Baby Got Books

Our Favorite Children’s Books

About a week ago, the New York Times released their list of the Best Illustrated Children’s Books for 2008. Amazon also has an editor’s list of the year’s best picture books for children. With a pre-schooler in the house, we read quite a few picture books here at Chez Got Books. Yet — we have not read any of the books on either list. Here are some of our favorites from the past year:

The Way Back Home by Oliver Jeffers

We’ve gotten to the point where we buy all of Oliver Jeffers’ titles as soon as they appear in the store. Jeffers is an amazing artist (see his work for grown ups), and his stories are great. We’re especially big fans of last year’s The Incredible Book Eating Boy. All of the illustrations are drawn on old book pages and covers. It’s very cool and would probably make a great gift for adult bibliophiles. For reals. Check it out:

There’s also a bite taken out of the back cover. Sweet.

Knuffle Bunny Too: A Case of Mistaken Identity by Mo Willems

Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale was one of our daughter’s first picture books. When the follow-up came along, and Trixie and Knuffle Bunny had grown up with our daughter, it was a must read. As a bonus, our good pals moved to the Brooklyn neighborhood that serves as the background for Trixie’s adventures. It’s almost like visiting.

Manfish: A Story of Jacques Cousteau by Jennifer Berne and Éric Puybaret

OK. This one was for me. I grew up a huge Cousteau fan. HUGE. When I saw this one on the shelf of The Little Shop of Stories it jumped right into our basket. The story and the illustrations are fantastic. And my daughter likes it, too.

Inside the Slidy Diner by Laurel Snyder and Jaime Zollars

Laurel Snyder lives here in Atlanta. This is her first picture book, and it is very good. You can check out the whole book via Google preview over here. But buy the book. You can also have it read to you by the author at the East Atlanta Library on Dec. 6 at 10 AM.

Authors, Books | Tim | November 18, 2008 9:25 am

6 Comments

By Dr J, November 18, 2008 @ 10:19 am

The book critics in our house give Knuffle Bunny and Manfish two diminutive thumbs up, too.
Gonna have to check Jeffers out.
By Kerry, November 18, 2008 @ 11:13 am

This is wonderful! And I do love The Book Eating Boy– will have to check out the others. Esp.Slidy Diner.
By teacherninja, November 18, 2008 @ 3:52 pm

Love these picks. My daughter actually dressed up as Trixie in this book for her birthday “book character” party and made me go as the “2:30am Dad” which I thought was funny, but the other parents thought was just weird. Oh well.
By Ms. Journo-pal, November 18, 2008 @ 9:34 pm

Thanks for the shoutout! Joseph is a fan at the moment of “Albert, the Dog Who Liked to Ride in Taxis” and “Scaredy Squirrel at the Beach.” We also are reading chapters of “The Cricket in Times Square” and “Stuart Little.” What do you think? Can these tikes handle “Charlotte’s Web?” Or will the ending be too tough to handle?
By Tim, November 18, 2008 @ 10:10 pm

Scaredy Squirrel and Albert sound like fun. We’ll keep an eye out for those.

On the chapter book front, we’ve read Stuart Little but not Cricket. We’re holding off on Charlotte’s Web for now. We just finished Ramona and Beezus. Meh. Tonight we started The Adventures of Desperaux, and it seems to be quite good so far.
By Laurel Snyder, November 19, 2008 @ 8:14 am

Aw, thanks so much!

Over at our house, the big fave right now is The Donut Chef…

http://www.bobstaake.com/donutchef/home.shtml