Time Magazine’s 100 Best Children’s Books of All Time

The list includes books we have reviewed here: Extra Yarn, Journey, The Day The Crayons Quit, The Snowy Day and Press Here. Where the Wild Things Are, The Cat in The Hat and Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Day and Madeline are also included. Since this is a list of picture books it is a puzzle as to why Out Of My Mind, a very worthy book, was on this list.

Pete the Cat I Can Read Books

Pete the Cat books have been favorites of both  my students and my grandchildren. James Dean has  pared down the vocabulary for early readers with three new I Can Read books: Pete the Cat: Pete at the Beach, Pete the Cat: Play Ball! and Pete the Cat: Pete’s Big Lunch. As in the earlier books, things do not always go Pete’s way but he is resilient. Pete is an optomist, for him the glass is always half. If he fails or fate is cruel, as the song goes, “he picks himself up, dusts himself off  and starts all over again”.

The AR level is 1.2 to 1.3 which makes them perfect for beginning readers. The Sonoma County Library has several copies each of  Pete at the Beach, Play Ball and Pete's Big Lunch.

Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons

Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons was awarded a 2013 Theodor Seuss Geisel Honor for one of the most distinguished beginning reader books from last year. The book is created and illustrated by James Dean and the story is written by Eric Litwin. Pete’s a cool cat with four groovy buttons on his shirt. He loves his groovy buttons so much, he sings a song about them. But one pops off and rolls away. “Did Pete cry? Goodness no! Buttons come and buttons go.” And he just keeps singing his song. One by one, the buttons are lost but he still keeps singing his song until he has zero buttons left. But looking down at his button less shirt, what do you think he saw? He just keeps singing his slightly amended song. The morale of this story? Don’t sweat the small stuff.

An added bonus to this story are the equations after each button is lost i.e.. 4-1=3. You get a little math with your reading! You can also download a free reading of the book here. 

The Sonoma County Library has many copies.