Book Recommendations

This page is a work in progress: a master list of all my booknotes and recommendations over the years. I’ll update as time permits. Clicking on a title will take you to my post about the book. Sometimes a single post will contain commentary on several books, so you may have to scroll down a bit.

For books I’ve written, click here.

Picture Books

listed: author, illustrator
• Natalie Babbitt: Bub, or: The Very First Thing.
• Molly Bang: The Grey Lady and the Strawberry Snatcher.
• Chris Barton, Tom Lichtenheld: Shark vs. Train. (Also here.)
• Stan & Jan Berenstain: The Berenstain Bears and the Spooky Old Tree. (At GeekMom.)
• Linda Berkowitz: Little Bird and the Moon Sandwich.
• Elsa Beskow: Pelle’s New Suit.
• Franny Billingsley, ill. G. Brian Karas: Big Bad Bunny.
• Jeanne Birdsall, ill. Matt Phelan: Flora’s Very Windy Day.
• L. Leslie Brooke: Johnny Crow’s Garden.
• Nancy White Carlstrom, ill. Bruce Degen: Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear?
• Sandra Cisneros, ill. by Terry Ybanez: Hairs/Pelitos.
• Barbara Cooney: Miss Rumphius.
• Valerie Coursin: Mordant’s Wish.
• Doreen Cronin, ill. Harry Bliss: Diary of a Fly.
• e.e. cummings, ill. Deborah Kogen Ray: hist whist.
• Alexandra Day: Good Dog Carl.
• Alexandra Day: Carl’s Afternoon in the Park.
• Kate DiCamillo & Alison McGhee, ill. Tony Fucile: Bink and Gollie.
• Anneke Dunklee, ill. Matthew Forsythe: My Name Is Elizabeth.
• Candace Fleming, ill. Stacey Dressen-McQueen: Boxes for Katje.
• Mem Fox, ill. by Pamela Lofts: Koala Lou.
• Mem Fox, ill. Julie Vivas: Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge.
• Deborah Freedman: Blue Chicken.
• Tony Fucile: Let’s Do Nothing!
• Bob Graham: How to Heal a Broken Wing.
• Keith Graves: Chicken Big.
• Ruth Heller: Merry-Go-Round (“World of Language” series).
• Kevin Henkes: Kitten’s First Full Moon.
• Deborah Hopkinson, ill. Nancy Carpenter: Fannie in the Kitchen.
• D. B. Johnson: Henry Hikes to Fitchburg.
• Rudyard Kipling: The Elephant’s Child.
• Jon Klassen: I Want My Hat Back. (Also here.)
• Laurie Keller: The Scrambled States of America.
• Ole Konnecke: Anton Can Do Magic.
• Lerryn Korda: Rocket to the Moon.
• Lisa Kopper: Daisy Thinks She’s a Baby.
• David LaRochelle, ill. Jeremy Tankard: It’s a Tiger!
• Tom Lichtenheld, Ezra Fields-Meyer: E-mergency!
• Astrid Lindgren: The Tomten.
• Sam Lloyd: Mr. Pusskins and Little Whiskers.
• Amy MacDonald, ill. Marjorie Priceman: Rachel Fister’s Blister.
• Jeff Mack: Good News, Bad News.
• Thomas McKean: Hooray for Grandma Jo.
• Alice McLerran, ill. Barbara Cooney: Roxaboxen.
• Iona Opie, ill. Rosemary Wells: My Very First Mother Goose.
• Satoru Onishi: Who’s Hiding?
• Mary Pope Osborne, ill. S. Saelig Gallagher: Moonhorse.
• Antoinette Portis: Not a Box.
• Sherri Duskey Rinker, ill. Tom Lichtenheld: Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site.
• Denis Roche: Brave Georgie Goat.
• Scott Russell Sanders, ill. Helen Cogancherry: The Floating House.
• Roslyn Schwartz: The Mole Sisters and the Rainy Day.
• Jon Scieszka, ill. Lane Smith: Cowboy & Octopus.
• Stephen Shaskan: A Dog Is a Dog.
• Bob Shea: Dinosaur vs. Bedtime.
• Nancy Shaw, ill. Margot Apple: Sheep in a Jeep.
• Linda Smith, ill. Kathryn Brown: When Moon Fell Down.
• Jean Conder Soule, ill. George Booth: Never Tease a Weasel.
• Philip C. Stead, ill. Erin E. Stead: A Sick Day for Amos McGee.
• William Steig: When Everybody Wore a Hat.
• David Ezra Stein: Interrupting Chicken.
• Jeremy Tankard: Grumpy Bird.
• Jeremy Tankard: Me Hungry.
• Jan Thomas: Rhyming Dust Bunnies.
• Patricia Thomas, ill. Wallace Tripp: “Stand Back,” Said the Elephant, “I’m Going to Sneeze!”
• Bill Thomson: Chalk.
• Tricia Tusa: Follow Me.
• Janice May Udry, ill. Maurice Sendak: The Moon Jumpers.
• Marie van Lieshout: Backseat A-B-See. (My GeekMom review.)
• April Halprin Wayland, George Booth: It’s Not My Turn to Look for Grandma.
• Ellen Weiss, ill. Jerry Smath: The Taming of Lola: A Shrew Story.
• Gloria Whelan, ill. Lynn Munsinger: A Week of Raccoons.
• Karen Lynn Williams, ill. Floyd Cooper: A Beach Tail.
• Linda Williams, ill. Megan Lloyd: The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything. (At GeekMom.)
• Karma Wilson, ill. Marcellus Hall: The Cow Loves Cookies.
• Don & Audrey Wood: The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear.
• Miriam Young, ill. Arnold Lobel: Miss Suzy.

Dozens more picture-book recommendations yet to be listed: try my Rillabooks and Picture Book Spotlight archives for recent suggestions. Like these! And these, and these, and these.

Posts about Reading with Young Children

• Early Readers as Read-Alouds, and Other Suggestions for Three-Year-Olds
• Chapter Books to Read to Four-Year-Olds
• How I (Don’t) Teach My Kids to Read
• Randall Jarrell, illustrated by Maurice Sendak: The Bat-Poet. (Also here.)
• Sid Fleischman’s wonderful Farmer McBroom books—great choices as you shift to longer read-alouds.
• Best-Loved Doll Books: great choices for five- and six-year-olds.
• Rilla’s favorite longer read-alouds at age six: Brambly Hedge and Tumtum & Nutmeg. Also: Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories.
• A favorite nonfiction picture book: Autumn Leaves by Ken Robbins.

Middle-Grade Novels

UPDATED DEC 2012: I’ve compiled a quick list of recommendations for ten-year-olds in this post.

• Jeanne Birdsall: The Penderwicks.
• Frances Hodgson Burnett: The Secret Garden.
• Rebecca Caudill: The Best-Loved Doll.
• Kate diCamillo: The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane.
• Rachel Field: Hitty, Her First Hundred Years.
• Sid Fleischman: By the Great Horn Spoon.
• Neil Gaiman: Coraline.
• Rumer Godden: The Kitchen Madonna.
• Rumer Godden: Miss Happiness and Miss Flower.
• Elizabeth Goudge: Linnets and Valerians.
• Madeleine L’Engle: A Wrinkle in Time. (My GeekMom post.)
• Cynthia Lord: Rules.
• Maud Hart Lovelace: Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill
• Maud Hart Lovelace: Heaven to Betsy.*
• Maud Hart Lovelace: Carney’s House Party.*
• Maud Hart Lovelace: Emily of Deep Valley.*
• Maud Hart Lovelace: A Reader’s Guide to Betsy-Tacy.
• Jacqueline Kelly: The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate.
• Carol Kendall: The Firelings.
• Carol Kendall: The Gammage Cup.
• L.M. Montgomery: Jane of Lantern Hill.
• Linda Sue Park: A Long Walk to Water.
• Mitali Perkins: Bamboo People.
• Elizabeth Marie Pope: The Sherwood Ring.*
• Elizabeth Marie Pope: The Perilous Gard.*
• Brian Selznick: Wonderstruck.
• William Sleator: Among the Dolls.
• Stephanie Spinner: Damosel.
• Rebecca Stead: When You Reach Me.
• Trenton Lee Stewart: The Mysterious Benedict Society.
• Vivian Vande Velde: Stolen.

*Strong YA appeal

Kids’ Comics & Graphic Novels

Coming soon! For now, here’s my post on why Comics Make You Smart.
My GeekMom review of Nursery Rhyme Comics.

Middle-Grade Nonfiction

• Deborah Heiligman: Charles and Emma. And lots more about it here.

Young Adult Novels

• M.T. Anderson: Feed.
• Julianna Baggott: Pure. (My GeekMom interview with the author.)
• Lucy Christopher: Stolen.
• Suzanne Collins: The Hunger Games.
• Suzanne Collins: Catching Fire.
• Jacqueline Davies: Lost. (Also here.)
• Tanita Davis: Mare’s War.
• Monica Furlong: Juniper and Wise Child.
• Matthew Quick: Sorta Like a Rock Star.
• Jame Richards: Three Rivers Rising: A Novel of the Johnstown Flood.
• Mark Shulman: Scrawl.

Related:
Books the Teenager Has Enjoyed Recently (Includes Rowan Jacobsen, Shannon Hale, Rick Riordan, Connie Willis, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Bill Bryson, James Herriot, and more.)