This is a follow-up post to our Reading Room design.  You can also read about our favorite toys here.

S loves to spend hours reading, so between that, a few friends (and a Grandma) who are elementary school teachers and a few friends who are librarians, we feel like we've found some of the best of the best of children's books!  I am listing a lot of books here, but I seriously couldn't narrow it down any further!  We love each of these books and have read them each hundreds of times.  

We are lucky to have a huge collection of books I've amassed slowly over S's 3.5 years on Earth.  We celebrate holidays with books, have given grandparents book wishlists (Amazon is great for this - you can literally email the wishlist to anyone you want), and I am constantly searching at garage sales and book sales (library booksales are awesome!) and at Goodwill.  Now that S is in preschool a few hours a week, we have access to Scholastic book sales as well.  We still visit the library often, but enjoy having our absolute favorites here with us all the time.  :)

I've grouped them in a few different ways.  First up are authors who are just amazing.  We love everything they write and think they are the bee's knees.  Next, I've gone through and grouped some of our favorite infant/toddler books, and finally some of our favorite preschool/early reader books.  For the amazing authors - I've linked directly to Amazon's list of all their books; for individual book titles I've linked to the book itself.

To start it off, here are some of our favorites from Mo Willems.  He's SO awesome.  His books are hilarious, even for parents (I have laughed out loud more than once - Can I Play Too? is one of my top five kids' books ever).  Mo Willems' books are geared towards older children; I think S started to appreciate them around 2 or so.  The Elephant and Piggie Series also doubles as Early Readers.

Petr Horacek has such beautiful illustrations that we had to get several of his books for little S.  His books are mostly geared towards infants/toddlers - with his minimal text (and maximal awesome imagery!).  This is not to say that S doesn't still enjoy reading them - because she still does!  In addition to the beautiful illustrations, Petr uses cut-outs and oddly shaped pages to further tell his story.  There is even a beautiful pop-up butterfly at the end of Butterfly, Butterfly.

All I have is one lone book to show for Russell Hoban's Frances series because the others were left at S's grandma's house!  Whoops!  We adore Frances.  She's a fabulous character with lots of spunk.  Bedtime for Frances would be my favorite book ever except for the part about spanking (we don't believe in spanking or spank; the book was written in the 1960s) - when I read to S I just leave that part out.  Russell Hoban perfectly captures preschoolers in Frances.  These books will be most appreciated by preschool and up.

Leslie Patricelli is another amazing author with brilliant illustrations.  She writes books for infants/toddlers, but her books are so beloved here that we regularly still read them to S.  Any books by Leslie involving her baby character are adorable and we love them all!

 Nancy Shaw's Sheep series is one of S's favorites - as evidenced by the fact that we own every. single. one.  There was a period where these were in near constant rotation.  Sheep in a Jeep is great for infants/toddlers, but the rest are probably better enjoyed by the 2 and up crowd.

Julia Donaldson is my newest favorite author.  My husband's favorite book is the Gruffalo, so S has heard that one since she was a baby, but for some reason I'd never thought to check out other stories by Julia.  We did about a month ago and every one that we've gotten our hands on has been totally brilliant!  We are particularly fond of those books where she pairs with Axel Scheffler for illustrations because he draws amazing pictures.  Her story, The Snail and the Whale is my current favorite kids book.  Julia is a master at creating rhymes in her stories.  The rhythm of the stories is just as beautiful as the stories themselves!

Next up is a mish-mosh of our favorite infant/toddler books.  Many have rhymes, all have beautiful pictures, and none of them made us want to cry the 10,000th time we read them.  :)

Pictured:

Llama Llama Red Pajama

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

The Baby Goes Beep

Miss Spider's Tea Party

I am a Bunny

Go, Dog, Go!
Baby Danced the Polka

Pictured:

Bear Snores On
How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight?
Busy Kitties
Everywhere Babies
Silly Suzy Goose
Star Baby
Move Over, Rover!

 And finally the groups of our favorite two and up books.  All of the above laudatory statements are true of these as well.  

Pictured:

The Berenstains' B Book (out of print)
The Paper Bag Princess
Mouse Soup
Are You My Mother?
Backyard Series: Are you a ....?
Little Bear's Visit

Pictured:

Edwina the Emu

Stellaluna

I Am Too Absolutely Small For School

What Was I Scared Of?

The Perfect Nest

But I Am an Alligator

Fortunately

Frog and Toad Together

We hope that you find some new favorites here!  Happy reading!

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All activities here are activities I feel are safe for my own children.  As your child's parents/guardians, you will need to decide what you feel is safe for your family.  I always encourage contacting your child's pediatrician for guidance if you are not sure about the safety/age appropriateness of an activity. All activities on this blog are intended to be performed with adult supervision.  Appropriate and reasonable caution should be used when activities call for the use of materials that could potentially be harmful, such as scissors, or items that could present a choking risk (small items), or a drowning risk (water activities), and with introducing a new food/ingredient to a child (allergies).  Observe caution and safety at all times.  The author and blog disclaim liability for any damage, mishap, or injury that may occur from engaging in any of these activities on this blog.