors have also included some of the key speeches from Shakespeare’s repertoire. As with other volumes in the series, each page has a bit of explanation about
Simms Taback has an illustration style all his own. His children’s picture book illustrations are often a blend of watercolor, gouache (an opaque watercolor painting), pencil, ink, collage, and I even observed some crayon illustrations. His colors are bright and his books have subtle jokes in the illustrations (for the parents to find). So far,
For fun, I read my son Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel by Virginia Lee Burton. I loved this book as a child, and while I know my son is still too young to sit still (he’s just 18 months), I read it while he played. I still enjoy it, and I can hope my
When, in 1918, a clerk erroneously ordered twelve times the number of children’s books intended, Western Publishing Company may have faced ruin. Instead, the company persuaded Woolworth’s department stores to sell it, a practice unusual since children’s books were normally only sold during the holiday season. Years later, in the 1930s, one publishing novice was
I found a lovely illustrated copy of The Little Red Hen by Heather Forest and illustrated by Susan Gaber. The hen doesn’t share the cake at the end, so the reader gets the lesson (unlike in some versions). I appreciate it when the lesson is taught in this type of traditional tale. The dog, cat,
This year’s winner of the Caldecott Medal is The House in the Night by Susan Marie Swanson, illustrated by Beth Krommes. When I asked the librarian to help me locate it (it was misshelved), she told me she didn’t like it; its illustrations were too dark. I wasn’t sure, then, what I’d think of The
David Wiesner has been awarded the Caldecott Medal three times and the Caldecott Honor twice. While his award-winning picture books are a bit out of my comfort level (for they have very words), Wiesner is able to carry stories with only illustration. In November, The Well-Read Child did a highlight of books like this: How
In the picture book Love You Forever, Robert Munsch captures every mother’s feelings of unconditional love. I can’t read it without my eyes tearing, and I love the tender expressions of love. But I wonder if children like it.
I first read about Wynken, Blynken, and Nod by Eugene W. Field, illustrated by Giselle Potter (Schwartz & Wade, 2008), at The Well-Read Child. So when I saw it on the new books shelf in the children’s section of the library, I was very excited to check it out. I’ve read the Eugene Field poem before, but
I remembered reading Harry the Dirty Dog by Gene Zion, illustrated by Margaret Bloy Graham (Harper and Row, 1956), as a kid, so I picked it up again to relive it now, reading it to my son (he’s currently 15 months). Harry the white dog with black spots doesn’t want to take a bath, so he hides his
This month, I found my favorite Dr. Seuss book: My Many Colored Days (Knopf, 1996). My Many Colored Days was published posthumously and was not illustrated by Dr. Seuss (paintings by Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher). But probably for that reason, I love the brightly painted pages. The abstract paintings nicely capture animals in various moods and colors,
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