What follows is a sampling from the wealth of children's literature available. Listed by age groups are three kinds of children's materials.
There are many other excellent lists of children's books. For more information, see the next section, "Resources for Parents."
One sure way to get children to love to read is to make connections between books and what happens in their lives. If the book relates to what happened in real life and children see themselves in it, both the story and the event take on greater meaning. There are numerous books that deal with almost any event in a child's life. We present here a few illustrative topics to show the relation between books and life. Topics chosen include celebrating family occasions; the very personal experience of a loose tooth; a new baby; and knowing more about explorations in outer space.
Family Celebrations
Ages 4 to 8
Clifton, Lucille. Some of the Days of Everette Anderson; Ness, Evaline, illustrator. Henry Holt & Company.
Greenfield, Eloise. Honey, I Love and Other Love Poems; Dillon, Diane and Leo, illustrators. HarperCollins Children's Books.
Ringgold, Faith. Tar Beach. Crown.
Say, Allen. Tree of Cranes. Houghton Mifflin.
Zolotow, Charlotte. Mr. Rabbit and the Lovely Present; Sendak, Maurice, illustrator. Harper Collins Children's Books.
Over and Over; Williams, Garth, illustrator. Harper Collins Children's Books.
Ages 7 to 12
Adoff, Arnold. In for Winter, Out for Spring; Pinkney, Jerry, illustrator. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Baylor, Byrd. I'm in Charge of Celebrations; Parnall, Peter, illustrator. Macmillan Children's Book Group/Scribners.
Goble, Paul. Her Seven Brothers. Bradbury Press.
Esbensen, Barbara J. The Star Maiden: An Ojibway Tale; Davie, Helen K., illustrator. Little, Brown and Company.
Loose Tooth
Ages 5 to 8
Bate, Lucy. Little Rabbit's Loose Tooth; De Groat, Diane, illustrator. Crown.
Birdseye, Tom. Air Mail to the Moon. Gammell, Stephen, illustrator. Holiday.
Brown, Marc. Arthur's Tooth. Little, Brown and Company/Joy Street.
Carson, Jo. Pulling My Leg; Downing, Julie, illustrator. Orchard.
Cole, Joanna. Missing Tooth; Hafner, Marilyn, illustrator. Random House.
McCloskey, Robert. One Morning in Maine. Viking Press.
McPhail, David. The Bear's Toothache. Little, Brown and Company/Joy Street.
New Baby
Ages 5 to 8
Alexander, Martha. Nobody Asked Me If I Wanted a Baby Sister. Dial Press.
Byars, Betsy. Go and Hush the Baby; McCully, Emily, illustrator. Puffin/Penguin.
Clifton, Lucille. Everette Anderson's Nine Month Long; Grifalconi, Ann, illustrator. Henry Holt & Company.
Henkes, Kevin. Julius, the Baby of the World. Greenwillow Books.
Williams, Vera B. More, More, More, Said the Baby. Greenwillow Books.
Ages 7 to 12
Ellis, Sarah. A Family Project. Macmillan Children's Books/McElderry.
Galbraith, Kathryn O. Roommates and Rachel; Graham, Mark, illustrator. Macmillan Children's Books/McElderry.
Greenwald, Sheila. Alvin Webster's Surefire Plan for Success (and How It Failed). Little, Brown and Company/Joy Street.
Space Exploration
Ages 4 to 8
Barton, Byron. I Want to Be an Astronaut. Crowell.
Branley, Franklyn M. The Sky Is Full of Stars; Bond, Felicia, illustrator. Crowell.
Marshall, Edward. Space Case; Marshall, James, illustrator. Dial Press.
Minarik, Else H. Little Bear; Sendak, Maurice, illustrator. HarperCollins Children's Books.
Murphy, Jill. What Next, Baby Bear! Dial Press.
Wildsmith, Brian. Professor Noah's Spaceship. Oxford.
Ages 8 to 12
Apfel, Necia H. Nebulae: The Birth and Death of Stars. Lothrop.
Blumberg, Rhoda. The First Travel Guide to the Moon: What to Pack, How to Go, and What to See When You Get There. Four Winds.
Branley, Franklyn M. The Planets in Our Solar System; Madden, Don, illustrator and photographer. Thomas Y. Crowell.
Rockets and Satellites, 2nd revised edition; Maestro, Giulio, illustrator. Harper Collins Children's Books.
Cole, Joanna. The Magic School Bus Lost in the Solar System; Degen, Bruce, illustrator. Scholastic, Inc.
Embury, Barbara, and Crouch, Tom D. The Dream Is Alive: A Flight of Discovery Aboard the Space Shuttle; with photographs from Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. HarperCollins Children's Books.
Fox, Mary Virginia. Women Astronauts: Aboard the Space Shuttle; Revised edition. Messner.
Lauber, Patricia. Seeing Earth from Space. Orchard.
Livingston, Myra Cohn. Space Songs; Fisher, Leonard Everett, illustrator. Holiday House.
Ride, Sally, and Okie, Susan. To Space and Back. Lothrop.
Simon, Seymour. Look to the Night Sky: An Introduction to Star Watching; illustrations and star charts. Puffin/Penguin.
Celebrate the Joy of Poetry
Ages 5 to 12
Bagert, Brod. Let Me Be . . . the Boss, Poems for Kids to Perform; Smith, G.L., illustrator. Wordsong/Boyds Mills Press.
Bryan, Ashley, ed. All Night, All Day: A Child's First Book of African-American Spirituals; Thomas, David Manning, musical arranger. Atheneum.
Ciardi, John. The Monster Den: or Look What Happened at My House—and To It; Gorey, Edward, illustrator. Wordsong/Boyds Mills Press.
You Know Who; Gorey, Edward, illustrator. Wordsong/Boyds Mills Press.
de Regniers, Beatrice S., ed. Sing a Song of Popcorn: Every Child's Book of Poems; illustrated by nine Caldecott Medal artists. Scholastic, Inc.
Esbensen, Barbara J. Cold Stars and Fireflies: Poems of the Four Seasons; Bonners, Susan, illustrator. HarperCollins Children's Books.
Giovanni, Nikki. Spin a Soft Black Song, Martins, George, illustrator. Hill & Wang/ Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Hopkins, Lee Bennett. Happy Birthday; Knight, Hilary, illustrator. Simon & Schuster.
On the Farm; Molk, Laurel, illustrator. Little, Brown and Company.
Lewis, Claudia. Up in the Mountains: And Other Poems of Long Ago; Fontaine, Joel, illustrator. HarperCollins Children's Books.
Lewis, J. Patrick. Earth Verses and Water Rhymes; Sabuda, Robert, illustrator. Atheneum.
Prelutsky, Jack. For Laughing Out Loud: Poems to Tickle Your Funnybone; Priceman, Marjorie, illustrator. Alfred A. Knopf.
The Random House Book of Poetry for Children; Lobel, Arnold, illustrator. Random House.
Sky-Peck, Kathryn, ed. Who Has Seen the Wind? An Illustrated Collection of Poetry for Young People; with photographs of paintings from the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Rizzoli International Publications.
Stevenson, Robert Louis. A Child's Garden of Verses; Le Mair, Henriette Willebeek, illustrator. Philomel.
General Interest for Ages 2 to 12
Cricket, the Magazine for Children, P.O. Box 52961, Boulder, CO 80322-2961.
Highlights for Children, 2300 West Fifth Avenue, Columbus, OH 43272-0002.
Story Magazines for Ages 4 to 9
Chickadee, Young Naturalist Foundation, P.O. Box 11314, Des Moines, IA 50340
Ladybug, Cricket Country Lane, Box 50284, Boulder, CO 80321-0284.
Sesame Street Magazine, Children's Television Workshop, One Lincoln Plaza, New York, NY 10023.
Science, Nature, Sports, Math & History for Ages 7 to 12
Cobblestone: The History Magazine for Young People, Cobblestone Publishing, Inc., 30 Grove Street, Peterborough, NH 03458.
DynaMath, Scholastic, Inc., 730 Broadway, New York, NY 10003.
National Geographic World, National Geographic Society, 17th and M Streets NW, Washington, DC 20036.
Odyssey, Kalmbach Publishing Co., P.O. Box 1612, Waukesha WI 53187.
Ranger Rick, National Wildlife Federation, 1400 16th Street NW, Washington, DC 20036-2266.
Sports Illustrated for Kids, Time Inc., Time & Life Building, Rockefeller Center, New York, NY 10020-1393.
3-2-1 Contact, Children's Television Workshop, One Lincoln Plaza, New York, NY 10023.
U*S*Kids, Field Publications, 245 Long Hill Road, Middletown, CT 06457.
Zillions, Consumers Union, 101 Truman Avenue, Yonkers, NY 10703-1057.
