If you’ve followed this blog at all, you probably know that I really love ranking video games. It tickles something in my brain that makes me happy. But I don’t just love to rank video games. I’ll rank anything that I have any sort of passion for. I could easily rank my favorite sports teams ever. I have literally ranked my top 10 trips that I have taken in my life. I am currently contemplating ranking my top 10 cereals. If I care about something, I’m interested in ranking some sort of element of it.
In the past four-ish years, I have developed a passion that I can’t say I ever expected to have, and that is for children’s books. Since my daughter was born in 2021, we have read her at least two books before bedtime every single night. Obviously, she also gets books read to her at various other times as well. We re-read books all the time, but it’s not a stretch to say that I’ve read close to 500 or more different books to her since she has been born, between books we own and our many trips to the library over the years.
I’ve become passionate about this because, while it’s always great to read to my child, as she is always pretty damn engrossed in anything we read, there is some undeniable slop out there. There are many books that do the bare minimum in every capacity. There are also some books out there with insanely bad messages that make me cringe every time my child picks them out (go look up the book Honey Bunny Funnybunny for one of the most dogshit messages that I have ever seen in a book).
So when I can find a book that is actually fun to read, it’s a nice little treat for myself. Also, as much as kids can enjoy absolute junk, I’m often surprised at how often my daughter actually prefers books with some quality to them. There have been many books that I have actually enjoyed reading a fair bit in the past four years, and luckily, many of these end up being my daughter’s favorites. Kids have more taste than you might expect sometimes.
Here are my ten favorite children’s books of all time. I feel like this was almost a dual ranking between me and my 4-year-old. I obviously included my favorites, but I automatically like any book a little bit extra if she really loved it. I will remember all of these books for the rest of my life, in part because they are fine works of art on their own, but also because of the many special memories I’ve had reading them to my favorite people.
When there was a separate author and illustrator, I credited both.
10. “It’s Not Easy Being a Bunny” by Marilyn Sadler/Roger Bollen
This one is a slightly funny addition to the list, as I called out a different book from the same author for being awful in the intro. But we only ended up with that god-forsaken book because It’s Not Easy Being a Bunny was such a favorite in our household.
This is a book about a bunny who decides that he hates being a bunny and wants to live with a different type of animal instead. After many attempts, he realizes that he was happiest being a bunny.
I could see how this book could be viewed as a bit clingy, but I think there is a valuable messages here. “The grass isn’t always greener” is an important lesson for anyone to learn. It’s also well written, I enjoy the art, and it is one of several books on here that my daughter was able to get interactive with it. After we had read it enough times, she would call out what animal would be next before we’d turn the page each time, and we both always have a blast with that. This is a cute one, but maybe avoid literally anything else from this author.
9. “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?” by Bill Martin Jr./Eric Carle
I talked in the intro about how there is a lot of “slop” out there in the children’s books world. Many of these books utilize repetition in a way that can be useful for kids. I like books with some of this, as they allow my daughter to get involved with the book, and “read” it in spots for me. But many of these books do this in an incredible lazy way.
Brown Bear is perhaps the best “repetition book” ever made. It’s a very simple book that is really just there to help teach kids about both colors and animals. But the general flow of the book is quite nice, and most notably, Eric Carle’s famous art style is incredibly striking. Every image looks just a bit off. No drawing or coloring seems perfect, but that’s exactly what makes it so excellent. It’s actually very detailed, but if you don’t look closely, it also seems like art that a very talented kid might be able to create themselves.
I think this book genuinely helped my child learn colors and animals quicker than she would have otherwise. Kids are also really good at memorizing these books, and it was probably one of the first ones that my daughter memorized in full. We have had so many great times reading this one together, and it’s a classic for a reason. It’s a clear must purchase for any parent.
8. “Little Blue Truck” by Alice Schertle/Jill McElmurry
The Little Blue Truck books might be our favorite children’s book series out there. They have them for just about every holiday and season, and they are consistently high quality. But the original remains my favorite, and probably my daughter’s as well (though that fluctuates by the week).
Little Blue Truck is a simple story about how a cocky and much bigger truck gets stuck in the mud after being very rude to everyone nearby. Little Blue, who is much smaller, selflessly tries to help him and gets stuck himself. But because Blue is so much friendlier to everyone around him, all of the nearby animals come to aid him. It’s a nice lesson in the power of teamwork and being kind to others. I love the art style, and the writing has a nice flow. To this day, I’ll often tell my daughter, “Coming through!” if I’m trying to get past her, and she will respond with, “I’ve big important things to do!” which is a line from the book. This is a very fun and cute one.
7. “The Little Ghost Who Was A Quilt” by Riel Nason/Byron Eggenschwiler
The Little Ghost Who Was a Quilt is about a ghost who is a quilt instead of being a lighter cloth like most ghosts. This makes the ghost different. He’s slower and heavier than all of his friends, which can lead to issues. But over the course of the book, being a quilt leads him to a special experience that none of his other ghost friends could have ever had.
There are many children’s books out there that cover this exact theme. These books are about how not only is it okay to be different, but there are many times when it is a positive thing. I think this book does an excellent job with that message.
But the other real highlight is the art. The book has darker tones, which makes the slightly more colorful quilt really pop. It’s a great visual complement to the words on the page.
6. “The Runaway Bunny” by Margaret Wise Brown/Clement Hurd
The Runaway Bunny is about a bunny who tells his mother about how he wants to run away from home, and he keeps coming up with increasingly fanciful scenarios about how he is going to get away. But each time, the mother comes up with equally outrageous ways as to how she would stop him from getting away.
I think the writing throughout the book is poetic and excellent, but I also just love the concept of it. The mother and her bunny are clearly being playful with each other. My daughter is four now, and I’m stunned at how much she and I have been able to troll and make fun of each other over the years. When she was 2, she would tell me “no” to certain things; I would respond “yes,” and we’d go back and forth before both erupting into laughter. That dynamic has only evolved and gotten more complex as she has learned more and more words. Kids are a lot more clever than you’d think, and this book exemplifies that for me. It’s also just a fun read in general.
5. “On the Night You Were Born” by Nancy Tillman
This one has some of the most whimsical art and writing of any children’s book I have ever read. It’s a story about how the world celebrated when the child you are reading the book to was born. There is some really lovely poetry here. Something about “And the night wind whispered, ‘Life will never be the same,’ because there had never been anyone like you ever in the world” really gets me every time. It’s a line that somehow speaks to both the parent and the child in completely different and powerful ways. It’s amazing to reflect on how life changes when you have a kid, but it also does a great job of telling the child how special they are.
I think this book is so excellent at telling kids that they are loved, while finding little ways to make parents reflect on their own lives as well. There’s something special about any book that can communicate to the children and the parents in different ways, and On the Night You Were Born accomplishes that feat.
4. “Not Quite Narwhal” by Jessie Sima
Funny enough, Not Quite Narwhal has a bit of an opposite message from my #10 book. In this one, a unicorn grows up thinking that he’s a narwhal, only to eventually meet real unicorns. This makes him realize that he’s actually a unicorn. Instead of deciding to live with one group or another, he ends up living with both.
First off, this one probably wins the prize for the cutest art in a kids’ book ever. It’s so colorful and vibrant. The unicorn “Kelp” also has the most adorable design and name ever. Every page has fun little details in the art if you look close enough.
But it’s also really well written, has a nice flow, and a great message attached to it. I imagine this book was written with the author’s own life experiences in mind, but I think it’s something anyone can relate to. We all have multiple sides to us. I have a very nerdy side when it comes to certain things, but I also love to play and watch sports. For a long time, I thought that I had to keep these things separated, as they wouldn’t mesh with the other side. Over time, I realized that I just am who I am, and it works better than trying to pretend that I’m just one thing or another. Not Quite Narwhal knocks it out of the park with pretty much everything it wants to do.
3. “The Pout-Pout Fish” by Deborah Diesen/Dan Hanna
I’ve talked a lot about “flow” in these write-ups because it’s a big thing for me with children’s books. I really like it when I can read something, and its rhythm just works. It makes it much more fun to read for both me and my daughter. The Pout-Pout Fish probably has the best flow of any children’s book I have ever read. Time just flies by whenever I read this one.
This is also one of the best books at working in repetition without being too over the top about it. There are a few repeating lines that my daughter likes to get interactive with, but the book isn’t hitting you over the head with it on every page.
I also like the overall message of the book that sometimes your mindset will literally dictate how you feel. Obviously, there are situations where this might not be possible for medical or personal reasons, but if you go into situations deciding that you are going to be miserable, odds are, you are going to be miserable. It becomes a fait accompli.
This book also has a fish that immediately kisses others when it sees them, so there is actually a little disclaimer at the front of the book about consent. So while the book teaches a good lesson, you can even use it as a “what not to do” lesson as well!
2. “City Dog, Country Frog” by Mo Willems/Jon J. Muth
I often hear people pine for the days before phones, when you’d go to a video game store or a bookstore and literally just pick out games based on the title and cover art. I often think that the nostalgia for this is a bit much. Most of the time, this method just caused me to pick out mediocre games and books.
But when it worked, it was undeniably magical. I still vividly remember some of the books and games that I randomly grabbed off a shelf as a kid that would go on to blow me away. It’s almost like winning the lottery.
The one place in the world I still get that feeling sometimes is at my local library. This is the one place where I (or my daughter) will pick things out on a whim, and we just hope for the best from there. My far and away favorite example of things working out is City Dog, Country Frog. I think we picked this one out because the hound-looking ears on the dog on the cover drew us in. Around the time we got this book, our beagle, Chester, had recently passed away.
It turns out, this book is one of the most poignant ways to help introduce the concept of death to a child that I have seen. The book goes through the different seasons as a dog and frog meet each other and become the best of friends. They learn different things from each other because of their very different backgrounds. But eventually, the frog stops showing up, implying that he has crossed the rainbow bridge. The dog soon meets another animal and starts teaching him things that he learned from the frog.
It’s so beautiful. Explaining death to a very young child is incredibly difficult. Unfortunately, the timing of Chester’s passing made us have to introduce it to our daughter at 2 years old, which was incredibly tricky. City Dog, Country Frog introduces it in such a gentle way that as a parent you can expand on the lesson as much or as little as you wish from there.
The first time I got through this book, I felt genuinely emotional. I held off from crying, but I couldn’t believe how much this book had gotten to me. So of course, after checking the book out and reading it to my daughter, I knew what I had to do. When it was nighttime, I suggested that my wife read her the new book I had gotten because “it was really good.” After the book was done, my wife was both crying and kind of laughing because a children’s book had just made her cry, and she knew I had set her up. When you have so many specific memories of one children’s book, you know it’s good.
1. “The Sneetches” by Dr. Seuss
Like most kids, I grew up with plenty of Dr. Seuss books. But once I had a kid, I questioned if I would read all that much of his stuff to her. It was old, so I wondered if my daughter would like the art style compared to more modern books, and some of his more tongue-twister stuff can annoy me and be a bit much.
But now, as a parent, I truly can only respect him as the greatest of all time for children’s books. It’s amazing how enamored my daughter tends to get with his books. We have many of his works, and she consistently picks them out to read all the time. His unique designs and writing style are almost impossible for anyone to truly replicate. Despite all the kids’ books I’ve read, there are very few that seem to even try to be a “Dr. Seuss book,” because I think everyone knows they will inevitably come up short.
While there are many books by Dr. Seuss that I enjoy, there is one that has always been my far and away favorite, and that is The Sneetches.
I talked earlier about how I love it when a book is able to communicate very different things to the kid and the parent at the same time. The Sneetches might be the ultimate example of this. There’s a simple message of acceptance here that is naturally valuable for any kid to learn. The book teaches that there’s no reason to treat others differently because they don’t look the same as you.
But you can expand on that if you think about it enough. You can obviously think about how silly racism is when you read this, but it also makes me think about weapon manufacturers and those who benefit from war. These people are inherently incentivized to perpetuate war, as it makes them more profits. The Sneetches is surprisingly one of the deepest children’s books that I have ever read.
And of course, this has the patented Dr. Seuss writing style, but I really think he was at the top of his game here. The flow is so good throughout, and he doesn’t get wrapped up in any of his tongue twister nonsense here. There are so many classic lines, and “Sylvester McMonkey McBean” remains my favorite name for anyone in a children’s book ever. Put some goddamn respect on the name of Dr. Seuss. I certainly learned that I needed to.
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