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Thanks to some excellent and sometimes just plain entertaining picture books, as a child, I embarked on what will most likely be a lifelong enjoyment of reading. My youngest sister had the
23 book set of Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit books
and even though I was four years older than her, I liked taking these books off of the shelf and reading them to myself. For my seventh Christmas, I was given
Holly Hobbie's Nursery Rhymes
. I spent hours reading the poems and looking at the beautiful illustrations. I have seen some of my children doing the same. My Catholic grade school librarian introduced me to Tasha Tudor by reading her
Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen to my class. I remember checking the book out from the library, just to reread the stories and look at the lovely illustrations. My "Spiritual Godmother" gave me picture book saint biographies published by the
Daughters of St. Paul, like
Saint Germaine and Her Guardian Angel
. I read Norah Smaridge's saint biography
Bernard
often, too. In addition, to the books mentioned above, I also liked Enid Blyton's
Noddy books
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,
Curious George books
by
H.A Rey
,
Russell Hoban's Frances stories
, the
Little Bear books by
Else Holmelund Minarik
,
Amelia Bedelia
books by Peggy Parrish,
Norman the Doorman
and
Corduroy
by Don Freeman, and more.
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Shortly before I graduated from college, one of my English Professors learned that I was going to spend my
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summer teaching a pre-kindergarten class. She immediately recommended that I purchase some books by
Jan Brett
and
Eric Carle
. Knowing how much she spoke about her children when teaching, I soon found myself in Barnes and Noble. I received an educator's discount for the first time and purchased
The Mitten
,
The First Dog
, and
The Very Hungry Caterpillar. The four and five-year-old children in my pre-kindergarten class enjoyed listening to these stories and a few others.
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The following year, I returned to college to obtain my teaching credential. One of my favorite classes was a children's literature class in which we shared children's stories by reading them aloud or from memory, depending on the assignment. This was the first time that I heard of
Strega Nona
by Tomie de Paola. I also discovered or rediscovered
The Story of Ferdinand
by Munro Leaf,
Anansi the Spider: A Tale from the Ashanti
by Gerald McDermott,
Tikki Tikki Tembo
by Arlene Mosel,
Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel
by Virginia Lee Burton,
The Five Chinese Brothers
by Claire Huchet Bishop,
Caps for Sale
by Esphyr Slobodkina,
Millions of Cats
by Wanda Gag, and
The Keeping Quilt
by Patricia Polacco. I have revisited these books many times over the years.
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While getting my teaching credential, I married the man of my dreams and one year after that we had our first child. A friend gave us Margaret Wise Brown's
Goodnight Moon
,
The Runaway Bunny
, and
Big Red Barn
, broadening our picture book horizons even more.
Big Red Barn has remained a favorite among all of my little children over the years. Some of us even know this story from memory. At this time, my husband also started finding and recommending some great books. Two of the books that he has found and recommended over the years are
Brigid's Cloak: An Ancient Irish Story
by Bryce Milligan and
Abbie Against the Storm: The True Story of a Young Heroine and a Lighthouse
by Marcia K. Vaughan.
As soon as my oldest daughter was old enough, I took her and her baby sister to
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the library every one or two weeks. We checked out the books mentioned above that we did not own and we had fun discovering some great books on the library shelves, including
One Morning in Maine
by Robert McCloskey,
Miss Rumphius
by Barbara Cooney,
The Seven Silly Eaters
by Mary Ann Frazee,
Rabbits and Raindrops
by Jim Arnosky,
Big Sister and Little Sister
by Charlotte Zolotow,
St. Patrick's Day in the Morning
by Eve Bunting,
Mirette on the High Wire
by Emily Arnold McCully,
My Cats Nick And Nora
by Isabelle Harper,
Baby In a Basket
by Gloria and Ted Rand, and
plenty
of
books
by
Tomie de Paola
. As we did so, we made note of those authors and illustrators who we liked and we continued to find and check out more books by them. This sometimes led us to find new books by other authors and/or illustrators and so we continued to read, look at, and learn from more picture books.
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Eventually, I joined a Catholic homeschooling group and started going to support group meetings. I was happy to learn about
The Weight of a Mass: A Tale of Faith
by Josephine Nobisso and
The Squire and the Scroll: A Tale of the Rewards of a Pure Heart
by Jennie Bishop from a member of our group. Today, we no longer visit the library as often as we once did and I no longer go to support group meetings, but we still like picture books. I tend not to look at book lists, but I will occasionally find a good recommendation on
Love2Learn,
someone's blog, or our library's online catalog.
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This past winter, I decided to start organizing some of the books that we read into picture book baskets. These baskets do not contain all of the picture books that we read each month because I am always open to reading whatever my children request or bring to me and I also check out some books to review. Many of the latter will most likely eventually make their way into one of the monthly baskets. Since Easter can fall in either March or April, I decided to make a separate Easter Picture Book Basket. I will occasionally add a good book or two to an already filled basket, so do check back. Links to the picture book baskets that I have put together, so far, can be found in the lefthand sidebar of my blog and below:
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