Hellobee

It sounds so cliche to say that I love reading picture books to my kids, so I won’t. I love the idea of reading books to my kids. I love perusing book recommendations and adding books to our Amazon wish list and checking them out from the library (but whoa am I bad at returning them on time). I love listening to the excellent Read Aloud Revival podcast. And I mostly enjoy reading to my kids.

But sometimes it’s hard folks! The kids squirm. The kids only want to read books about Disney characters. The kids want to throw toys and watch TV shows instead. The kids rip the flaps (causing the other child to scream in outrage). The parents want to scream when their child asks them to read the same mindless story for what feels like the millionth time. But, like many hard things, I know that reading to my kids is worth the effort, so I’m always on the hunt for great book recommendations.

This morning Big P and I went through our house and pulled out our 20 very favorite picture books. These are the best of the best of our large collection of children’s picture books. I recommend any and all of these without reservation.

1) Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd. It’s a classic for a reason. My kids love this book. They know the words. They recognize the pictures. They will even (gasp) sit still for the few minutes it takes to get through this perfect bedtime story. And huge bonus – Mom never gets tired of reading this one.

2) Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr. and Eric Carle. I’ve had this book on our shelf since before Big P was born, but for some reason it took me a year or so to add it to our rotation. I’m so glad I did because it may be our very favorite. We just love the simple, rhythmic story and the gorgeous illustrations. And we frequently play a game where we ask each other what do we see (“Daddy, Daddy, What Do You See?” “I see a Big P looking at me!” “Big P, Big P, What Do You See? “I see a Little P looking at me!”) We also have and love the Panda Bear one (Big P now knows so many exotic animals!) and will likely add the Polar Bear and Baby Bear ones to our collection soon.

3) Good Night, Gorilla by Peggy Rathmann. This almost wordless book is one of my boys’ favorites. They always pull it off the shelf and will happily sit and look at the illustrations on their own. And Big P often tells us the story (or a toddler variation of it) on his own.

4) The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. I know, I know … another classic. I didn’t promise this list would be groundbreaking. I love this book for all the reasons everybody else in the world loves it. For some reason, I enjoy reading this one more now that Big P is verbal and is able to follow along with the story. It is not quite as engaging for my younger toddler.

5) The Going To Bed Book by Sandra Boynton. We love all the Sandra Boynton books and it was tough to leave Barnyard Dance!, Blue Hat, Green Hat, Doggies, and Are You a Cow? (our personalized version of that book is one of the best gifts we’ve ever received) off this list, but ultimately this one won the Boynton book off. It’s so much fun to read, and we all giggle every time the animals go up on the deck to exercise.

6) We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Helen Oxbury and Michael Rosen. My aunt sent this classic to us earlier this year and I may have scolded myself for not finding it earlier. We all love this book. We all know the words by heart (well Little P only knows how to say thank you, milk, mommy, and daddy, but he follows along in spirit I’m sure). We find ourselves going on bear hunts all the time and never tire of swishing through the river or sludging through the mud.

7) Dear Zoo: A Lift-the-Flap Book by Rod Campbell. We added this one to our collection this past Christmas thanks to my brother and sister in law, and I’m so glad. My kids love animals. I appreciate the simple text that allows my 3 year old to easily follow along and pick up new vocabulary words, while also keeping my 1 year old engaged.

8) Peek-A-Who by Nina Laden. We flew a LOT when Big P could tag along for free as a lap child (I think we calculated he had been on something like 35+ flights by the time he turned 2). For most of that time this was the absolute, cannot-forget-it item in our travel bag. Big P simply adored this charming, little book, and although he hasn’t read it much lately, when he saw it in our pile today he quickly grabbed it and told me no way could I ever take it away from him again! I am pretty sure we’ll be reading this one tonight, which I am not upset about.

9) Piggies by Audrey Wood and Don Wood. I almost forgot to include this hilarious little book, which is Little P’s very favorite (poor 2nd child!) Little P LOVES this book. And by love I mean squeals with delight whenever we read it. And if Little P is laughing, chances are so is Big P. This illustration style is beloved by many but not actually my favorite. It doesn’t matter though because the story is so wonderful (I do usually act this one out with my fingers, so it’s not necessarily a calming bedtime story).

10) No, David! by David Shannon. My teacher friend sent this book to Big P for his 2nd birthday, and it immediately earned the “please read this 20 times in a row” stamp of approval from him. I love it when picture books like this with simple stories and bright illustrations allow both your child to “read” it aloud and also for you as the parent to embellish the story to keep it interesting during the 17th reading that week/ day.

11) That’s Not My Dragon … its ears are too tufty by Fiona Watt. I’ve been to a few Usborne book parties recently and had a chance to sample a variety of their books. I like a lot of them, but others I find less engaging/ not worth the price. My boys and I, however, absolutely love the “That’s Not My …” series of touchy feely books. This is the first one we got way back as a gift from my sister-in-law way back when Big P was only a few months old. Since then we’ve added several more to our collection, and we read all of them frequently. Little P especially loves to feel the pages and will happily sit and “read” these books anytime we pull them out.

12) Llama Llama Red Pajama by Anna Dewdney. We have most of the other Llama Llama books, but this one remains our go-to. I love both the story and the rhyming text, plus it’s so easy to fall in love with Baby Llama and the rest of his Llama family. And every kid seems to love these stories.

13) Iggy Peck, Architect by Andrea Beaty and David Roberts.Lucky Number 13 may be my personal favorite. You may have picked up on my fondness for rhyming books, and this one does it the best. The story is simply delightful and so fun to read aloud. I picked this one up originally after curating a list of STEM books, most of which are simply too advanced for our kids right now. This one, however, is perfect. We also have and absolutely adore Rosie Revere, Engineer and have already pre-ordered Ada Twist, Scientist, both by the same author and illustrator. I give these books more often than any others as gifts and cannot recommend them enough.

14) Mercy Watson Book Series by Kate DiCamillo and Chris Van Dusen. This pick is a bit of a cheat as I simply could not pick a favorite from our very favorite series of books. Mercy Watson is our go-to book these days (for 3-year-old Big P at least). We simply adore him and all the characters in the series. Big P has assigned all of his friends and families roles in the books (Little P is Mercy Watson the pig; Big P is Lorenzo the fireman; and Mr. P and I are Mr. and Mrs. Watson, Mercy’s parents of course). These have been the perfect books to transition our toddler from reading only picture books to early chapter books. They are hilarious and sweet stories with delightful illustrations, lovable characters, and short chapters. I haven’t spent a lot of time thinking/ worrying about teaching Big P to read yet, but I can already tell these books will be a key part of that process. They do a great job of repeating words while introducing new vocabulary (plus they’re fun which I suspect is a very important part of learning to read!)

15) Press Here by Herve Tullet. When Big P was barely 5 months old, his nanny sent me a text message imploring us to get this book because Big P could not stop giggling when she read it to her then 3-year old. The book was in my Amazon cart and on its way (thank you Prime shipping!) within minutes. At 3, Big P still giggles every time we read this book, as does 1-year-old Little P. I almost left it off this list though because it is a commitment to read (it’s a very interactive reading experience which is obviously very engaging for little kids but also a little exhausting for Mom).

16) Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak. It took us a few tries to get into this classic, but once we did it quickly became one of our favorites. Thanks to the audiobook version, Big P has the entire story memorized and particularly loves to act out the wild rampage part. This is one of those stories that permeates our everyday life (we do have 2 wild things after all), and that may be the highest compliment I can give a picture book.

17) Do Cows Meow? by Salina Yoon. We have a lot of books like this one full of flaps, bright illustrations, simple rhymes, and animal sounds. We like all of them and our favorites change from day to day, but this one (a gift from Nana!) is one of the best in that genre. The text is silly and fun and the actual book is nice and big for little hands and eyes.

18) Dig! by Andrea Zimmerman and David Clemesha. Big P got this book for his 1st birthday and insisted we included it in our favorites list. It’s a fun story about a construction worker and his dog and the construction projects they do around town. It may not be my very favorite story to read aloud (at least not multiple times in a row), but Big P loves it and there are definitely worse choices. Plus it’s been a great way to teach Big P how to count.

19) Finding Winnie: The True Story of the World’s Most Famous Bear by Lindsay Mattick and Sophie Blackall. If you have never read this Caldecott Medal book, please stop what you’re doing and remedy that. Order it from Amazon, borrow it from a friend, or place it on hold at the library, but somehow get it in your hands. I promise you won’t regret it! This sweet true story is beautifully illustrated and will make you fall in love with Winnie the Pooh all over again.

20) Little Blue Truck by Alice Schertle. Big P, like many little kids, loves trucks. And he adores this book. He will almost always self-select this book, which was a gift from my Mom, if he sees it on the shelf. It’s a little cheesy but I love this story and find it to be an accessible way to introduce my little ones to some important life lessons.

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What are your family’s very favorite picture books? Are there any early chapter books you love as much as we love Mercy Watson (as I was making this list I remembered how much I loved the Cam Jansen books when I was an early reader)? We’d love to add your recommendations to our go-to pile of picture books.