<p>jessiehl–sorry if I insulted your favorite author. I forgot she wrote “Number the Stars” which I recall as being a good book, but for younger readers. I just think her YA fiction isn’t very good literature, tho many many people enjoy them. Just MHO. </p>
<p>And maybe my kids didn’t like the depressing themes of The Giver. They were always being subjected to the Newbery Award winners, and as previous posters have noted, they tend towards the depressing.</p>
<p>And Little Black Sambo does make me cringe, but retold as Babaji, it’s a delightful story of a clever boy triumphing over a tiger. With pancakes and butter all around at the end, what’s not to like? :)</p>
<p>I have to say a word standing up for Little Women, inappropriate Marmee or no. </p>
<p>I read Anne of Green Gables as a young child. D watched the series and then tried to read the books. Although I loved them, seeing them again, and through her slightly older eyes, they were horribly, horribly written even though Anne Shirley is a great character.</p>
<p>No Berenstein bears here, or Curious George, but we did like Marmalade.
D went straight to Victoria Station in London.</p>
<p>Liked “The Shoe Books” as You’ve Got Mail Puts It.</p>
<p>I read S the first six Narnia books aloud. He read me the seventh.</p>
<p>mathmom and especially VeryHappy, I liked that word play, too.</p>
<p>My favorite reading moment was with S when he objected to the line, He put the wig on his head?" S said, “Where else would you put a wig. Why doesn’t the author just say ‘He put on his wig?’”</p>
<p>Yup, he does have difficulty getting his writing long enough.</p>
<p>His favorite two books were The New York Philharmonic Gets Dressed and Amati, which is about the famous violin maker. Guess who grew up to play the violin?</p>
<p>D loved Amy the Dancing Bear, which is by Carly Simon and quite sweet.</p>
<p>I loved Sylvester and the Magic Pebble. Still one of my own personal favorites. I especially like the idea of timothy compote.</p>
<p>The Bridge to Terebithia upset us all so much no one here would see the movie. I am not objecting on moral grounds at all, but just say that name, like I did now, and I get immediately sad.</p>
<p>Wow - so many books that I had forgotten. D loved A Bad Case of Stripes and the Jaimie Lee Curtis books. She also enjoyed Number the Stars and The Giver when she was in elementary school. Other favorites include Rumble Fish and The Outsiders, Running Out of Time, Among the Hidden and a series of history books that included a book called The Terrible Tudors. There are probably so many more…</p>
<p>S loved Runaway Bunny. I think that’s because it’s written for very young children and it makes them feel secure to know that mom will find them, whereever they go. That’s not over-the-top for a two-year old, I guess. He isn’t much of a reader these days and only picks up books when he has to.</p>
<p>Oh, and mythmom, my D never got around to reading The Bridge to Terabithia, but she and her bf recently watched the movie together, and she said she couldn’t stop crying.</p>
<p>Ditto on the dark themes of award winners. I learned to not order any collections of ‘award winners’ for our book fair. They are mostly bleak, and the kids don’t buy them.</p>
<p>For me the book that makes me cringe is " Everybody Poops" a book that goes thru the natural function of many the animals (like in the zoo). My DD at three needed the book for you know what and it worked to get her comfortable about bodily functions.
So at ease , that she walked into the 7-11 with me one morning and announced that “mommy farted today”.</p>
<p>TCPA – maybe you mean “The Gas we Pass”, which was a companion book to “Everyone Poops”. Which, by the way, doesn’t just show animals pooping. It shows humans pooping, too!</p>
<p>I recently went to a restaurant in Hong Kong called “Modern Toilet” (it may have started in Japan…which I think is also the original publishing country for Everyone Poops and The Gas we Pass… I’m sure someone here will know for sure…) The chairs are toilets. Stews are served in mini toilets and mini bathtubs. Drinks are served in urinals.</p>
<p>My kids can’t wait to go there…but they also loved “Everyone Poops” and “The Gas we Pass.”</p>
<p>Oh, so many books … our house has been home to countless books, both good and bad. D says her favorites were Stellaluna & Rainbow Fish. S LOVED a book we got through DK called “Snuggle Piggy & the Magic Blanket.” I had to read it to him at least 3 times a day. He also loved Where the WIld Things Are. Robert Munsch (Purple, Green, and Yellow … what a hoot!), Patricia Polacco, Dav Pilkey, Tacky the Penguin, Katherine Paterson, Hatchet (S liked it a lot), Holes, Maniac McGee, The Lion, the Witch, & the Wardrobe, etc., etc.</p>
<p>“Yuck” books? There were plenty, but they have been long forgotten. There were too many good ones to have room in my brain for the bad. There are a couple that come to mind, though. Neither one of my kids liked The Whipping Boy at all. I don’t get what’s so great about The Stinky Cheese Man. Lately, I have come across some truly bad books in elementary classrooms. There are leveled reading books that use improper grammar … sentence fragments, run on sentences, improper punctuation. I REALLY cringe at those!!! If I were the classroom teacher, I would refuse to use any book with grammar/punctuation/spelling mistakes.</p>
<p>Youngest is in 4th grade, so we still have most of our books, in addition to the zillions we’ve taken out of the library (same library my father took me to many Saturdays as a kid).</p>
<p>On the creepy, but neat (but creepy) list go all the I SPY books. The collections they photograph are usually interesting and well-done, but then they’ll throw in some disturbing-looking evil vintage clown head or something that gives them a weird sinister feel.</p>
<p>Other ‘least-favorites’ are books derived from TV shows or movies. </p>
<p>My least favorite to read aloud are any where you REPEAT and build upon the same information page after page as the story goes on. Maddening. </p>
<p>Was never a fan of Dr. Seuss or the Berenstain Bears, though the kids liked the latter (esp. The Messy Room and The Bad Dream). I also don’t understand all the fuss about Margaret Wise Brown. Some of her stories were pretty odd, though all of ours loved Goodnight Moon, if mostly just to spot the little mouse. Older son loved the big Richard Scarry picture books for their numerous busy illustrations. Some of the goings-on in those Beatrix Potter stories were pretty violent, but I liked the detailed animal illustrations.</p>
<p>I like almost anything illustrated by Hilary Knight (and used to covet my sister’s Nutshell Library). Daughter still likes “Where’s Wallace” - not quite as bad as “Where’s Waldo?” ! </p>
<p>Our kids’ favorites were often those square flat cheap books you’d get on a rack in the bookstore. Another cheapy-- an ancient hand-me-down from me, and a huge favorite, was “A Surprise For Mrs. Bunny.” I must have read it to them a hundred times over the years! I think the original price on it was 29 cents.</p>
<p>Other favorites: Otis Spofford, Henry Huggins, Beezus, Ramona-- the older Beverly Cleary books, with the illustrations by Louis Darling.</p>
<p>I was talking to my dd about this thread today and she reminded me of two of her favorites, “Nora’s Stars” and “Nora’s Roses.” The illustrations were beautiful. She kept them and when she babysat in high school she would bring them to read to the children.</p>
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<p>The rabbi is not alone on this point. More than one literary critic has identified “Runaway Bunny” as a religious allegory - that no matter how far away the determined sinner runs, a loving God will always find him and gather him back.</p>
<p>We liked Amelia Bedelia, but always joked about what what happen if the mother asked Amelia Bedelia to “get the children ready for dinner.”</p>
<p>Like others, the Giving Tree was a least favorite.</p>
<p>Book that made/makes me cringe: Peter Pan</p>
<p>Not for the reasons listed in post #14 - - but b/c of the way the “Indians” are portrayed. The tribe name is Picaniny and of course the assembled braves are Picaninies. Then there’s the way Tiger Lily is described - - “the duskiest of Dianas” (that was the first time I heard/read the term “dusky” w/o reference to Sally Hemmings) and “lascivious.” Yikes!!</p>
<p>Of course, many of the books we now consider childeren’s lit was originally intended for an adult audience.</p>
<p>I think my top ten most cringeworthy have already been listed, but it’s too good an opportunity not to hit the worst offenders again, namely the Berenstain Bores (as they’re known around here when S2, who is still somewhat fond of them, isn’t listening). Also, like Missypie, we are the frequent and very unappreciative recipients of a relative’s gifts of unbearably didactic, poorly written religious stories. Gah.</p>
<p>We are trying hard to maintain with S2 the good policy we MOSTLY managed to follow with D and S1, of joining in with most of his reading enthusiasms. Eyerolling to a bare minimum, and preferably after he’s gone to bed. It helps a lot that like the older two, he was a very early reader - so if he really wants to drag out the you-know-whos, he can read them to himself. But if he, like S1, falls deeply in love with the Redwall series in a couple of years, I’ll survive. At least he’ll be reading.</p>
<p>And it does help to remember sometimes how very much I loved some books, as a kid, that I have a hard time with now (e.g., the Carolyn Haywood books). Also, as I’ve probably mentioned elsewhere, editing kids’ books is what I do for a living, so I can always retreat into cold, clinical analysis when things get really bad. :D</p>
<p>Hunt: So glad we’re not the only family who always, always made that evil Amelia Bedelia joke. (Still fond of AB in small doses, anyway.)</p>
<p>VeryHappy and Mathmom: Piggy in the Puddle would definitely make our household’s Desert Island Kids’ Books list. It just never gets old. </p>
<p>I can’t do a book post and not say more nice things. The wonderful Frances books got a shoutout already, and the Stupids, too, no? Huge cheers for George & Martha, Mr. Putter & Tabby, and Henry & Mudge. And of course, the Edward Eager books. And Harriet the Spy 
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<p>OMG, the Everybody Poops book was the absolute WORST! For a long time when my son was learning the sounds that animals made, if you asked what the cow does, he would say POOP, not MOO. Family lore. </p>
<p>Does anybody remember illustrated books by Peter Seier (I think)? They were beautiful books with no words, so we would make up a story as we wwent along. Had to be very detailed. To this day I believe those books wre the reason for her 800 verbal SAT!</p>
<p>^^^Peter Spier? Loved his version of Noah’s Ark. But there was definitely poop! 
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<p>Our favorite wordless books were “The Grey Lady and the Strawberry Snatcher” and “Goodnight, Gorilla”. </p>
<p>My first thought was Peter Sis, who is another gifted illustrator and writer of children’s books.</p>
<p>We have Peter Spier’s “The Cow Who Fell in the Canal” which has words and beautiful illustrations of Holland, where the houses have staircase roofs. </p>
<p>Actually, it was H’s when he was a boy. I think his family liked it because his mother spent her early childhood in Holland.</p>
<p>Has anyone mentioned “Make Way for Ducklings”? When we went to Boston when the kids were still little, we always had to see/ride the Swan Boats!</p>