Children’s Books Guide

“Joseph Had a Little Overcoat”, originally written by childrens books author Simms Taback in 1977, is a delightful  story that is based on a Yiddish song called “I Had a Little Overcoat”.  In 2000, Taback won the coveted Caldecott Medal for his work in recreating the story in book form.  In it, the main character [...]

You know the story of how the three pigs built three distinctly different houses. You know that one was built of straw, one was built of sticks and the third was built of bricks. Childrens books have told the same story for ages but it wasn’t until the brilliant picture books illustrator David Wiesner worked [...]

Another in a seemingly endless line of successful picture books by famed illustrator David Wiesner, “Sector 7″ is the story of a group of school age children who are apparently on a field trip that has found them within the walls and glass of the observatory in New York City’s iconic Empire State Building.  The [...]

What little girl doesn’t love to play dress up, look and feel like a ballerina, a princess, or a beautiful maiden? With Fancy Nancy, by Jane O’Connor, you and your children can enjoy and relate to the little girl who tries to bring life to her family with her own ideas of being fancy. With [...]

Originally written by the rather prolific childrens books author Leo Lionni in 1969, “Alexander and the Wind Up Mouse” was reissued nearly forty years later in 2006 to delight a brand new generation of young readers. Before his death in 1999, Lionni was the proud recipient of four Caldecott Awards for the illustrations in his [...]

Fancy Nancy is a little girl who loves everything frilly and fancy, and the fancier the better. In Fancy Nancy and the Boy from Paris, Nancy meets a new boy in her class. When she finds out that he is from Paris, Nancy becomes very excited. After all, what is more fancy than anything or [...]

No one ever accused Officer Buckle of being entertaining.  While he means well, this rotund gent is just dull, dull, dull!  His assemblies don’t do anything but make kids want to go sleep, sleep, sleep!  While what he has to say is important (he is trying to teach school children very important safety tips), his [...]

There is a long held belief that you can give a child the best toy in the world and most of them would have more fun playing with the cardboard box the toy was packaged in.  Celebrated author and illustrator of picture books Antoinette Portis does a brilliant job in portraying this idea in “Not [...]

With a fresh new version  on book store shelves around the country, “April’s Kittens” – childrens books that were first published more than fifty years ago – is finding a brand new generation of fans.  When young April’s pet cat Sheba gives birth to three beautiful kittens she is ecstatic.  That is until her father [...]

On the surface, the story behind “Henry’s Freedom Box” may not seem like the best subject matter for  childrens books, yet in this beautiful and award winning book, author Ellen Levine and illustrator Kadir Nelson skillfully tell the astonishing true story of Henry Brown, a slave who literally mailed himself into freedom.  Henry’s young life [...]