Need Your Help...

[izeveryboyin]

I'm getting ready to start my daughter's book collection (daughter! mine! yikes!) so that once she's born, she'll be set, but I wanted to get a lot of older classics to put in the collection as opposed to limiting her to all these new fangled (though highly entertaining) "Everybody Poops" "If You Give A Mouse A Cookie" books. Although, "If You Give A Mouse A Cookie" is a bit of a masterpiece. Anyway what was your favorite book as a child? I'll make a list and try to get all the ones everyone suggests. She's already got a million of my old favorites waiting for her to come out like "He Bear, She Bear" and "Green Eggs and Ham" but I'm sure you guys have a lot of colorful and delightful titles I can add on. Love to hear them!

--k

[hester_prynne]

One of my daughter's absolute must read at night books was Goodnight Moon. I dug it too, still do.
She liked Rainbow fish, nursery rhymes, (good ol mother goose).
My own favorite book or at least the one I can remember was Harold and the purple crayon.
Oh, and the Good dog Carl books are Fabulous!
I want to read your daughter a story!!!!!!!
By the way Izzy, great you are gathering up books for your girl! I did this too and had a grand time of it. And reading them to her was even better!
I'm so excited for you! My toes are wigglin!
H

[judih]

I went to a kids' book store and chose all the books with wonderful drawings and simple but meaningful text that caught my imagination. If you like the book, your daughter will like the book.

Dr. Seuss, The Foot Book, was good for soon, but not at the beginning.
Get books that are hard cardboard, so that when she chews them, they'll last till the next time you read them.

Bathtub books are good.

Remember that this is your life, do not sacrifice sanity for her or anyone else.

love!
judih

[Lightning Rod]

izzy,

of course no child's library is complete without copies of
Naked Lunch, Slaughterhouse Five and Tropic of Cancer

but seriously, I remember being fascinated by Bible stories as a child
and Charlotte's Web and The Little Prince

Among my favorite things to read was The World Book Encyclopedia
because it had so many great pictures.

[mousey1]

What a great idea that is Iz.

I will suggest off the top of my head

The Water Babies by Charles Kingsley (I remember having this read to me as a child, tis a fond memory.)

and for a bit of fun and goodly humour...and following a completely different vein...

The Story of the Little Mole Who Went in Search of Whodunit by Werner Holzwarth

[panta rhei]

the little mole with the piece of shit on his head! yes... definitely!

and 'guess how much i love you' by sam mcbratney.
also 'the very hungry caterpillar' by eric carle... a classic! make sure it's a cardboard edition with big holes. small kids love tactile books. the more to touch, the better.

and make her a book yourself! my favourite book was a book my very old grandmother had made for me - she had used an old exercise book, and had glued pictures from magazines and newspaper in it, written small stories or verses with them, drawn pictures, created pages with "things to do" for me (like taking out small cut-out kids from a tiny envelope and putting them onto various chairs and sofas in a room; like a cut-out mailbox from a magazine that hides tiny empty sheets and envelopes inside on which i could "write"; like a bunch of cut-out flowers that i could arrange into various vases; like a house with doors and windows that i could open... etc. etc.)
i still have this book, and it is still very precious to me.

i have also made several "books" for my daughter... just pictures (cut outs, drawings, photographs) of particular things i knew she liked when she was very small; then, later, very easy books to read herself (like when she was 4 , she could only read capitals, but there were no books with stories written in capitals, so i made her some... i remember one of them, a six-pager, was called "eating cookies", and was about her and her two best friends. she loved it, and still has it....)

so, i suggest, buy a few you love, and your kid will love them cause you do.
and make one for her! you will overflow with love and ideas and visions when you're doing it.
then wait and see. when she grows, her vibes will tell you what she will love and be inspired by........

[Arcadia]

A ver... I´m not very fond in books for kids under 10 years old.
When a was very little there were the classics in Disney versions and lots of books printed in Spain with animals as characters. I liked them!
The first books from argentine authors I´ve listened to and that I remember now were:
. one of Constancio C. Vigil (mmm..yeah, I guess he´s argentine, I´ll google it) with a disgusting-dark-realist rat as a character (there was in my mother´s aunt house in Oliveros and I associate it with the also very realist-dark-coloured portrait painted of my grand-grandmother in the bedroom where I used to sleep there). I don´t suggest it...
. the other was Dailan Kifki, a María Elena Walsh little novel with an elephant and a family as characters. Very funny, I loved it!
. and the first book I was angry about was Alice in Wonderland. I was about 9 or 10, I guess.

[izeveryboyin]

Johnson & Johnson makes this wonderful baby bath wash called "Sleepytime" that I discovered 6 years ago when my mom had my little brother, and it comes in a starter kit with lotion and oil and a copy of Goodnight Moon so of couse I had to buy it. That was one of my favorites actually. After I'd had it read to me a few times, I would always say goodnight to my oatmeal, and my spoon, and anything else. I've got a subscriptionn where they'll be sending me two new Dr. Suess books a month. I've already got "If I Ran the Zoo" and "Mr.Brown Can Moo, Can You" I lik the Foot book. I've been quite fond of my feet ever since I read it. I'll be sure to keep the cardboard bit in mind, everyone seems to be telling me that, plus I remember how many books my little brother ruined by gumming on them.

LRod, while I would love for her to be an intellectual giant, I think we'll save The Willam S. Burroughs, Vonnegut & Miller for a little later... like in maybe 15 years. The Little Prince was recommended to me by my doctor, so I guess I better get it, right?

I love your create-a-book idea, Panta. It'll give me something to do while I'm stuck in the house to large to move... which is beginning to happen already. LOL.

The Water Babies has got to be good just by the way it sounds. I'll try to find it. And anything involving a mole in search of whodunit is probably a masterpiece.

Anyway thanx for all the suggestions, guys. Keep em coming.

--k

p.s Hest, you can read to her anytime. I'm sure she'll be in awe of your voice. You're still singing, right?

[abstroint]

“I speak for the trees.” The Lorax by Dr. Seuss and anything by Shel Silverstein is altering, opening creative centers in the mind.

[izeveryboyin]

I love Shel Silverstein. I almost forgot about him though. Thanks for the reminder. I'll add it to the book list. The Giving Tree was one of my favorites.

[e_dog]

the only book for anyone is the Good Book.

the holy writ, the Word o' Gawd.

fiya an' bwinstone, heaven and hell and damnation and angels, frogs and floods. fun stuff, better'n these silly "how to take a shit" kiddiebooks.

Raised in the Lord. Protected by God tha Father! thats the way to rear kids. Dr Seuss is working for the devil, unholy rhymes.