MORE 'BEST-BOOKS' POSTS
#70 Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech (1994) 28 points Yes, it’s a Newbery, but I really loved it when I first read it, and I cried and cried, too. I also laughed at Salamanca’s grandparents a lot. – Libby Gorman Creech has the amazing ability to spin a web of stories within stories, and […]
#71 Stellaluna by Janell Cannon (1993) 27 points Beautiful story, beautiful illustrations. – B Patton An adventure in identity. – Rose Marie Moore Sweet baby. When Stellaluna first came out I was in high school and my mom was working in the oldest independent bookstore in Kalamazoo, Michigan, The Athena (until Barnes and Noble snuffed […]
#72 But Not the Hippopotamus by Sandra Boynton (1982) 27 points To me, what makes this book so uniquely great is the meta-joke that the Hippo isn’t allowed to join the group of animals until someone can figure out a rhyme for hippopotamus, but I know from speaking with other parents who missed that joke, […]
#73 May I Bring a Friend by Beatrice Schenk de Regniers, illustrated by Beni Montresor (1964) 27 points Another classic that I enjoyed as a child and enjoyed more as an adult reading to children. – Libby Gorman Despite the fact that I can never spell de Regniers’s name correctly (I had to correct it […]
#74 I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen (2011) 26 points Funny, I’ve never seen my kids laugh so hard when finishing a book. That, and the bear’s unfailingly polite. There has to be points for that. – Melissa Fox Yeah, it’s awfully soon to tell, but I think this will be a classic. […]
#75 Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett, illustrated by Ron Barrett (1978) 26 points A childhood favorite. My mother used to come and read this book to my classes when I was young. I remember dreaming of food falling from the sky, though never so much it destroyed the town. Whimsical storytelling […]
#76 Eloise by Kay Thompson (1955) 26 points Oh my! This I did not expect. What can we extrapolate from a book that previously held the coveted #37 slot on our last Picture Book Poll, falling incredibly to a lowly #76? It’s particularly strange when you consider the sheer plethora of Eloise marketing going on […]
#77 Flotsam by David Wiesner (2006) 26 points Most of David Wiesner’s wordless picture books are all wonderful, it is hard to pick one, but I don’t want to list them all and take up spots. This one is more intricate, and a good one to ask kids to write out their version of the […]
#78 Zoom at Sea by Tim Wynne-Jones, illustrated by Eric Beddows (1993) 26 points This is far and away my favorite picture book. It did come out in the States but I don’t think it got wide distribution so this is likely its only vote. Even though it has black and white pictures, and I […]
#79 Pierre by Maurice Sendak (1962) 25 points Growing up, my first exposure to Pierre came when I joined the Kalamazoo Civic Youth Theater, a program for the kids of Kalamazoo, and did tech work on their production of Really Rosie. There I saw firsthand a sung version of the ultimate in children-being-eaten literature (here’s […]