My Favorite Children’s Books

Phyllis Inspiration 34 Comments

Reading has always been one of my favorite pastimes. I have always been intrigued by stories with a simple, yet impactful storyline. This is one of the reasons why I will never outgrow children’s books. As a mother, I shared these stories with my twins, Eric and Brian. Now, as a grandmother, I find myself sharing them again with my grandchildren.

When my son Brian became an uncle with the birth of Eric’s son, Hays, he purchased two copies of the popular children’s book Love You Forever: one for Eric’s wife Katie and one for me. He fell in love with the book after reading it to his adopted niece several years ago. Tears filled my eyes as he shared his excitement about reading the story to Hays and singing its trademark song:

I’ll love you forever,
I’ll like you for always,
As long as I’m living
My baby you’ll be.

Those four lines are so simple, yet they have an incredible beauty. Children’s literature often says so much with just a few words or phrases. Another favorite story that I read to the boys was Goodnight Moon. It taught my boys to appreciate what they had and they loved saying “Goodnight!” to every item in their room like the little bunny in the story. As a child, I remember my fondness for the Grimm Brothers’ fairy tales, especially The Elves and the Shoemaker and Three Billy Goats Gruff. I never got tired of learning how the shoes were made or how the billy goats defeated the troll.

These timeless stories are just a few of the many that filled my childhood and those of my sons and grandchildren. Some of these books may even be on your own bookshelves. I look forward to sharing many more bedtime stories and “just because” stories with the special children in my life.

Comments 34

  1. My favorites were the Beany Malone series by Lenora Mattingly Weber, about a big Denver family growing up during the 1940’s – 60’s. Such great characters and moral lessons, but shared through a family I wanted to belong to! I re-read the series every summer throughout 5th-12th grade. A couple of years ago I discovered a publisher (sorry, I can’t locate the info right now — I’m sure it can be Googled) who specializes in reasonably priced reprints of those great books and series for young readers from the 50-s and 60’s. I bought the entire Beany series and re-read them around the time my mother was ill and dying, and they brought great comfort, as well as pleasure.
    Try these: Meet the Malones, Beany Malone, Leave it to Beany, etc. You will be hooked!

  2. CHARLOTTE’S WEB, chosen best children’s book written in America’s first 200 years – 1976 Bicentennial

    Charlotte and Wilbur are unforgettable characters!

  3. I still love children’s books, as well. My Mom read the Laura Ingalls Wilder books (my favorites) and others to all four of us daughters. We all enjoyed reading to our children and, now, our grandchildren.
    I taught elementary school for over 30 years and loved passing on the love of the many beautiful stories written for children and children-at-heart.

  4. My all time favorites were The Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. My mom and I watched Little House on the Prairie every week together. I am trying to collect all the books written about the Ingalls women. Some are out of print and I hope will be reprinted one day. I saw some on ebay but the prices were quite steep!

  5. My favorites growing up were just about anything I could get my hands on! I have been a voracious reader since the beginning. A friend of my mother’s had HER childhood copies of Heidi Grows Up and Heidi’s Children, oh! What joy to continue the story! Much the same as reading Little Men and Jo’s Boys which she also loaned me after Little Women.
    I live with mom now and in cleaning out bookshelves in our Rec room, I found one of the first books I remember receiving. Christmas 1961 is the date in the inscription Mom wrote to gift me with a copy of my own “A Child’s Garden of Verses”.
    “In Winter, I get up at night…” “When I was sick and lay abed…” ” Children should be mannerly…” The beginning of those well loved poems.
    Mom also has the complete set of the Winnie the Pooh books. Not to make fun, but whenever we see Mr. Trump speak, one of us will say, ” Johnathan Joe had a mouth like an O!”!
    Mom spent many hours reading to us when we were little and we always were given a new book each Christmas to foster a love of reading. I am the reader and my brother is not.
    Thank you, Phyllis, for bring back such happy memories !

  6. Kathleen Jordan
    Thank you for this wonderful story and mantra. I have some friends suffering great loss who need to hear this.

  7. As soon as I saw your post on the journal I had to read it. I am a children’s book “nut”, first glance is the cover, second are the illustrations and third is the storyline. Numerous children’s books have lined my bookcases through the years; children, grandbabies, nieces, nephews, or for that matter any little one knows I have books to read!
    Every one of you ladies made my heart sing….that children’s books are still wanted! When I retired from my career of almost 30 years, I became a children’s author!

  8. I collect and have a large collection of children’s books and at age 79 plan to continue collecting them. I have always given not only to my daughter, but nieces and nephews, books for Christmas and birthdays. “The Velveteen Rabbit” is my all time favorite and I love all books by Tasha Tudor. My collections include 36 copies of “The Night Before Christmas”, all with a different illustrator (and still will purchase others if I see one I don’t have).

    1. Grace we are Kindred Spirits! My standard gift for babies is The Velveteen Rabbit and I also have a collection of Night Before Christmas editions. I have loved this story since my mother read it to me when I was two years old and still have my original copy. My daughter (who is now grown) and I read it still every Christmas Eve and (despite having many other editions) it has to be the “real” one we read from.

  9. My sister recalled a treasured book that she and our mother shared as she recently eulogized our dearest mother. It’s amazing the life lessons in simple stories & the impact these authors have on our lives:

    The End. Begin Again.

    Hel-lo-oh-oh! I’d like to tell you a story.

    When I was in elementary school, I checked out a book from the library, which my mother and I read together. It told the story of a little girl enjoying the months of the year. Each page of the book focused on one month and highlighted that month’s special events and activities. For example, the little girl wore a coat in January because of the cold and snow. In February, she drew hearts on cards for all her friends and family.

    After the little girl finished enjoying the Christmas tree and carols in December, there was one final page for the conclusion. As you know, most children’s books finish with the phrase “The End.” But this book was unique. This book concluded with the phrase, “The End. Begin Again.”

    As a child, I really enjoyed the story because of the colorful pictures and the fact that I was spending time with my mother. When I became a teenager and began to experience more of life, I started to comprehend the concept of new beginnings. Going to high school, making new friends, becoming a young lady…I was finally beginning to understand the message of the story.

    My mother and I would reminisce about the story occasionally as the book’s final words became more and more pertinent in life. We even went by Woodland Hills Elementary School one day to try to find it. We couldn’t remember the author, but we were hopeful the librarian could locate it for us. Even though we left empty-handed, we enjoyed recounting the little girl’s adventures and especially the final phrase: “The End. Begin Again.”

    As a child, I really enjoyed the story because of the colorful pictures and the fact that I was spending time with my mother. When I became a teenager and began to experience more of life, I started to comprehend the concept of new beginnings. Going to high school, making new friends, becoming a young lady…I was finally beginning to understand the message of the story.

    My mother and I would reminisce about the story occasionally as the book’s final words became more and more pertinent in life. We even went by Woodland Hills Elementary School one day to try to find it. We couldn’t remember the author, but we were hopeful the librarian could locate it for us. Even though we left empty-handed, we enjoyed recounting the little girl’s adventures and especially the final phrase: “The End. Begin Again.”

    With my parents’ momentous departure from Lone Rock Drive (the place I still refer to as “home”), my mother and I again began to repeat this mantra any time either of us felt sad. The time in our old house was ending, but it was also a time of new beginnings…opportunities to bring light and joy to a new neighborhood…a chance to begin new lifelong friendships…occasions to teach new comrades the “kee-aw-kee” call.

    Yet, it was not until this past week that I truly appreciated the full magnitude of this simple children’s book and its simple conclusion “The End. Begin Again.”

    My mother’s time on Earth has ended, but her time in Heaven is only just beginning.

    God bless all of you for celebrating my mother’s life with us.

    The End. Toodle-loo!

    Begin Again. Yoohoo!

    1. In case someone would like to know what the book was: we did find it and gave it to my sister for Christmas…
      “Over and Over” by Charlotte Zolotow

  10. My grandson and I just spent an hour yesterday in our favourite bookstore. He is a reader and that is where we spend special time together. He got a new book in the series he is reading. I had to make myself walk away from a children’s book that I wanted so bad. The simplicity of these old and new stories speak to us in simple language. And oh the illustrations. Holding a book…the pure joy of it!

    Detuchka, your comments really brought tears to my eyes. I held my Mother’s sweet hands many times and told her how much I loved her. Wish I had thought of these lines too.

    Phyllis, your readers are also amazing.

  11. I love children’s books.One I loved as a child was “Bunny Blue” about a blue bunny who lost his blue ribbon and all of the other toys helped him find it before the child woke up.

  12. Thank you for your wonderful postings! I have collected children’s books forever (and I’m 72 now). I love them so much that I even wrote and illustrated one of my own: “Go Home! The True Story of James the Cat” (Albert Whitman & Company, 2000). It won the ASPCA’s Henry Berg Award for Humanitarian Children’s Literature, and three other nice awards. Sadly, the year it came out, my husband, Philip Meggs, was diagnosed with leukemia, and the illness became the subject of our lives. He died in 2002, and, since then, I’ve been the caretaker and overseer for the revision of his books, primarily “Meggs’ History of Graphic Design”, a college textbook now in its sixth edition. Some of my favorite books are “The Incredible Journey”, “Higglety Pigglety Pop”, “Mary Poppins”, and all of Beatrix Potter’s books. Finally, I’m back at the drawing board at work on something new. Your enthusiasm for children’s books is an inspiration!

  13. Any excuse to spend time in the children’s section of the local bookstore is great! The children in our family have loved Beatrix Potter’s stories, James Herriot’s “Treasury for Children” and, at Christmas, Efner Tudor Holmes “The Christmas Cat.”

    1. This too is my favorite, I read to all of my children, and now my grandchildren. I will soon have a great grand to read to. I buy a book for each family.

  14. As a little girl I read, reread, and absolutely LOVED both the Betsy-Tacy series by Maud Hart Lovelace and the Beany Malone series by Lenora Mattingly Weber — both wonderfully written about simpler times, yet they also included struggles that were solved in unique ways. Now, as a “grownup” :o), I own both sets, still love them and reread them at least once a year and highly recommend them to anyone! So glad to see a post that still encourages reading!

    1. I also loved the Betsy-Tacy series by Maud Hart Lovelace. These are charming books in set in small town Minnesota. Also loved the All of A Kind Family written by Sidney Taylor.

  15. Anne of Green Gables & Heidi were my childhood favorites, and now am enjoying them all over again with my granddaughters! They are old enough to read them to me!! But a very old book series that I loved when I learned to read on my own was Elsie Dinsmore…anyone heard of her? I think there is nothing more wonderful then passing on the love of books & reading to our next generation.

  16. I too love children’s books. I still have all my books from when I was a child, then when I was a teacher I collected more, and then as a mother, I just couldn’t stop myself!! My son is in university now but I get to buy books for my great nieces and nephews. I occasionally read some of my children’s books for fun and to remind me of special memories. I have too many favourites to choose just one, but I still can’t get through Love You Forever,Phyllis, without choking back tears. And of course being such a huge Jan Karon fan I couldn’t resist buying”Cynthia Coppersmith’s” book, Violet Comes to Town”.(story written by Melanie Cecka and illustrated by Emily Arnold McCully)

  17. I have collected children’s literature for many years. I once read a quote , “The world would be a kinder, gentler place if people read children’s books”. I truly believe this!

  18. There is a book I’ve been searching for ever since high school in New Orleans. It was a lovely French children’s book called Pearlette Goute D’eau with fantastic illustrations. I came across it in our high school library. It’s the story of a drop of water that has the adventure of going up into the clouds, coming back to earth as rain, floating in a pond, and rushing in a river. It’s one I’d love to find one day. Has anyone else seen it?

    1. Dear Nikki;

      I remember this darling children’s book from when I was a young girl many years ago. I especially remember its wonderful illustrations. I would love to find it again for my great-grandchildren.

  19. I have always collected children’s books and I too still read them often! Some people think it is crazy, but I know it is not. I would love to have a dedicated library in my house- that has always been my dream.

  20. There are so many children’s books to love! When my children were young I worked for a short while in a teacher’s library. Each week we received new titles from book publishers. Pure bliss.

    I have too many favorites to list. Just an encouragement: go to your local book store and spend time looking at the children’s section, then buy a book you love. Gift, or keep. I still buy one new Christmas book every year, we have a big collection, they are under the tree at Christmas and we all love to read them!

  21. I love and collect children’s books, too! When I go to the book store, I always make a stop in the children’s section. I actually read them by myself first and enjoy every second of it.

  22. I love children’s books and had a shelf devoted to a variety of favorites for our grandchildren. Sadly, we lost them in the Valley Fire last Sept. One I am going to replace because it is my all time favorite and I love reading it is: “The Kissing Hand” by Audrey Penn and Ruth E. Harper and is part of the Chester Raccoon series. It is perfect for children who are anxious about going off to school, but our family still does the “kissing hand” when we say our good-byes.

  23. Yours was my first email that I openned this morning! As a children’s librarian of 38 years, I was anxious to see what you had written! Beautiful! Everyone has their special children’s books. My two in particular, are Pollyanna an Alice in Wonderland. I still have my own original copies given to me as a child. I have taught seminars about Alice! Many do not know that it is actually a Christian allegory! Thank you for sharing this topic today!

  24. I love the book, too! I always repeat those words, “I’ll love you forever, I’ll like you for always, As long as I’m living My baby you’ll be.” to my great-niece as I get her every morning before pre-school. It seems to calm her when I strap her into the car seat.

    Such a beautiful book.

    It brings tears to my eyes, too, as I had to retire early to care for my mom, then for my dad – “I’ll love you forever, I’ll like you for always, As long as I’m living
    My MOMMY you’ll be.”

  25. One of our dear childhood friend’s mom gave my husband and me “Love You Forever” when our firstborn arrived. I love it, and to this day, I have never been able to actually *read* it to my children without tearing up to the point where I can’t continue. 🙂

  26. That’s so sweet. I miss those days….
    One we particularly enjoyed was “The Gruffalo,” an excellent tale about psychology and bullies.
    The one that captured my imagination when I was a kid was “Time of Wonder.”

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