Chapter Books for Beginning Readers

Nerdy Book Club contributor, Arika Dickens, has written an article about books she thinks are surefire hits for transitioning readers to chapter books. An added bonus is that all but The Year of Billy Miller by Kevin Henkes are the first in a trilogy or series. You can find her post here. Some of these books have been reviewed on this blog: Lulu and the Brontosaurus, Dory Fantasmagory and Bink and Gollie. Please note that two of these books are written by two time Newbery Medalist  Kate DiCamillo. It is wonderful that such a distinguished author is writing for beginning readers.

Hat tip: Growing Book by Book

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.

NYPL Top Children’s Books of the Last 100 Years

The New York Public Library (NYPL) presented its first ever list of the Top Children’s Books of the Last 100 Years. Many of the books are no surprise: Cat in the Hat by Dr Seuss, A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle and Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown. Some have been featured on this blog: Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo, Holes by Louis Sacher and The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats. There are books that I loved as a kid: Charlotte’s Web by E B White, Madeleine by Ludwig Bemelmans and The Hobbit by J R R Tolkien. A generation later my children loved: Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume, The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe by C S Lewis and Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst. My grandchildren love: The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick, Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus by Mo Willems and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J K Rowling .  Check out the  complete list at School Library Journal.

Lulu and the Brontosaurus

My oldest daughter’s favorite book in the second grade was Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst. A few decades later, Judith Viorst is still writing and this time collaborating with Lane Smith as her illustrator. Lulu and the Brontosaurus is the story of Lulu and her quest for a pet brontosaurus.

The book opens with a disclaimer by the author that she KNOWS that dinosaurs and people never lived on earth at the same time but she is the author and she wants to write about a little girl and a Brontosaurus, so there! Lulu is a very spoiled little girl. She gets what she wants most of the time and when she doesn’t she screeches until the light bulbs burst and throws herself on the ground and kicks her heels and flings her arms. “Just this once” her parents say when they give in to her tantrums.

Two weeks before her birthday, Lulu announces to her parents that she wants a Brontosaurus for her birthday. Her parents try to patiently explain that a brontosaurus is big and would not make an ideal house pet. They suggested alternatives such as a dog, a cat, a hamster even a rat. NO! Lulu wanted a brontosaurus!! After days of pleading, screeching, flailing her arms and kicking her heels, Lulu decides to take things into her own hands. She packs her suitcase and heads out to find a brontosaurus. And find one she does but the brontosaurus wants HER for a pet. How does it end? I am not telling. You will have to read it yourself.

The Sonoma County Library has several copies.