The Best Childrens Books

I love to read. I was an avid reader as a child and read to my own children for many years.

I believe that reading opens the mind and imagination and can transport you into another world.

My boys favorites were the Little golden books and the Mr Men books.

This lens is full of the wonderful books that are available for children. I hope you enjoy it.

Dirt on My Shirt

by: Jeff Foxworthy

Amazon Price: $12.23 (as of 12/30/2009)
List Price: $17.99

My kids are still small, and I've wanted to introduce them more to rhyme and poetry. But I feel that most kids' poetry books are somehow over their heads, or they're just not big enough yet. My big girl is 7. I happened to run into this one today, and WOW, I thought the subject matter had such kid appeal, really sweet and kind, light, funny stuff (and not disgusting either!). So kudos to Jeff Foxworthy, hat's off to you, I didn't know you had this in you too. Illustrations great too. Hope you do some more!

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Little Golden Books For Children

In 1942, Simon & Schuster began publishing the Little Golden Books, a series of inexpensive, well illustrated, high quality children's books.

The first twelve books were all published simultaneously, in hard cover format with dust jackets.

At a price of 25 cents, the series was met with instant commercial success.

The books went into multiple printings nearly immediately, devoured by a population hungry for a children's book of this sort.

Inexpensive, yet of high quality and high durability, the Little Golden Books fulfilled an unmet need of the country's growing juvenile reading population.

From a parent's perspective, LGB's were a worthy economic alternative to the comic book.
Poky Little Puppy
Poky Little Puppy

The eighth book in the series, Poky Little Puppy, is the top selling children's book of all time according to a 2001 list of bestselling children's hardback books compiled by Publisher's Weekly (see Appendix 4 for the Publisher's Weekly list of 100 bestselling children's hardcover books).

But Poky Little Puppy is not the only hugely successful LGB-four of the top eight books on the Publisher's Weekly list are Little Golden Books!

Many of the books have become icons within the picture book marketplace-Poky Little Puppy, Tootle, Scuffy The Tugboat, The Little Red Hen among others.

Several of the illustrators for the Little Golden Books later became staples within the picture book industry. Corinne Malvern, Tibor Gergely, Gustaf Tenggren, Feodor Rojankovsky, Richard Scarry, Eloise Wilkin, and Garth Williams are just a few of the illustrator's who contributed to this astonishingly successful book publishing phenomenon.

Many book collectors do not realize that the first thirty-five LGB's were issued with dust jackets - from 1942 to 1947 - at a standard 25-cent price.

These dust jacketed versions also have a blue cloth spine. There is an active collecting community of first edition Little Golden Books.
Make Way For Ducklings
Make Way For Ducklings

Collecting Little Golden Books (Krause Publications), by Steve Santi, is the authoritative price guide. Online auctions for first printings are especially competitive. High quality and high demand, coupled with very limited supply, begets high prices.

During the mid-forties to early-fifties, the American Library Association's Caldecott Awards continued adding to the credibility of illustrated picture books as an acceptable art form.

During that time, many prominent artists were either at the top of their craft or at the beginning of a lustrous career, and had won either a Caldecott Medal or Honor award.

These included such notables as Marcia Brown, Barbara Cooney, Roger Duvoisin, Margaret Bloy Graham, Berta and Elmer Hader, Robert Lawson, Robert McCloskey, Dr. Seuss, Maurice Sendak, Ingri & Edgar Parin d'Aulaire, Leo Politi, Tasha Tudor, and Leonard Weisgard.

By 1955, such picture book classics as Thidwick, Ferdinand, Madeline, Make Way For Ducklings, The Little House, Curious George, and Eloise, had all been published.

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