While the classics - “Caterpillar” and “Brown Bear” - are staples in our house, as they have been in millions of others, my children really seem to gravitate toward a Carle deep cut, “From Head to Toe.”īooks How teachers in L.A. Pretty much anyone born after 1970 grew up with “Caterpillar” on constant rotation, so for those of us who are parents now there’s the added pull of nostalgia. Then, mercifully, there are the books by Eric Carle, which have been beloved by multiple generations because you can’t really go wrong with the colorful collage illustrations, the whimsical designs that turned the book itself into part of the narrative (pages with holes in them!), or the gentle life lessons about kindness and patience centered on the natural world. Some of them will be so inane or irritatingly nonsensical that you will rue the day they were written, then accidentally-on-purpose misplace them behind the couch. There are books your kids will want to hear over and over again that you will read to the point that you can recall every word, every image, every plot twist more readily than your own social Social Security number. One of the most urgent but underreported challenges of being a parent is finding books you can stand enough to read aloud to your kids hundreds - potentially even thousands - of times without completely losing your mind. Norton Juster’s “The Phantom Tollbooth” was published in 1961, with illustrations by Juster’s roommate at the time, Jules Feiffer. Obituaries Norton Juster, ‘The Phantom Tollbooth’ author, dead at 91 That is, of course, how many of us learn how to read - memorizing sounds and attaching them to the shape of letters and words - but I didn’t feel this was the time to point that out.Įveryone calmed down, Danny soon became an insatiable reader, and over the years a well-placed “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see?” often defused those maddening “did too/did not” arguments that can force parents to wonder if their decision to quit smoking before they had kids hadn’t been a trifle hasty. Fortunately, she soon made the fatal error of turning two pages instead of one but continuing to “read” the book in proper order, allowing me to convince Danny that she was reciting, not reading. I would like to say Fiona did not take the opportunity to look smug, but that would be a lie - little sisters enjoy their triumphs where they can. One night, as I got them into bed, his 3-year old sister, Fiona, picked up “Brown Bear” (from the table - it never seemed to make it to the bookshelf) and began to “read” it out loud. He was our first child and no doubt we didn’t help much - what with our nightly “homework” reading of the dreaded Bob books and our over-enthusiastic assurances that he would “get it” soon enough. My son Danny has always loved books, but when he was in kindergarten he, like many boys, struggled a bit in the reading department. My family went through at least five copies of “The Very Hungry Caterpillar,” but it was “Brown Bear, Brown Bear” that wove itself into our life, inextricably. They love them to the point that if you have to read that damn book to them one more time, you will go smack out of your mind and anyway, you have them completely memorized and when you close your eyes even for a minute you can see that red bird or pickle or lady bug etched against your eyelids, possibly for the rest of your natural life. They jump off the shelves when Mom or Dad, or Nana or Pop Pop, aren’t looking they can be found lounging about on floor or bed or table, open and closed, their iconic splodges of color, which Carle magically turned into instantly recognizable shapes, innocently beaming up at you. Anyone who needs a present for a young child or baby knows you cannot go wrong with “The Very Hungry Caterpillar,” “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?” or (my personal favorite for obvious reasons) “The Grouchy Lady Bug.”Īfter being tidied away, all manner of perfectly lovely and readable children’s books can be expected to remain exactly where they were put until an adult pulls them out again. In bookstores, of course, his titles have vanished from shelves for decades, whisked off in the millions by parents and grandparents, by aunts and uncles and teachers. Eric Carle wrote books that refuse to stay on the shelf.
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