We all know that one book that our kids bring to us at bedtime, the one that we dread reading & sometimes find a roundabout way to talk them into picking something else. For me, that is the peter pan little golden book. It drives me crazy, I think because it is a shortened version of a very long, complicated story that makes the book choppy & all over the place. Plus, no rhymes, which is a deal breaker for me! 😉 Harper picks it at least three times a week & although I usually suck it up and read it, there are so many other books that I really LOVE reading! I share a lot of the kids favorite books but I thought I would round up a few of my favorites! We read a ton of books during the day & at least 2-3 books every night, and these are all easy reads to do back to back. I love a big library, and I’ve bought plenty of books just for pretty illustrations, but these are our current favorites. The kids love them all as well & they’re really fun to read!
The Eensy-Weensy Spider // Little Blue Truck // Pout Pout Fish // Cats Night Out
Julia, Child // Each Peach Pear Plum // We’re Going on a Bear Hunt // Madeline
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Julia, Child // Each Peach Pear Plum // We’re Going on a Bear Hunt // Madeline
Harper is obsessed with cooking, so Julia, Child is her current favorite. I love the story line & the illustrations are so great! Eloise loves to pick out all of the characters in Each Peach Pear Plum, plus the rhymes are super cute!
I have to admit, Eensy-Weensy Spider might be my very favorite right now, it’s like the untold, longer version of the classic song. We all love to sing along to it! I recently discovered there are more of these sing-a-long series, and had to order Miss Mary Mack. Who remembers singing that as a child with the clapping handshake?! So fun.
So tell us, are these some of your favorite reads as well? What’s your current fave on the bookshelf these days? And please don’t say Fox in Socks 😉
Happy Monday, friends!! XO
Oh I love this post! I love getting book recommendations for toddlers. We recently got The Pout Pout Fish and love it, my 3 year old has to read it every. single. night. Makes it so much more tolerable to read a book 3 times when it's cute!! Thanks for sharing!! 🙂
Richard Scarry's 'Best Word Book Ever' – my 3 year old could go through this book 7 nights a week. There is not story to it, but he loves to find different things on each page. I highly recommend it to everyone!
My 15 month old LOVES Peekaboo Pirates. It has lots of cut-outs so he has no problem turning the individual pages, rather than turning 3 or 4 at a time. The Boss Baby is mine and my husband's favourite to read – the story is hilarious!
Llama llama, Rumble in the Jungle, Paulette, Hello Ninja, etc.
Each Peach Pear Plum is one of our faves! By the same author is another one of our favorites: The Jolly Postman! xo Chelsea, Harvest Mama
We have Little Blue Truck memorized we love it so much!
You should try Donut Chef – my favorite. Great rhymes and I love the story 🙂
We LOVE Pout Pout Fish! My daughter dances and shakes her head to it e wry time we read it.
Each Peach Pear Plum!!!! I had this book as a young child and my mom recently gave it to me for my birthday to read to my daughter (best gift ever!). So it's like a million years old (or like 20) and feels super special 🙂 and definitely one of my favorites. I can recite the whole book any given time.
Our current favorites are the Nancy Tillman books! So, so beautifully written and magical illustrations. I fell in love the first time we read Wherever You Go My Love Will Find You. You need to check them out if you haven't already ♡
Milena
Ladyandlittle.etsy.com
I have boys mind you and I am a lover of Dr. Seuss but they are not there yet. We right now love Nancy Tillman books, "The Crown on your Head" and "Where ever you are my love will find you" we also like "Little Blue Truck Leads the Way", "Goodnight Goodnight Construction Site" "Jamberry" and "Bear on a Bike"
My Boys love anything with Trucks Trains or Tractors, they also love being able to repeat things… Highly recommend Jamberry or Bear on a Bike for fun!
We love love love "little blue truck" – I buy as a gift for any Friend or Family member having a baby. We also love "what makes a rainbow" & "madeline" is also a favorite of ours. Definitely checking out the "julia, child" book! Thanks for the recommendations!
We love little blue truck!! A favorite of ours is "Happy Hippo, Angry Duck" by Sandra Boynton!
The only one we have from this group is Little Blue Truck so we will have to check out the rest. The Princess and the Pony is one of our favorites right now. It is seriously so cute.
Fox in Socks haha! We love I Love you Through and Through, Little Owl's Night, Love you Forever, and The Wonderful Things You Will Be. Those are the ones that Elliot goes to for the most part! Have a great week!
I love the day the crayons quit and for a baby I bought my daughter hedgehugs for bday and think it is really cute!
My almost 4-year old asks for Madeline almost every night. She has the entire thing memorized and usually wants to "read" it to me. She had her appendix out too so I think she feels a kindred spirit in Madeline!
My son is the same age as Harper and we recently discovered William Joyce and his wonderful stories all of which he absolutely loves – The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore, The Sandman, the Man in the Moon, the Numberlys. He requests them every single night and they are all a bit long so one and done! We also love Oliver Jeffers – Stuck, Up & Down, Lost & Found. There are so many more – we are a big reading household too!
The day the crayons quit and the say the crayons went home!! The girls I nanny love them and my niece (3yrs old) is obsessed! I laugh hysterically reading them, they're long but so well illustrated and pretty funny! I bet Harper would love them!
All of the Llama, Llama books are on repeat in our house! Two of our favorites for bedtime are "Steam Train, Dream Train" and "Touch the Brightest Star" the both talk about going to sleep and seem to set the mood for being quiet!
Our 10-month-old loves Pajama Time! I love Guess How Mych I Love You but it makes me cry. I've turned into my grandmother after all!!
My son and I love to read Tickle Monster! The rhymes are so cute and love the tickle monster gloves that came with the book!
My kids LOVE The Book With No Pictures. It has them rolling around laughing. I read it EVERY night. It's getting a little old to me so I think I'll buy some of your picks to spice things up at story time.
Great picks, we love lots of those too. Right now, Kenley loves Uni the Unicorn each night and Madeline too. She also likes the If you give books that A loved so much at this age. Other books I like reading are Max the Brave and Rosie Revere/Iggy Peck.
My son absolutely loves The Little Blue Truck! There's about three other books in the series as well, all equally cute and fun to read. They're one that gets read just about every day in our house!
Little Blue Truck is my son's favorite who will be 2 in May but we also like the Gossie and Gertie series, with their friends: Boo Boo, Peedie and Ollie 🙂
oh my gosh we have so many books on rotation (the joys of a Mima who is an elementary school teacher). All of the Nancy Tillman books are hits but "The Night You Were Born" and "Where Ever You Are: My Love Will Find You" are our favorites. We also love Sandra Boynton and her sing songy rhyming Moo, Baa, La La La, The Going to Bed Book. Giraffes Can't Dance, I love you so much (this is one of the personalized books and both of girls LOVE to see themselves throughout them in the pictures and their names! We love Hugs and You are my bunny are also current favorites. My oldest daughter likes me to read chapter books to her (Ramona series is currently a favorite).
Go, dog. Go! By P.D Eastman
The big book of Happy by Natalia Marshall (short and sweet but my almost 3yr old twins love talking about what makes them happy at the end;)
We love Little Blue Truck too! Some of Easton's favs- Little Owls Night, Dinosaurumpus, Hello Ninja, Illama Illama and The Goodnight Train. My favs- The book of Sleep And the one that still makes me cry, Giraffes can't Dance! We can only read board books here for now, but I also fell in love with Gaston and The Day the Crayons Quit for down the road! Thanks for this! I love finding new books as we read about 30 a day!
Goodnight Moon never gets old to me. I love that there aren't many words but you can take as much or as little time reading it pointing out things around the room; it's great for toddlers learning new words!
This is such a great post! I love seeing what other moms are reading. We love Pout Pout fish but its a bit long, there are others in the series that are much shorter. My favorite to read is the Belly Button Book by Sandra Boynton and I love anything by Mo WIllems, especially the Pigeon Needs a Bath.
we love an of the Bear book say Nick Bland (the very cranky bear, the very hungry bear, the very noisy bear!) all great books! And anything of Pete the Cat!
Ollie & Claire! Totally one of my favorites.
We really like Uni the Unicorn by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Brigette Barrager. It's such a cute story of a unicorn who is unique because she believes little girls are real.
http://www.amazon.com/Uni-Unicorn-Amy-Krouse-Rosenthal/dp/0385375557
Love children's books!! FYI little blue truck has a cute Christmas book too 🙂
And now im dying laughing because I just scrolled up and realized you said "please don't say fox in socks" hahahahah!
My 26 month old LOVES fox in socks, my truck is stuck, the mine-o-saur, and if you give a dog a donut. Oh and anything with peppa pig :/ lol
Anything Julia Donaldson! Room On The Broom, The Gruffalo, where's my Mama?, they rhyme, they are clever and they are so amazing! Plus Amazon has lovely video versions of a few books which make the book come alive!
Extra yarn, boo boo, little blue truck goes to the city, Gerald the giraffe, room on the broom, are you my mother, oh no George, and my one and a half year-olds all-time favorite the vintage book called babies that my mother read to me as a child!
Digger Dog by William Bee is my son's absolute favorite. Other well-loved books in our house include If You Give a Pig A Pancake/Dog a Donut, Curious George short stories and Go Dog Go!
I love these!!
http://www.quartoknows.com/series/569/Classics-Reimagined/
My kids LOVE dragons love tacos! And little blue truck is one we all have memorized! We just recently got 'goodnight already' and 'gaston' and 'pig and pug' Those are super fun too. I'm going to look into the nursery rhyme ones! And Julia child
There are some definite favorites of ours in your pile! C is a pout pout fish devotee. 🙂 Our current bedtime stack includes: several Dr. Suess (sorry! but at least there are rhymes!), The Shape of My Heart, I'm a Ballerina (Golden Book with super cute illustrations), and The Little Engine That Could (such a classic). Also, if you haven't, check out All The World. It's beautiful!
My boys love Little Blue Truck and We're Going On A Bear Hunt! A new favorite of ours is Mother Bruce. Such a cute and funny story.
The Little Blue Truck books are definitely all-time faves. We read a lot of superhero books and my three year old loves look and find books. We're in a Pete the Cat phase right now and I swear I sing those books in my sleep.
"I Am a Bunny" and "Animal Farm" golden sturdy books and anything by Gyo Fujikawa
One of my son's favorite books for the past year and a half is The Pout Pout Fish. We both know it by heart. He also loves the Sandra Boynton books (The Going to Bed Book, Pajama Time, etc.) And of course – Goodnight Moon (along with the Halloween version – Goodnight Goon!)
My son loves Little Blue Truck!
Both of my kids love, I Love You Through and Through! And several others by Bernadette Rossetti-Shustak
http://www.amazon.com/Love-You-Through-And/dp/0439673631
Goon Holler is a fave of ours! It's about pancakes, bacon, eggs and…goons! So cute that the EB will be delivering the other version in his basket!
If Animals Kissed Goodnight is our favorite bedtime read
Pout Pout Fish and Little Blue Truck are my little one's favorites! We also love Ten Tiny Toes, any Sandra Boynton book, and the Baby Lit books.
Mother Bruce is a new favorite (I can't help but hear Nick Offerman's voice when I read it!) and You are My I Love You is a classic.
you would LOVE "The Day the Crayons Quit" !!
Love this! My 2 year old gets stuck on the same 2 or 3 for bedtime for a week at a time until I manage to convince her to switch it up. #varietyisthespiceoflife
I loved reading Sandra Boynton books to my girls when they were little. Her rhymes still stick in mine and my husband's head to this day. One of my favorites as a kid and another one I loved reading to my girls was The Monster at the End of this Book.
We love We're Going on a Bear Hunt over here too! The other day I caught my 2.5 year old singing "Michael Rosen, Michael Rosen" 🙂 And have your girls seen the Book with No Pictures? It's so fun and one of our silly girl's favorites!
The Book with no Pictures is the current favorite of my 4 yr old and 2 yr old. Right now they also love Jumanji, Giraffes Can't Dance, Little Elliot in the Big City and Have you seen my dragon.
Giraffes can't dance!! You have to get it, reads so easy and is enjoyable for us mamas too!!
Oh my goodness I can't stand reading Fox in Socks! I took it out of my daughter's room because it drives me crazy trying to read that darn thing!
We love Little Mommy- a little golden book. It's absolutely adorable for little girls- I have two the age of your two oldest. We also love all the Fancy Nancy books and the Shine the Light Usborne books- my girls love shining their flashlight to see what's hidden on the pages.
"No Matter What" by Debi Gliori-beautiful illustrations, great story and it rhymes without being hokey.
Sleeping dragons everywhere, there was an old lady who swallowed a chick.
We love Little Blue Truck! Such a great little lesson. One of our favorites is Ninja Red Riding Hood. It rhymes and it's pretty hilarious.
If I could keep you little. Gets me every time =)
Eeeny Meeny Miney Mo.. and Flo! Cute story about the little sister.
My daughter loves The Gruffalo. I have to read it at least 2 times each night.
Uni the Unicorn by Amy Krouse Rosenthal is an absolute must for little girls with big imaginations and even bigger dreams!
My daughter is 3 1/2 and we have been in love with the Pete the Cat books for over 2 years. She also loves any lift the flap books, Go Dog Go, Jimmy Fallon's "Dada" book, and (hilariously) Goodnight iPad, a spoof on Goodnight Moon.
I would love to hear of all the books you have bought for the pretty illustrations!
Great suggestions! Madeline is one of my personal favorites – such a classic and the cadence can't be beat!
My 3 yr old loves loves loves Pete the Cat and I don't mind reading them every day so it's a win-win!.
in my heart! uni the unicorn! kiki & coco in paris!
I Am A Bunny – illustrated by Richard Scarry. Such a cute book that goes through the seasons. The bunny's name is Nicolas and my son could read the whole thing back to me at age 2.
Check out the Say Hello to Zorro series. Written and illustrated by the character designer for Despicable Me. So adorable and fun to read!
Seconded! Julia Donaldson is a mainstay at our house full of books.
We read anything Daniel Tiger and lots of Dr. Seuss since he was just introduced to him at daycare. I am an English teacher sooooo reading is HUGE for me. I just live when he asks to go the library. We live right behind it 😉
Pout pout fish is my jam! I highly recommend any book illustrated by David walker. His pictures are too adorable. The book "time for a hug" (with two bunnies on the cover) is one of our favorites!
Max the Brave, A Patch of Black, Orion and the Dark, and I need my monster