Why I Still Read Children’s Books and You Should Too

I cannot part with the ones that are a complete gigglefest. Or are thought-provoking. Or involve imagination overloading.

They happen to be one of the most redeeming and inviting aspects of literature.

The appeal and directness.

How individual survival depends on being immediately engaging.

Young children are honest critics. If your book’s content is boring, stampeding buffalo won’t be able to hide it.

I’ve watched the niche transformation over decades. From the rigidity of Dick and Jane first readers and Ladybird staples, which relaxed into Scholastic sessions where all the stiff metaphorical stuffing had been knocked out and a malleable, loveable cuddly toy was the result.

My collection actually began in earnest before the birth of my children, a task that I absolutely relished. One more reason added to the countless bona fides needed to linger in another section of a bookstore or library.

A world of color, texture, and graphics. Interactive tabs and textiles. Clever features. Curiosity, observation, and experimentation unleashed because toddlers fire on all cylinders. Until they conk out at nap time.

Children’s authors represent a special breed.

They get it.

Without long, drawn-out strategies, they zone in on subtleties and nuances, understanding that young minds are learning everything from scratch about the world we live in. They fully immerse perspective, considering that adults will be called on to read favorite stories over and over and over, so they’d better be enjoyable for us or we’ll end up clawing our eyes out!

Sending a big overdue thank you to these authors whose literary masterpieces are still in my bookcase and aren’t going anywhere:

The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig by Eugene Trivizas and Helen Oxenbury

Twisting traditional tales needs to go beyond ingenious for the content to surpass and carry a flavor all its own. This book is a poster child for how successful twists are done.

It opens with Mama Wolf in bed painting her claws, curlers in her fur, having a heart to heart with her young wolves because it’s high time they left and made a home by themselves. Her only word of warning is to watch out for the Big Bad Pig. I suspect the ages of the wolves are intentionally left out so that some parents wouldn’t get ideas and young children wouldn’t be traumatized knowing that at a certain point in home life, they could get the boot. But the Three Little Wolves take it all in stride and are extremely sensible, enterprising, and skilled in relevant aspects of engineering and construction.

The first house they build, composed of bricks, is a quaint cottage in the countryside. Not long after completion, the Big Bad Pig shows up uninvited demanding entry. When the pig is denied, he tries huffing and puffing and fails (like he probably failed physics class and had to repeat.) He disappears momentarily returning to smash the house down with a sledgehammer.

Like a sociopath.

Haven’t we all had Big Bad Pigs in our lives?

On the school playground hogging the swings.

At the office party where the department exec is double-timing it on the shrimp cocktails.

"Dude, can the rest of us have some of those?"

Why shouldn’t our children learn about these archetypes and strategize early?

Because those Little Wolves tried alternative building materials and locations only to find their adversary was a Class A Stalker!

Using innovation and assessing their situation the wolves found a solution that didn’t involve grievous bodily harm charges. A must-read to find out what.

If you really like plot twists (and if you're a writer I suspect you might) check out The TRUE Story of the 3 Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka here.

Grumpy Bird by Jeremy Tankard

What is more relatable than a bird with a bad attitude?

Many of us have had days where we woke up on the wrong side of the nest.

Bird’s face upon waking is the epitome of grumpiness and thus *spoiler alert* adorable.

He’s in such a foul mood that even flying is out of the question. As Bird trudges along in gloom, he passes by Sheep who is definitely not grumpy.

Why would Sheep be anything other than chill?

Sheep doesn’t have to rush off to work, get called up for jury duty, or read through and comply with changing Covid-19 travel restrictions for some R&R (actually, neither does Bird, but he’s already up and in full grouch mode.)

Sheep asks Bird what he’s up to and offers to join him for the walk to keep him company. Bird keeps walking and his grouchiness doesn’t improve, it just attracts more and more attention.

Then an impromptu modified silent game of Simon Says.

Ultimately, walking really can help soothe the savage beast—I mean bird—a lesson also worth learning early. Just make sure you walk enough through nature like Bird did and get all your grump out before you head back home.

In my humble opinion, this Scholastic-published Bird should have at least received an acting award nomination.

What If? by Frances Thomas and Ross Collins

Stories that show children how to give voice to and then reason through and banish fear are among the holy grail of gold star books.

In childhood, where nightmares lie in wait and minds work overtime in dark imaginings, what better protagonist to have tackling worries head-on than a monster. Little Monster brings the “What if” scenarios fast and furious with illustrations showing larger than life big black holes, spiders, horrible smells, and more. Little Monster is allowed to verbalize all fears in graphic detail as Mother Monster listens and is petitioned for guidance. She acknowledges how scary these things can be, validating how Little Monster must be feeling with all those ginormous vile possibilities.

But Mother Monster fosters a different perspective when she shows Little Monster a unique way of looking at things that can silence all the torture of impending doom. It’s a small but powerful tool that some adults could well use a refresher course in using

Fact: The world we are living in can be a very scary place.

Should we let that fear take over and leave us trembling through the rest of life?

In this journey, that question gets clearly answered in the most innovative way.

Indirectly.

This is one story I didn’t mind reading to my children over and over again when they were little. My young ones weren’t plagued with nightmares like when I was little, so it must have helped.

We Are in a Book! An Elephant & Piggie Book by Mo Willems

OMG, this whole series is a godsend!

When I read this book to my son, both he and I were instantly hooked!

In this installment, the two colorful characters, an elephant named Gerald and his friend Piggie, are minding their own business and notice when someone starts looking at them. Early on in the story, Piggie determines that the ‘someone’ is a reader. There are whoops of exuberance at this exciting experience of being read.

Willems has mastered the art of interaction with readers of all ages and the antics of Elephant and Piggie are enough to leave one in stitches. They are having the time of their lives in this book getting the reader to read whatever they say. That is until Piggie lets slip that the book is going to end.

Gerald is devastated!

So, together they agree on a plan to save the day—or the book from ending.

My son and I raided the library for ALL the books in the series and belly-laughed with each one. But ‘We Are in a Book’ was the one we had to have for keeps courtesy of Amazon (Pretty sure I’ll still buy the lot.)

The irresistible duo of Gerald and Piggie are the fun-loving characters, that pandemic or no pandemic, I’d gladly invite for a sleepover of nonstop all-out fun.

Children’s books are beneficial to us no matter where we are in life. Just because they are not being read to a child, does not mean that they have lost their instructional or entertainment value and expert guidance.

They are reminders to value simplicity

These books compel us to cut away the unnecessary fluff and stuff and pare down to the essentials.

Explanations are succinct.

Are you one of those people who has lots of time for routinely reading long-winded, drawn-out content on a regular basis?

That’s a giant ‘NOPE’ from me.

Watching a child find joy in the simplest of things is a lesson and reminder.

Bubbles still feel like a magic kiss when they pop against your skin. Blow some.

Spend time with some water in a glass showing your little one how to make that ethereal high-pitched chime sound with nothing but a finger.

And when was the last time you trashed the schedule and sat through a whole season of The Muppet Show instead?

They fire the imagination

In the space and time where minds have no limits imposed, five peacocks living within five feet of each other, for instance, could form a bridge with their bodies to the nearest star, adding more elegance to the brilliance and magic of their captivating feathery display.

Setting aside natural and manmade laws elicits full creative mode.

Having no boundaries, we float about in the vast abundance of our universe double-decker ice cream flipping it across spiral galaxies or rescuing a dangerously exhausted parent from clinically significant anxiety disorders in the nick of time.

In this realm of infinite possibility, we can write, sculpt, enact better legislation to support refugees, or paradigm shift profiteering parameters, leveling the playing field to make everyone wealthy. The point being, getting outside of confined headspace is healing for the individual AND the collective.

Cue the butter and garlic salt popcorn thunderstorm (just every once in a while to make us rush outdoors grinning.)

They offer opportunities to study flash fiction

In a world of too much blah-blah-blah, clear and concise stands out.

Weird that humanity now struggles with uncomplicating our complicatedness, huh?

Written communication. It’s not only about compacting content but seasoning shorter sentences with spices that leave the reader lingering blissfully on that first delicious taste of paragraph. Learning how and when to condense and remove unnecessary jargon and filter words is a skill all writers benefit from having. Consider children’s books your unofficial secret wildcat writing instructor, sneaking you flash fiction lessons for free.

Of course, many if not all publication editors and literary agents will have ear-to-ear smiles about this one.

“Hey, Artie! I haven’t had a 5,000-word submission of purple prose romance in over a month!”

“Shh—don’t jinx it, Roxanne! Me neither. Being inundated with on-the-nose dialogue sent me to the Trauma Center last week—a superfluous modifier got stuck in my eye.”

No Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia inducing words here

There are certain lengthy cumbersome words that aren’t allowed in kid’s books for obvious reasons. All those in the ranks with a fear of long difficult to pronounce words, absolutely nothing to worry about here. How relaxing is that?!

There are such cool illustrations

If you have any artistic aspirations, here is one place where they can find a home. You don’t have to be an acclaimed artist to appreciate the animated potential of even stick figures.

One of my son’s favorite books as a child was Press Here by Hervé Tullet.

The illustration in the book:

A dot.

Literally.

In different colors.

Supremely engaging!

Lots of books have varied artwork floating across the page complementing the text. Have you seen Scaredy Squirrel by Melanie Watt? How about What’s Wrong, Little Pookie? by Sandra Boynton? Or New York Times Best Illustrated Children’s Book Not A Box by Antoinette Portis?

Lovableness I tell you!

They connect the child inside all of us.

No matter what has happened in your life, there’s that commonality running through us irrespective of age. We were all kids once. Maybe you still are, or never lost touch with that pure part of yourself even after outgrowing your Spiderman or Sesame Street jammies. How much time has passed is irrelevant, for when the bond is re-established, you have the opportunity to live in full bliss.

When playing 'stuck-in-the-mud', nothing else mattered but your free teammate getting to you. Toy car highways in the backyard and playmates are in complete focused construction mode. Don’t even talk about a community fair with rides and games!

The point is, as children we were all in. No such thing as half-sies on joy. That made it all the sweeter.

Grab your inner child and go on a rainforest expedition through the park.

Get that rocket ship up to code and blast off into outer space before the earth is overrun by brain-eating zombies.

Or you could just take a minute and read a children’s book. Make this your time of pure exhilaration. I guarantee you, no judgment here.

I am very appreciative that you read this story. I put a great deal of time and effort into it so that means so much to me!

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