I’m always on the hunt for good children’s books to check out from the library or purchase for our family library. And judging from the number of emails I receive asking me for children’s book recommendations, it appears I’m not alone.
So I thought it would be fun this summer to feature a few of the books we read and enjoy each week.
Roxaboxen by Alice McLerran has recently become one of our children’s favorite picture books. It tells the story of the author’s mother and neighbors who used boxes, sticks, shells, and more to create an innovative town complete with a bakery, ice cream shop, and jail.
My children are always fascinated and inspired when we read this book. I love how it sparks their creativity and gives them new ideas for imaginative play.
For more picture book ideas, check out my list of 15 Favorite Children’s Books.
Have you read any great books (children’s books or otherwise) recently?
I recently read, The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg and it was quite good.
Some of my favorite children’s books are: Ruby In Her Own Time, No Place Like Home (Jonathan Emmett), Charlotte’s Web and A Bear Called Paddington. The Boxcar Children series was a favorite of mine growing up too 🙂
http://www.wannabebookworms.blogspot.com
I just read The Mouse and the Motorcycle by Beverly Cleary to the 5 and 7 yr olds and they really enjoyed it! I know the 5 yr old didn’t get it all, but he followed along the basic story beautifully (I quizzed him to check!) We’re reading The Boxcar Children (book 1) right now. The 2 yr old is in love with Two Little Trains by Margaret Wise Brown (yep..the Goodnight Moon author). Of course, he loves anything with trains. Know what he got out of Jamberry? The 4 pages with a train on it…he begged to read that book and would then only let me turn to those 4 pages! Ah well.
Roxaboxen is one of my favorites becuase of the memories I have of my daughters’ creative Roxaboxen summer several years ago. They too built a large village in our back yard with sticks, stones and other creative addition.
Our kids fell in LOVE with Roxaboxen a few months ago and created their own Roxaboxen with their cousins outside. Some of the sweetest memories EVER. I took pictures of it and documented their town’s journey here: http://allthingshendrick.blogspot.com/2012/01/kid-vision.html
We just started working our way through Uncle Wiggily’s Story Book, which I enjoyed as a child. (Unfortunately, our library’s copy doesn’t have the same picture on the front, where the rabbit is reading the same book, with a rabbit on it reading the same book, and so on, and so on. That used to fascinate me as a child.)
This book was used extensively at my son’s school, they also had outdoor areas where the kids got to build their own Roxaboxen “houses”. I’m glad others are enjoying this book.
Roxaboxen is part of our 3rd grade public school curriculum! Every year the kids love it! It is a great read aloud for our Social Studies!
Chronicles of Narnia!!!!
This was my favorite book as a child! So glad to hear it is still popular : )
Roxaboxen was a childhood favorite. Loved that book. I am so glad to learn that it is well loved by others as well.
I read James Herriot Treasury for Children to my daughter when she was little. I need to start reading it to my son. We also really like the Winnie the Pooh series by A.A. Milne. The Grandma’s Attic books are great too. For a little older child Understood Betsy is also a good one.Understood Betsy is one of my daughters favorites. I am planning our summer reading I will have to add Roxaboxen to my list.
Boxes for Katje is a new favorite here! Read about it on amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/Boxes-Katje-Candace-Fleming/dp/0374309221
I have to admit I’ve never heard of alot of these books in the comments here but am anxious to make a list and check them out!!! I love that everyone shares because I learn so much!!! Thanks so much.
We love The Story of Ping and The Red Clogs.
Our family visited the original Roxaboxen location in Arizona! It’s still there and has been made into a “park” (it’s a dirt lot high on a hill with plenty of rocks to build stuff 🙂 People come from all over the U.S. and leave their mark there…many bring rocks from their region and leave them there for others to build with.
Another book, for older children and moms, is the actual history surrounding the story: The legacy of Roxaboxen : a collection of voices / Alice McLerran ; [illustrated by Barbara Cooney] Tells the great story of how the land was secured to make it an official park for others to enjoy.
Here is a link to our favorite kids books: http://mylittlebitoflife.com/?page_id=152
This is one of our all-time favorites! My kids loved recreating their own Roxaboxen every summer. I still search every beach for sea glass when I visit.
Love Roxaboxen! I used it in my classroom when I was a teacher and the kiddos wanted to “build” in the classroom. My little one is only 3, but I can’t wait to share the All of a Kind Family series with her one day. I loved them so much as a child (still do!).
I loved the Boxcar Children series as a little girl.
Oh me too! 🙂
Children’s Books are a passion of mine!
The Big Red Barn by Margaret Wise Brown.
Click, Clack, Moo, Cows that type is a fun one.
Lois Elhert books — children love the art. We love Eating Vegetable Soup as we just planted a garden.
Miss Rumphius
So many more! 🙂
Books by Mo Willems, they are super simple but crack me up. If you have an early reader they could read the whole thing, most pages have 1 sentence but the stories are funny. I especially enjoy all the ones with Gerald the elephant and Piggie the pig, “We are in a book” is a great one.
We are still absorbed in The Storybook Bible- Every Story Whispers His Name! WOW! I can’t read some of the stories aloud because I start crying. I’ve never experienced God’s Word like this before, and neither have my children. They beg- and I mean beg- for me to read it during every reading time. Thankfully I bought the edition that comes with the audio cds, so at bedtime I put one on and let it play. My 4 and 6 years old children argue over who gets the actual Bible every night so they can follow along while the cd plays. Amazing!
I’m absorbed in “Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liberalism” and “Being George Washington” right now. Great books also!
No kids yet…but here’s some books I’ve been reading (I’ve been reading SO much this, thanks to your inspiration, Crystal!):
Successful Adoptions: http://ourfrugalhappylife.blogspot.com/2012/05/reading-update-successful-adoption.html
The Meaning of Marriage: http://ourfrugalhappylife.blogspot.com/2012/05/2012-reading-meaning-of-marriage-he.html
And I even plowed through the Tightwad Gazette in April (it’s 1,000 pages long!): http://ourfrugalhappylife.blogspot.com/2012/04/april-reading-update-tightwad-gazette.html
We love anything by Bill Peet. He wrote about 40 books in the late 60 and early 70’s. They have great characters and vocabulary words. I think we’ve read just about all of them, multiple times.
This was my favorite book as a kid! Glad to know someone else likes it – my husband does not… :0)
I used to LOVE this book growing up! My friends and I actually created a Roxaboxen in the woods behind my parents’ house. I am going to have to get a copy of this book for my son when he gets older!
My kids are a bit older {10, 11, and 13} and we just read The False Prince by Jennifer A. Nielsen. They all loved it and so did I – one of the best we’ve read in a long time.
We LOVE Roxaboxen. It is an awesome book.
We also enjoyed the James Herriot Treasury for Children and The Little Princess. Oh, and The Hundred Dresses is a really good one, too.
Recently read this to my 6 year old. Loved it!! I even got tears in my eyes at the end!
Les Miserables – Stepping Stone version co-authored by Monica Kulling (Victor Hugo)
The Family Under the Bridge by Natalie Savage Carlson
Yonie Wondernose
In Grandma’s Attic series
ALL TIME BEST:
Leading Little Ones to God
We are reading The Great Brain by John D Fitzgerald. My young boys are loving it!
I LOVE The Great Brain series! My boys are a little too young for it, but I have big plans for it in a couple of years!
This is a favorite of ours too! My daughters great grandmother gave it to her for her 3 year birthday to encourage her to keep pretending 🙂
The illustrator of this book, Barbara Cooney, wrote an illustrated Miss Rumphius, which is one of my favorites.
We’ve been reading the entire set of the My First Little House books regularly.
We love Miss Rumphius, too!
That Pesky Rat — by Lauren Child
(It always makes me smile!)