Picture Book Favorites
Something a little different this week: picture book recommendations! New friends of mine recently began fostering a beautiful newborn, and it was such a treat to think through my favorites and send some books along with more practical concerns like velcro swaddlers and baby Tylenol. If you have little kids in your life and you want gift ideas, or if you just care about beautiful books, here are some I particularly love, old classics and contemporary favorites. These are books that are a delight to read aloud and stand up to the hundreds of repeat readings that (at least my) kids demand.
Du Iz Tak by Carson Ellis
Du Iz Tak is a journey through seasons of the year with some fashionable bugs as they watch and wait for a flower to bloom, and then say farewell as snow approaches. Ellis made up a bug language, which is really fun to read aloud. “Booby voobeck,” the curse the bugs say when a spider builds a web over their cool new fort, has entered my family lexicon as a safe curse to say around the kids. And there are so many little stories happening in the background that rewards re-reading, which is just remarkable given how open the art is. (TBH I’d recommend every book by Carson Ellis, but this one is my favorite.)
They Say Blue by Jillian Tamaki
Man, what a treat this book is. Tamaki moves through colors and feelings and seasons in this book with poetic flow that feels of a piece with kid imaginative logic. I have always loved the way she draws people, and the softness of her line and use of color are so well suited to a picture book. Tamaki’s follow-up picture book is also wonderful, Our Little Kitchen, about people working in a community kitchen to make food for their neighbors.
Pokko and the Drum by Matthew Forsythe
I mean, I love this book so much that my daughter’s nickname is Pokko. This book is dry and laugh-out-loud funny (for adults and kids), following what happens when a little frog’s parents make a terrible mistake: giving her a drum. The drum is loud and inconvenient for a little frog family who lives in a mushroom, and it is exactly the tool she needed to show everyone what a leader she is. The art is so beautiful, I love Pokko with all of my heart.
Shrek! By William Steig
I grew up reading other Steig classics (Sylvester and the Magic Pebble! The Amazing Bone! Doctor De Soto!) but never read Shrek until I was a parent, partly because I thought I knew the story from the movies. Holy moly what a funny book this is, what fun it is to read aloud! “You there valet, why so blithe?” Kills me every time. Shrek is like Oscar the Grouch for older kids—he hates laughter and beauty and children, he loves being stinky and mean, he has laser eyes and eats lightning, and he loves himself exactly the way he is.
Chirri and Chirra, The Snowy Day by Kaya Doi
All of the Chirri and Chirra books are luscious little books with colored pencil illustrations about two sisters going on bicycle adventures and having sensory pleasure along the way, and The Snowy Day is my favorite of them. The sisters get warm drinks in cups just the right size for their little hands; the icy buds they were using as marbles melt in the hot springs and make the air fragrant; perfectly warm steamed buns (one orange, one molasses, both with big crystals of sugar on top) fill their tummies, and an igloo cuddle with a family of bears help them feel warm and cozy for sleep. One of the greatest pleasures of parenting is to give my kids this kind of sensory delight, meeting their bodily needs for food and warmth and adventure with care, and these books capture that feeling so beautifully.
In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
I feel like there are Where the Wild Things Are kids, and there are In the Night Kitchen kids, and mine love In the Night Kitchen. I love a wild rumpus, but a Little Nemo-inspired naked butt getting baked in a Mickey cake is hard to beat. It also inspired me to get more into baking cakes just to snack on—Snacking Cakes is definitely recommended as supplemental reading. (Also, while we’re talking Sendak, please add the nutshell library to your collection, the beautiful Little Bear books for beginning readers, and the very weird and wonderful The Big Green Book.)
The Queen in the Cave by Julia Sarda
This just came out, and I’ve been coveting it for months after seeing preview images, and oh my god oh my god this BOOK, just look at it! The story is about three sisters who are following the eldest into the woods to find a queen she dreamed about. When they find her, it is uncanny and unsettling in the very best Grimm tradition. To be honest I think I love it more than my kids? Anyway, run don’t walk, what a book.
Square / Triangle / Circle (Shape Trillogy) by Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen
Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen have made so many contemporary classics of children’s books, individually and in collaboration, but these are my favorites. Triangle plays a sneaky trick on square, and it backfires; Circle leads the friends on a slightly traumatizing game of hide and seek; and Circle presumes sweet Square is an artist, when really he isn’t, and it’s stressful. (I love Square an impossible amount.) Klassen’s art is graphic and restrained, and like the very best of cartooning, he gets so much emotion out of such simplified forms.
Also don’t forget about Frog and Toad by Arnold Lobel, The Monster at the End of this Book by Jon Stone, The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats, Cars and Trucks and Things that Go by Richard Scarry, and George and Martha by James Marshall. It’s just about time for me to go to kindergarten pick up, and since these are classics I figure they speak for themselves.
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Other things:
- Thank you to everyone who sent book recommendations after the last newsletter! (And <3 <3 to the postcard from beloved H.C., hope to see you at HAIM!) I’m horrible at writing back these days, but the recommendations were very appreciated.
- The last two weeks of my mom visiting + mostly spending days with my family + warmer weather have been great for base-level morale, despite some personal life challenges and national news tragedies. Thank goodness for sun on skin and hugs from beloveds.
- I’ve set a goal to have a finished script of my next big book, working title Monument, by mid-August when school starts back up. It is an ambitious goal, but it’s clarifying to have set it. I’m already feeling itchy, that attention drag to other projects that I want to work on too, BUT NO, BRAIN! You have a deadline! Yes yes yes.
- I’m so excited to plan a road trip to Texas this summer with my 6 year old. Hotel pools at night, roadside attractions, scoping out creeks to splash in to break up the drive: I’m thrilled! If you have any recommendations for kid-friendly stops along the Chicago -> St Louis -> Hot Springs -> Dallas -> Austin corridor, hit me up!
Til next week: be gentle with yourself and get some sunshine if you can!