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Books for Christmas gifts
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Hi, everyone,
Dh and I have put some thought into our Christmas giving this year, and we’ll be giving most of our family only homemade soy candles or jars of cookies or snack mix (the guys not being so crazy about candles, lol) But I have two nieces, ages 3 1/2 and 1. I’ve been giving them mostly books, and that’s what I’d like to stick with this year, also. I’ve been getting them nicely bound hardcovers, mostly, and a few board books. We’ve already given complete Winnie the Pooh, Beatrice Potter, several Flower Fairy books, and some fun board books (Jamberry, Sandra Boynton, etc.) They aren’t quite ready for the “next books” I know to give girls, like Betsy-Tacy, Little House, Caddie Woodlawn. What are some ideas of some very nice, non-twaddley books I could give them this year? I’m not terribly experienced with girls. 🙂
If you haven’t already, Eric Carle books are nice, as are the Bill Martin/Eric Carle collaborations (Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See). Also:
Chicka Chicka Boom Boom
The Little Engine that Could
Margaret Wise Brown books (Goodnight Moon, The Runaway Bunny)
Guess How Much I Love You by McBratney and Jeram
HTH,
Karen
The Angus series – Angus and the ducks, Angus lost and Angus and the cat by Marjorie Flack – my daughter LOVED these books.
Courderoy(sp?) was also a huge hit.
Eloise Wilkin stories would be lovely for little girls that age! Also McCloskey’s Blueberries for Sal and One Morning in Maine might be good.
Do you shop at Chinaberry Books? Their catalog is a good place to get book ideas – you can search under different age groups. I like that they give a short review of each book they list.
So many choices for these age groups! And good quality hardback picture books are so expensive – I know how you feel, you want to pick a good one. I second the suggestion for Eric Carle and Margaret Wise Brown – my daughter (and son as well!) loved these two authors.
We are a chicken loving family, so the Jan Brett books that have chickens in the story were favorites here – Hedgie’s Surprise and Daisy Comes Home are two that I remember reading a lot. I love the way her illustrations tell the story – in the sidebar you can see action that goes on “behind the scenes” – my kids love that little hedgehog!
It is fun to shop for books!
For the 3 year old, Blueberries for Sal or Big Green Pocketbook or Big Sarah’s Little Boots or I Like to Be Little or A Hole is To Dig.
For the 1 year old, we liked The Bear Snores On or Olivia or Big Red Barn.
What about the more off-beat sort of books–I’m afraid they may very well have copies of books that all the preschoolers on the planet have, you know? My original thought had been to get them something along the lines of the complete Winnie the Pooh and the complete Beatrix Potter that I’ve already bought–stuff that is typically bowdlerized or dumbed down today. I am hoping for something they’ll enjoy for a long time. Provided my sister-in-law bothers to read them to them. 🙂 But my sister-in-law, while a “typical” mom who goes to the library and already has Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and Good Night Moon, does not know about the “special” stuff–she’d never heard of the Flower Fairies, for example. Oh, and it also needs to be available at Amazon where I have reward certificates. 🙂
What about The Milly-Molly-Mandy Storybook by Joyce Lankester Brisely? It looks like there is a reprint (The Big Molly-Milly-Mandy Storybook) with color illustrations (done by someone else, but in the same style) available on Amazon. I can’t speak from personal expeirence as far as how much young children would enjoy it, but this book is on my family’s read-aloud list as our next chapter book. (My daughter is 3). But maybe they would grow into Milly-Molly-Mandy during meantime, before they’re ready for Caddie Woodlawn and others? (I loved Caddie – can’t wait until it’s my turn to to give that one to my daughter) Also, we just checked out from our library Pelle’s New Suit by Elsa Beskow and really enjoyed it. The version on Amazon listed as a “mini” in a small size. I can’t vouch for any other Elsa Beskow books, I’ve only read this one.
Oh, I just remembered, you can find the My First Little House Books on Amazon as well. They are picture books based of the Little House series. My daughter LOVES these – we discovered them at our library when she was 2. (We started with “Wintertime in the Big Woods”.) Another “growing into” type of book would be James Herriot’s Treasury for Children. (My daughter will usually not sit through a whole story yet unless she’s really interested.)
I guess my vote for girls would be a My First Little House picture book and Milly-Molly-Mandy.
I don’t know if these are on Amazon but how about The Read Aloud Rhymes for the Very Young selected by Jack Prelutsky or The Treasury of Little Golden Books ( The older Little Golden books stories). Also one book that I loved reading over and over is a short picture book called The Midnight Farm. The illustrations are by Susan Jeffers and are beautiful. This one is on my save for the Grandkids list.
Have fun shopping,
Suzq
Don’t know why I didn’t think of these before: Petunia the Silly Goose books by Roger Duvoisin. They are available at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_25?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=petunia+by+roger+duvoisin&sprefix=petunia+by+roger+duvoisin
Karen
Fritz and the Beautiful Horses by Jan Brett (Summary from Amazon: Fritz, a pony excluded from the group of beautiful horses within the walled city, becomes a hero when he rescues the children of the city.)
I would second the reccomendation for the Milly Molly Mandy book if you can find it – my daughter loved these stories at 3 and still enjoys them, and it definetely wasn’t something I would have found on my own (and I’ve always been in to children’s literature.) I think we heard about it from one of the booklists in the Sonlight catalog. I would also highly reccomend anything by Robert McCloskey. All of his have been favorites around here, starting from when my daughter was about 3 and still much loved and enjoyed. (I didn’t even get annoyed when she asked for our collection that contains Make Way for Ducklings, Lentil, and One Morning in Maine every day for about 3 weeks, because I enjoyed those stories that much too!) If I’m not mistaken, I think you can buy all of his picture books bound together into a treasury if you are wanting more the heirloom-quality hardback sort of thing. Another thought I had was any of the Frances books by (I think) Russel Hoban. We love these here too, my ds2 sits still for these and even DH enjoys them (which is saying a lot.)
HTH!
Any Five in a Row book…well almost any of them…there are a few I’m not crazy about. Flicka, Ricka, Dicka books are popular in my library. James Herriot picture books can be bought individually or in one volume.
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