How to use this Page

Author Sue Fliess selects "Five Family Favorites" to share with readers ... Read the rest of this post

Mariam Gates, author of Good Morning Yoga, selected these five family favorites.

Oh wait, wait, wait, am I cut off? So many other favorites!

Arwen Elys Dayton, author of Traveler, selected these five family favorites.

Allison Branscombe, author of All About China: Stories, Songs, Crafts and More for Kids, selected these five family favorites.

In looking at the list, the common themes seem to be naughtiness and humor—especially of the silly, slapstick variety. So here goes:

Pat Zietlow Miller, author of Sharing the Bread: An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving Story, selected these five family favorites.

Anna Kang and Christopher Weyant, creators of That's (Not) Mine!, selected these five family favorite picture books.

Whenever one person grabs a book and curls up in bed or on the sofa, the rest of the family inevitably follow. ... So we chose our favorites individually and then agreed on one shared family favorite.

The following titles are favorite middle-grade read-alouds, books that inspired our own books.

My five kids are grown now (four boys and one girl), and most of them have children of their own. ... The list got longer and longer and soon it was tough to choose, but these five came out on top.

My sweet little boys somehow grew into teenagers, so we have to take a trip back in time to talk about the five books that are special to my family ... Read the rest of this post

Patricia Dunn, author of Rebels by Accident, selected her family’s five favorite books with the help of her husband Allan Tepper. They are a beautiful collection of diverse characters and plots.

Kat Beyer has an M.A. in medieval history and has loved all things Italian for as long as she can remember. Her first novel was The Demon Catchers of Milan.

SALINA YOON is the award-winning author/illustrator of nearly 200 books for children. Check out which picture books are her family's favorites!

Maria T. Lennon is a graduate of the London School of Economics, a novelist, a screenwriter, and the author of Confessions of a So-called Middle Child, the first book featuring the irrepressible Charlie C. Cooper.

I've found that the best of these books spoke to my kids when they were pre-readers, but still continue to draw them back again and again, as they uncover more in the multilayered stories. So without further ado, here are the Fitzgerald family's Top 5 Wordless Books.

Cammie McGovern is the author of the adult novels Neighborhood Watch, Eye Contact and The Art of Seeing. She was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, and received the Nelson Algren Award in short fiction. She is one of the founders of Whole Children, a resource center that runs after-school classes and programs for children with special needs. Say What You Will is her first book for young adults.

We’re over the moon to have Gayle Brandeis visit TCBR. Gayle is a powerhouse mama, writer, activist, teacher, and all-around lovely person. We’re grateful to her for sharing her family’s favorite books with us.

By Nicki Richesin, The Children’s Book Review
Published: August 8, 2012

Andrea Scher

We are delighted to feature Andrea Scher’s Five Family Favorites. Andrea is an artist, photographer and life coach. Through her award-winning blog Superhero Journal and e-courses, Mondo Beyondo and Superhero Photo, she inspires us to find our passions and dream big. A supermom (no capes, just courage) to two adorable boys named Ben and Nico, you can often find her on her kitchen floor trying to get them to do superhero leaps for the camera. Andrea is also the co-author of wonderful book called Expressive Photography: The Shutter Sisters Guide to Shooting from the Heart. Registration is open for the fall session of Mondo Beyondo now!

Little Pea

by Amy Krouse Rosenthal

I am big fan of all things Amy Krouse Rosenthal, but this book is one of my favorites of her creations. My son Ben has always been a picky eater, so this tale of a little pea who didn’t want to eat her candy (the equivalent of vegetables in the pea world) made Ben hysterical with laughter. We even filmed one of these giggly episodes to remember it forever. Such a sweet book.

Ages 4-5 | Publisher: Chronicle Books | April 28, 2005

Is Your Mama a Llama?

by Deborah Guarino; illustrated by Steven Kellogg

Every morning, the first thing my toddler says is, “Mama llama? Boop? Mama Llama?” We have read this book so many times that we have all committed it to memory. Even my 5-year-old can “read” it to Nico and he doesn’t know how to read! It is an endearing book about a llama that asks each of his animal friends who their mama is.

Ages 2-8| Publisher: Scholastic | June 1, 2006

Good Night, Gorilla

By Nicki Richesin, The Children’s Book Review
Published: July 8, 2012

Elizabeth Bard

It’s a special treat to have Elizabeth Bard contribute her family’s top five favorites to The Children’s Book Review. An American journalist and author based in France, her first book, Lunch in Paris: A Love Story with Recipes has been a New York Times and international bestseller, a Barnes & Noble “Discover Great New Writers” pick, and the recipient of the 2010 Gourmand World Cookbook Award for Best First Cookbook (USA). Bard’s writing on food, art, travel and digital culture has appeared in The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune, Wired, Harper’s Bazaar and The Huffington Post. Thanks to Elizabeth for sharing her thoughtful personal reflections on raising her son abroad with us.

Story time at our house is fun time, bed time, but it is also the site of a good-natured – but genuine – culture war. From the moment I moved to Paris to be with my French husband, I knew our children would be bilingual. As our lives have unfolded here, it’s become clear that most of my son’s childhood will be spent in France, worlds away from Sesame Street, Twinkies and other staples of my American childhood.

Augustin is almost three now. In addition to speaking English with me, and on vacations with his grandparents, books are the most effective tool I have to make sure he becomes – and stays – fluent in English, and is introduced to the different world view that creeps into the stories we choose to tell. There’s a part of all this that is inherently selfish: I want him to love these books because I love them. If he couldn’t – or didn’t want to – read in English, it would be like sewing up half my soul. A piece of his mother, and one of his cultures, would become unknowable to him.

Here are a few of our early and current favorites:

Spoon

By Amy Krouse Rosenthal

One of Augustin’s very first words was “Poon” – shorthand for his favorite book. Spoon is a wonderful “the grass is always greener” story of a little spoon who thinks his friends, knife, fork and chopsticks have it so much better than him. He never gets to twirl spaghetti. He never gets to cut bread. His mother thoughtfully reminds him that knife can’t swim around in a bowl with the Cheerios, and chopsticks never get to dive into bowl of vanilla ice-cream.

Ages 3-7 | Publisher: Hyperion Books for Children | April 7, 2009

Add a Comment