Josie loves the Boynton books. My personal favorites are Barnyard Dance, Hippos Go Berserk, Dinosaur’s Binket, The Going To Bed Book, and Oh My Oh My Oh Dinosaurs.
She also adores Pat the Bunny, which is a classic, but you can’t really get that one from the library because it’s had a billion little grubby hands on it.
[del]Thirding[/del] [del]Fourthing[/del] Fifthing Boynton books. I often pick up a handful of her board books at our local T J Maxx for gifts, and they always go over well. The last kid I gave them to, who is not quite 3, now demands to have Birthday Monsters! read to her every day.
Anyone who likes Boynton books ought to look into the recordings of her songs, many of them sung by unlikely famous people like Meryl Streep. Blue Moo, Philadelphia Chickens, and Rhinoceros Tap.
For Valentine’s Day yesterday, my dad, who is wonderful, gave an MP3 of “(I Want to Be) Your Personal Penguin” as sung by Davy Jones (of the Monkees) to my mom, who is also wonderful and who loves penguins. How ridiculously sweet is that? (And how is this relevant to the OP? It goes to show even adults with no toddlers anywhere near love this stuff.)
Also:
Michael Rosen We’re Going On A Bear Hunt, here are the actions, by the author
Little Rabbit Foo Foo, traditional, version by Michael Rosen
Pushkin’s The Turnip, Russian or good translation
The most dog-eared book from my daughter’s toddlerhood was our baby manual - loads of photos of babies doing baby things to talk about, look at, draw over etc. She would also sit with “the big book” and “read” it, just like Mummy and Daddy.
The Madeline books. I’ve read Madeline’s Rescue roughly 23414 times today. And all of Beatrix Potter. Seconding Dogger, too- my son has my copy.
Can we talk about books that don’t drive grown-ups mad to re-read constantly? I frigging hate Amelia Bedelia, now. It’s hard to read out loud for the tenth time in a row.
Does anyone else know and love the Frog and Toad series? They’re hilarious and beautifully done.
The Boy likes several of the ones you mentioned. We also like There Are Cats in This Book
http://www.amazon.com/There-Are-Cats-This-Book/dp/B002MAQSZW/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top
That’s OK - I’m perfectly willing to buy books. The library is really just a try-before-you-buy step with kids’ books, given their habit of wanting their favorites read (and later on, reading them) literally hundreds of times. And when it makes more sense just to buy the book, we just do it.
Harold and the Purple Crayon
Endorse the claims for Lynley Dodd 's Hairy Maclary and Slinky Malinki series.
Frog and Toad are great!
I bet Terry Pratchett’s Where’s My Cow! would be well-received…
My son is 2.5 (today! woo!) and his new favorites are:
Chicka Chicka Boom Boom (he LOVES this one. We hear him reciting bits of it after he wakes up in the morning.)
Otis - we love this one, too. The illustrations are lovely and different from most children’s books.
Too Many Bunnies
Mega Trucks (although, really, he loves anything with trucks/trains/other vehicles in it)
Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel
Of course he loves a lot of the ones mentioned here already, but I think I’ll also be spending some time on the library website today, after reading this thread!
That’s good to hear. I got my niece Oh My Oh My Oh Dinosaurs and Birthday Monsters for her birthday.
Mr. Neville’s little cousin liked Yummy, Yucky by Leslie Patricelli.
YES! I know this thread was supposed to be about books, but it’s good to have suggestions for CDs as well, for car trips. In our family, Boynton’s Philadelphia Chickens CD was known as “Markle Cows”, my kid’s attempt to pronounce “Remarkable Cows” which is the 1st track. So many gems on that CD, and you are right: adults love them too - my dad asked for a copy of “15 Animals”.
Another good set of CDs is “Beethoven’s Wig”.
Circling back to books, Scholastic videos has wonderful versions of a lot of favorite kids’ books. Borrowing the videos from the library seemed to renew interest in reading the books. For example, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom did not catch on with my kid till we watched the video and learned the tune to sing it, instead of just read it.
We love anything by Sandra Boynton, as well. Twenty-thirding that vote. Oh, and Wee Gillis.
Totally off topic, sorry, but I don’t want to start another thread- can you get toddler-okay recording or music playing devices which are USB compatible, or otherwise put-music-and-stories-on-able? I had a Fisher-Price record player when i was small, I know there were cassette decks, and we’re about to have a second kid and would love to have a story/music player that our 2 year old can operate. Ideally one that we could record stuff for and then upload, but whatever.
Any ideas?
I think there are some toddler friendly mp3 players.
http://www.amazon.com/Parents-PM9183J-My-MP3/dp/B000GEDWUK
I can’t vouch for how good it is, but it does exist.
My 3 and 1/2 year old loves “Goodnight Opus” by Berkley Breathed.
It’s got great art work, a great imaginative story, and… Opus. What more could you ask for.
Breathed’s other kid books:
http://www.berkeleybreathed.com/pages/childrens_books.asp
Trying to remember books we have that are not already mentioned in the thread:
Our kids at that age liked
The Fantastic Mr. Wani by Kanako Usui, a crocodile who is late to a party.
Also the Olivia books by Ian Falconer - my favorite is “Olivia and the Missing Toy”.
The Torqueling is two months shy of turning three. Some of her favorites:
Curious George, and lots of it.
Horton Hatches The Egg, The Cat In The Hat, and The Cat In The Hat Comes Back
Skippyjon Jones
If You Give A Moose A Muffin and If You Give A Pig A Pancake
Madeline
And all those great Boynton books.
We think we’re about to order this one. It’s gotten good reviews, and looks like it does the things you’d like it to do. It plays MP3 files, connects to your computer via USB cable, and has buttons just for play/stop, forward, and back.
Didn’t see it listed anywhere, but my kids loved Are You My Mother? by P.D. Eastman. As a matter of fact, I loved that when I was a kid, so maybe I influenced their tastes a bit? Definitely not an intellectual read, but fun!
Off-topic: my kids wanted the same song sung every night right after a story was read and before the lights went out:
I went to the animal fair
The birds and the beasts were there
The silver baboon by the light of the moon
was combing his auburn hair
The monkey he got drunk
And stepped on the elephant’s trunk
The elephant sneezed, and fell to his knees
and that was the end of the monk (the monk the monk)