Kids' Books We Like
These books are for the 1.5-3.5 age range (in my experience so far, noting that each child is unique and will mature at different rates with respect to their understanding of stories and specific interests). They are ones that my eldest daughter has enjoyed (and hopefully her sibling(s) will as they reach the suitable ages. They are also ones that aren't too tedious to read out loud over and over as an adult. This may well be a topic I revisit for older age ranges.
In no particular order, here are some from our shelves (and one from the library) that I'm happy to recommend:
Mortimer's First Garden, by Karma Wilson
A cute story about a mouse planting a seed, that also conveys the message that there's something of the miraculous in all growth.
Babar and his children, by Jean de Brunhoff
Babar and his wife have kids, and then everyone is kept busy rescuing them from danger. The vocabulary is not dumbed down, and in places the sentence construction bears traces of the French it was translated from. We also have a Babar book by de Brunhoff's son that sees the elephant royal family travel around the world and learn a little bit about different languages and cultures.
The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss
I find Dr. Seuss fun to read aloud because of his playful mastery of language. Some people find his made-up nonsense words annoying, but there are definitely books of his such as this one that keep them to a minimum (Oh, the Places You'll Go is another one we have that's pretty good on that score). Somehow we ended up with a version that includes a Spanish translation on each page. The translation is pretty literal and doesn't preserve the poetry—but still occasionally lands phrases that roll off the tongue nicely like "dijo el pez en la tetera". It is also fun to ponder as an adult whether it's written with an unreliable narrator and e.g. Thing 1 and Thing 2 are simply the unrestrained id of each child.
Bedtime for Frances, by Russell Hoban
This book has a lot of repetitiveness, but it's integral to the relatability of the story, so it doesn't feel tedious. We also have a couple of other books by the same author.
Angelina Ballerina, by Katharine Holabird
Angelina is a mouse. Through ballet lessons, she becomes more disciplined. Other books in the series also teach pro-social values.
She went every day to her ballet lessons and worked very hard for many years
The Fourteen Bears: Summer and Winter, by Evelyn Scott
Unlike the books above, this one doesn't really have a plot. Instead it's simply about two normal days (one in summer and one in winter) in the lives of a family of bears. The illustrations are what make this. Each bear has his or her unique space with different decor. They are drawn as individuals, so even though there are fourteen of them, they can still be identified if you try. It's possible to spot new visual details almost every time you read it.
What Do People Do All Day?, by Richard Scarry
This book is a great introduction to the idea of jobs and money. The selection of jobs is very mid-century (and some of the technologies shown would have been obsolete even then, such as steam-powered construction equipment) but has good coverage of the breadth of the economy, from primary sectors, to manufacturing, to services. The drawings make me think of The Way Things Work by David Macaulay (a book I loved as a child, have gotten for a nephew, and plan to get for my own kids when they're the right age), adapted for the younger set. The page shown here is about water treatment, a topic I'm very familiar with, and I appreciate that while it is simplified, it's not wrong.
Honourable Mentions
- This book is pretty cool. It has 20 words in 20 languages (which I think is also the title, or something close to that). There is a wheel that lets you select the language for each page. My younger daughter really likes looking at all the pictures (mainly photos of babies and small children whatever each word is).
- Also for the earlier end of the age range covered in this post, a lot of Sandra Boynton books are pleasant enough to read over and over. I find the text flows in a euphonious way that a lot of books for really young children strive for but don't always attain so well.
- A Children's Book About ... by Joy Berry: this is a series about different behaviour topics. It is extremely didactic with zero subtlety, but my eldest daughter loves them and frequently asks for them to be read to her. I think it might be because of the illustrations—there's a full-page cartoon on every right-hand page.
- A new addition to our bookshelves (a Christmas gift this year) that was really enjoyed by both child and parents on the first couple of reads was There's A Mouse in My House by Sheree Fitch. The way the mouse was telling stories to stall getting flattened with a shoe and then promises to keep telling stories every day as a sort of rent payment was reminding me of something. So I was quite satisfied and amused when she told her name on the last or second-last page (click or mouse-over these links for "spoilers").
- Berenstain Bears, Paddington, and Fancy Nancy are all pretty good series. For the latter I even read one entry from our local library in French to my daughter.
- When I was a kid (but a bit older, more like early elementary years), an author I enjoyed a lot was Enid Blyton. I just started reading chapters from one of her books (a "Secret Seven" one, although the "... of Adventure" series is the one I remember most fondly) as a bedtime story and it seems to be popular enough so far.
A couple of concluding thoughts are that used bookstores are a great place to look for books for young children. Whatever you get, it's always going to be new to them, and books that are still in circulation have probably endured for a reason. I've also noticed that before children start reading for themselves, the quality of the illustrations is one of the biggest factors for keeping their attention. I've listed the books above with their authors, but truth be told the illustrators (who are the same in some cases but not all) should probably get as much or perhaps more credit.