Corduroy is a perennial favorite, as is the sequel “A Pocket for Corduroy”.
I also liked the Richard Scarry “Cars and Trucks and Things that Go” (really anything Richard Scarry) and “No, David” by David Shannon.
Runners up - “Goodnight Goodnight Construction Site” by Rinker & Lichtenfeld, and “I STINK!” by Kate and Jim McMillan. “Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel” by Virginia Burton and anything by Sandra Boynton, especially “Pajama Time” and “Calm Down, Boris” by Sam Lloyd.
All great little kid books.
(you never said the books have to be for big children!)
Yeah, Granpa Russ ran basically the only store in the area, also it was the post office, so he knew everyone. The McCloskeys lived on Deere Isle. Oddly, out here in upstate NY, I worked with someone who also knew McCloskey, mowed his lawn even.
Growing up in Manhattan I read that book approximately a trillion times.
But to be more responsive to the OP:
Harriet the Spy The Phantom Tollbooth* Little House on the Prairie and A Wrinkle in Time (tied)
*Fun fact: Both Norton Juster and Jules Feiffer were friends of my parents. I was in utero when it came out and our first edition of the book is signed by Juster: “To the (family name): Big, Little, and Imminent”
Now that I’ve read the whole thread there are MANY more titles banging around my brain. Anne of Green Gables, Nancy Drew/the Hardy Boys, Encyclopedia Brown are series I inhaled.
But a timeless classic I haven’t seen anyone mention is The Thirteen Clocks, the hardcover of which I loved to destruction.
The Sneetches and Other Stories by Dr Seuss.
I hope this isn’t cheating - it’s one book containing several short stories - arguably the best of all of them (The Sneetches, Too Many Daves, The Zax, and What Was I Scared Of?)
Growing up in Manhattan I read that book approximately a trillion times.