Parents often ask me which books they should be reading to thier kids. My answer is always books that their kids like. Reading is so important and making it fun and enjoyable right away is a great step in the journey to making your children life long readers. Which is why I love doing themed book reviews so you can easily find great books that suit your child’s interests. That said I do have some favorite authors I want to share, here are my 5 of my favorites.
What I love about Todd Parr is that his books are incredibly inclusive. Every child can relate to some character in his books and his use of bright colors make his books a fun read for all ages. My favorites are the I Love You Book and The Family Book.
There are a few authors that I always check for when I go to the library, Anne Rockwell is one of those. Her books are usually simple and many like her adorable book President’s Day bridge the divide between fiction and non fiction, telling a story while explaining facts as well.
No author’s work have created such discussion here as Munsch’s I Love You Forever. It seems like everyone either loves or hates that book, but I am not suggesting this author based on that book. I am including Robert Munsch because of all his other books like Stephanie’s Ponytail, The Paper Bag Princess and Zoom that tell stories of strong girls and are hilarious. He writes smart funny boy characters too, but I adore his sassy strong girls.
No other author writes about children’s frailties, anxieties and inner voice the way Henekes does. I love how accepting his books are, how sensitive the parents in his books are and the humor put in only for parent readers. Wemberly Worried is a great book for the first day of school , Julius The Baby of The World was one of my favorites for preparing my son for becoming a big brother and Shiela Rae The Brave is one of my son’s absolute favorite books ever.
Did you think I could possibly leave him out? Don’t be discouraged by the marketing of The Very Hungry Caterpillar in shampoo, pillow cases, birthday cards… there is a reason people want these products, because the book is fantastic, as is the author/ artist. While the debatably over exposed Caterpillar is my favorite book I also love the Grouchy Ladybug for teaching time and House For A Hermit Crab for teaching about months of the year and even moving . That’s what I love about Carle, his simple books have such depth of teaching possibilities.
Who is your favorite picture book author?
13 Responses to “5 Great Children’s Book Authors”
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Those are all great choices! My girls both enjoyed Sandra Boynton – her books are perfect for the under-2 crowd. Now, we don’t often stick with just one author. we tend to just scour the library and often look for books about certain topics instead.
Same – we do subject searches most of all with my son and right now at 4.5 he is leaning towards non fiction more and more.
Lois Elhert… now i have more authors (except Munsch and EC) to discover and enjoy!
I can’t believe you left out mo willems. His pigeon books, knuffle bunny books, and especially leonardo the terrible monster are frequent requests in our house
I think he’s hilarious but my son has never gotten into him so when I sat to write he didn’t make the top 5. However we did do a author showcase featuring him.http://www.notimeforflashcards.com/2010/05/author-showcase-mo-willems.html
Mem Fox is awesome too and Patricia Polacco for older readers.
Love your suggestions!
Love Mem Fox too !
We like Leslie Patricelli, Sandra Boynton, Eric Carle, and Stephen kellog…oh and Laura Numeroff.
We love so many that it is hard to choose. Eric Carle is a definite favorite. But I must give special kudos to Sandra Boynton for helping to get new parents out of their shells. Who could bark out “Doggies” multiple times to the delight of their child and then have many inhibitions about the silly things we all should do when reading to a young child?
I love this comment ! Doggies is one of my daughter’s favorite books and gets read a few hundred times a day and if I had ever been in my shell you are right it would have knocked me out of it fast.
Aw, thanks!
You know who else needs to get a hat tip? Margaret Wise Brown. She is wonderful and was doing it before much of anyone else- what an inspiration! My son learned to blow from reading Runaway Bunny and us blowing the bunny sailboat.
I would say there will be 3 out of 5 yours on my list. I don’t care for munsch at all, and while I like Henkes stories, my daughter doesn’t care much for them. Her top favorite is Richard Scarry and mine is Jan Brett.
MO WILLEMS!