Top 10 Favorite Children’s Books

I absolutely adore children’s literature, and we have been doing a lot of reading with Delilah to help encourage her language development. So, I decided it would be fun to share my favorite children’s books.

Looking back on my childhood I don’t remember a time where I struggled with reading. I’m grateful that I was able to form a positive relationship with reading as a child so that it would become a constant comfort throughout my life rather than a constant cause of stress. Delilah, hopefully, will have the same experience. I hope to support her relationship with reading by sharing some of these stories and traditions from when I was learning to read.

My top 10 favorites, in no specific order:

1. Indestructibles Books: As a parent these are some of my favorite books we have right now. As it says in the name they truly are indestructible. We had Joshua and his brother try to break one and they couldn’t, even though both claimed they could if they really tried. These are the books given to Delilah by the pediatricians at every appointment. They are wonderful because I can let Delilah get really hands-on with them without worry. She can even chew on them to her heart’s content which isn’t possible with most board books.

2. Good Morning and Goodnight Books: I love books like this because they are so helpful in establishing a routine with Delilah. We read Good Morning books while waiting for Daddy to warm up her first bottle of the day and we read Goodnight books while cuddling before bed.  It’s also nice because a lot of the Goodnight books were given to us at our baby shower instead of cards, so we also include the messages written in the books, like “Great Grandma also says good night.”

3. Christmas Tradition Books: These are some of the most nostalgic books from my childhood. Every Christmas Eve my brother and I sat on the couch with my mom and she read these stories to us. This tradition is what makes these books so special to me. When I moved into my own apartment my mom sent me copies of the books so that I could still read them on Christmas Eve and have when raising my own children.

4. Dolly Parton Books: When I was pregnant I was so happy to find out that our county was served by the Dolly Parton Imagination Library. I signed up literally two weeks after Delilah was born. It is such an amazing program that delivers quality books to children. It also helps create positive traditions for reading with the excitement of receiving a new book in the mail each month and then reading it as a family.

5. Rugrats Book: This book was one of my favorites growing up because The Rugrats was also my favorite show. It will also forever be in my memories because when I was little I was not allowed to touch it unless someone was reading it with me. It’s one of those books that has a lot of flaps and as a child I was nicknamed “Hurricane Hailey” because I made a mess with everything I touched. Somehow the book survived without a single flap torn and I’m able to share it with Delilah who also loves The Rugrats, probably because it’s the only cartoon we’ve let her watch so far.

6. The Bear Ate Your Sandwich: I like this book because it tells a really fun story. One of my favorite classes in college was a children’s literature class. In that class we talked a lot about the purpose of children’s literature and how to get kids interested in reading. A lot of the time it feels like books for kids should teach some kind of lesson or instill morals but I’ve come to learn that the primary purpose of children’s books is to tell a good story.

7. Go Away Big Green Monster: This is one of my favorite stories to read to kids. It was one of my favorites as a kid because I loved shouting, “Go away big green monster!” to the book. It’s always fun to read to kids, primarily my nieces and nephews, because it has a puppet that goes with it that you build and take apart as you’re reading the story. The puppet adds such a fun engagement element to the story and we are always laughing when I read this story to my nieces or nephews.

8. Little Rabbit Foo Foo: If I had to pick just one, this was my all-time favorite book that was read to me as a kid. I think I could recite all the words before I could even read them. Like my favorite Christmas books my mom also got me a copy of this book for my first Mother’s Day so I could share it with Delilah, though the book is not quite the same without my crayon drawings on the inside cover.

9. Jonathan Jasper Jeremy Jones: This was another one of my favorite books that was read to me, and that I loved and read by myself when I could. It’s a fun and a little bit suspenseful story about a caterpillar turning into a butterfly. Although I had no idea what it was called back then, what really stuck with me was the use of alliteration and rhyme in the story. I just loved how it repeated, “Jonathan Jasper Jeremy Jones,” and that it felt like you were singing a song when you read it.

10. Finger Puppet Board Books: We received a set of these books at our baby shower and had so much fun reading them even before Delilah was born. It’s been more fun to continue reading these books to her as she grows. Joshua used to read them to Delilah and I to make us laugh when we were both frustrated during breastfeeding. Now that Delilah’s bigger and more engaged when we read books, she loves playing with the puppet while we read. And she laughs through the whole story, except for when she’s trying to eat the puppet.