If you ever wondered what Book are best for children and what to buy for your kids, look no further. Here are our list of Top 5 Children’s Classic Books that every kids and parent will enjoy to read.
Top 5 Children’s Classic Books:
1. The Polar Express
The Polar Express. By Chris Van Allsburg. Illustrated by Chris Van Allsburg. Houghton Mifflin Company, 1985. 32 pages.
What could be more familiar to young listeners than the Christmas Eve ritual of anxiously awaiting Santa’s arrival? Multiple Caldecott Medal Award recipient Chris Van Allsburg capitalizes on such shared experiences. His text invites readers to identify with the restless narrator “listening for a sound. . . the ringing of Santa’s sleigh.” Van Allsburg doesn’t stop there, and neither does his Polar Express as the drama of turning the page intensifies with every passing wolf-infested forest and ice-filled desert.
Van Allsburg temps taste buds with sensual similes like “candies with nougat centers as white as snow” and “hot cocoa as thick and rich as melted chocolate bars,” while his surreal masterpieces break out their frames to extend text. Emotions implied through words become unmistakably explicit through full-colored illustrations. Why read between the lines to discover the feeling of shock that overcomes the young passengers (as a result of the narrator’s loss) when one can experience first hand the children’s horror-enveloped faces by glancing at the accompanying pastel drawing? Similarly, the narrator’s wonder-filled features while receiving the first gift of Christmas juxtaposed with Van Allsburg’s manipulation of shadow and light articulate the tales sense of awe perfectly.
Van Allsburg’s use of perspective takes the reader beyond the confines of the Polar Express as glittering specks of light from the North Pole are detected beneath the majestic arcs of a passing bridge. This spectacular tale can be enjoyed by anyone who still truly believes, but its sumptuous wording- “thundered through the quiet wilderness” and “hissing steam and squeaking metal,” is most satisfying when read aloud by a fluent reader to younger listeners.
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2. Where The Sidewalk Ends
When I was growing up, Where the Sidewalk Ends, The Giving Tree, and The Light in the Attic were a core part of my curriculum. They were the only readings that EVERY child loved! In high school, a teacher assigned us to do projects on our favorite poems (thinking we would chose ones by Dante or Chaucer) and all but 2 students did theirs on a Shel Silverstein poem. I intend to buy copies of each book for my children… or maybe just for me!
This book is a good-spirited masterpiece, with wonderful poems that kids of all ages will enjoy. Light-hearted, sometimes downright hilarious pictures accompany each poem, and the drawings are sometimes the plot of the joke. The poetry in “Where the Sidewalk Ends” ranges in length from two or three lines to twenty or more. This is a delightful book to read a few poems out of each night to your little ones before bed.
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3. The Very Hungry Caterpillar
I absolutely LOVE this book. As a child I would read this book on a daily basis and now as a parent I read it to my children every night. They love the colorful pictures and the caterpillar becoming a butterfly. I would purchase this book over and over again. I purchased the board book version, and am very glad I did. The book is very sturdy, and I think it will last a long time. The illustrations are cute, and the book has a very interesting design on its inner pages which I wasn’t expecting. I think little children will enjoy this book because it’s presented in a unique, fun way, rather than the standard pages of pictures that other books contain.
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4. Harold And The Purple Crayon
This is an excellent book for reading to your toddler (or older!) at bedtime. It is a soothing and interesting adventure that gives the child a sense of control over his destiny. I attribute my kids’ early reading skills to the way they could follow along with the story while cuddled up next to me; soon, they were reading the book to their stuffed animals! There are several other Harold books by Crockett Johnson, and all are excellent.
I think this is one of those books that every child should experience. It’s picture based (as opposed to text based) so there’s a delightful interactive element and the child can rather tell his own tell about Harold as together they follow the purple crayon from page to page…inviting you and your child into the book to explore. So simple, it’s rather Zen. And lovely. Must, must, must for all.
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5. Where The Wild Things Are
“Where the Wild Things Are” is the story of a boy who does something naughty, gets sent to his room and then begins imagining (or dreaming) a world where “Wild Things,” or large roaring monsters with yellow eyes and sharp claws, roam. This is where it gets fun to read with lots of emotion – rolling your eyes and showing your claws and roaring like a Wild Thing. Max becomes KING of the wild things, but in the end he wants to go home, and when he does, the reader finds out that his mother (or father, who never appears in the story) still loves him despite his “wild” behavior.
This story is filled with emotion and is a lot of fun to read. It holds the attention of my 18-month-old AND my 6-year-old. There is a section of pages where there are no words and the reader can fill in the story with their imagination. My 3-year-old loved the story so much we planned a “Wild Things” birthday party for him where he got to be Max for the day! As a parent, there’s nothing better than a book you love to read that the kids love to hear, especially since you’ll probably be reading it over and over and over…
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Also see: Ultimate, Thoughtful and Useful Gifts For Kids – Only Guide You Will Need
