Mama Bear's (That's Me!) Reading List for Little Guys (and Girls, of Course!)

Yay!  It's Top Ten Tuesday again!

A friend of mine has asked me what my top picks of books for his little girl were, so after putting some thought into it, I have made a list of my top ten favorites...not necessarily in any order.

So...here they are!

(And you thought I forgot!)

1.  Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown

2.  Goodnight Gorilla by Peggy Rathmann (I personally love this one in Spanish)

3.   Philadelphia Chickens and Rhinoceros Tap by Sandra Boynton (these aren't really reading books, but hey, this is my list, so I put them on...'cuz I want to.  Apparently, according to my late grandmother,, I am somehow related to her.  Maybe that's why I just love her stuff!)


4. Basically anything by Sandra Boynton.

5.  When Cows Come Home at the End of the Day by David L Harrison.  I just love the rhythm in this book:
When cows come home at the end of the day,
They swish their tails and they gently sway...

6.  A Bad Case of Spots by David Shannon, and you can get it in Spanish, too.  Actually I really like quite a few of his books.  No, David is especially good.

7.Can't You Sleep, Little Bear and Good Job, Little Bear along with all the other Little Bear books by Martin Waddell almost always make me tear up with the sentiments that go from Big Bear, who is the dad, by the way, which is pretty awesome, to Little Bear.  (To my book list waiting friend, that's where the name Little Bear came from, you know...)

8.  A Story For Bear is just a really awesome book by Dennis Haseley.  It's probably better for a more advanced story listener, but it's a really cool story about a lady who reads books to a bear all summer and then leaves a note for him as well as other stuff (I won't tell and ruin the tale!) when she has to leave in the fall.  I like it that the bear is really a bear, not a talking bear.  It gives an interesting perspective, and the illustrations are absolutely breath-taking.

9.  Sometimes I'm Bombaloo by Rachel Vail is a great one for preschoolers who need some help identifying their feelings.  It really helped with a girl that I was working with.  When she started to break down, we could talk about how at that moment, she was Bombaloo, but that it was ok to be happy again after she was so angry.  I think that sometimes it is hard for kids to come down after they get all worked up.  I feel like sometimes they don't know how to save face and regain control after they've lost it.  This book helps.

10.  This is another one that is for the more advanced listeners, but Harvey Potter's Balloon Farm by Jerdine Nolen and Mark Buehner is a pretty interesting book, too.  It's about a man who grows balloons and a little girl who is determined to find out how he does it.  It has great local color in the dialect and illustrations.

So, there you have it.  These are some of my picks for a reading library for babies on up to preschoolers and probably even more.  Or course, this is by no means an extensive list, as I could add titles like Click, Clack, Moo by Doreen Cronin and all her other titles that consistently evoke a giggle or two around here, or Stellaluna by Janell Cannon, which is on our shelves to help teach us about differences, acceptance, and being ourselves, but I am linking up to Oh, Amanda's Top Ten Tuesday, so I had to keep my list at ten.  So, I couldn't add Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney or Wee Willie Winkey and it's companions 1, 2, and 3 which are compilations of Mother Goose rhymes by Iona Opie (which is a pretty cool name in and of itself) and were Jo's very favorite books for a while and we read them nightly until she could recite all the rhymes in all the books, in order.

What are your (or your kids') favorite reads?