Why waste your child's attention on so-so children's books? Find the best, read the best, write the best!

Think. What activity can you encourage that will be more vital to your child's future than a love of reading?

Now, think again. How can you screw up that love of reading? Hint....

(See Dick. See Jane. See Dick read Jane a bad book. "No, Dick, no!")

That's right. Dismal children's books are counter-productive. They can discourage your child from reading. How terrible is that?

Children Desperately Want To Learn To Read

For young children, a mystique grows around reading. They instinctively recognize reading and writing as a huge part of what separates them from adults. When you read children's books to them, you're letting them in on this secret world and they love you for it!

A special note for WRITERS of children's books. This site has great info for you, but there's a better page than this one for you to start reading up - and I do mean "up."

Go to the Navigation Bar on the left margin, start at the bottom, and read UP. Those bottom links are the special ones meant for YOU.

Now, our job as adults is to increase the reading mystique. One way is to let our children catch us reading. Often! As your children's most important role model, make sure they see you reading books more often than they see you, say, watching TV.

Other Ways To Increase The Mystique

When my child sees me on the computer, I make sure she knows I'm reading on the computer. When we're driving and she wants to know how I know where we are, I make sure she knows it's because I'm reading the signs.

And when I have to engage discreetly with another adult around my child, I spell instead of using Pig Latin. In other words, I give my child an incentive to learn how to read. If you do your job right, there's nothing your child will want more than to break the code.

Read To Your Child!

Of course, the most important thing is to read to your child - a lot - and to make sure the children's books you read are engaging. Of course, great children's books means different things to different people. This site means to help you find the best children's books for you AND your children.

I should probably confess one thing before we go further. I come to this exercise as a professional, working writer who has written children's books - though not professionally.

Instead I wrote them for the most important reader there is. My own child.

(Before we're done here, you might find me trying to get you to try writing a children's book for your own most important reader. But not right now.)

Now, I'd like to confess to a bias I've managed to overcome.

Your Imperfect Guide - Me

When it comes to children's books (and movies, for that matter, because that's what I write professionally), I used to feel that the quality of the story was the only important thing.

That was before I watched my own child being read to. (If you've never had this pleasure, I urge you to treat yourself ASAP!)

While the story was being read, my daughter's eyes darted about the page like a school of minnows on the run! (If a child is that engaged, you can bet that reading is having the effect you want.) Since then, I almost always seek out picture books that are richly illustrated in addition to having a great story.

(The almost refers to one more children's book option that I discuss elsewhere. Moving along....)

Now because I have my own biases, because your values are not my values, AND because your children are not my children (thank heavens, right?) I'm going to try my best to avoid specific recommendations of kids' books. There are too many out there for me to simply say, "Here are the ones you want."

(And we won't just be talking about picture books either. This site aims to help with chapter book searching for kids who have progressed beyond the "read to me" stage as well.)

So instead of telling you what children's books to get, I'll try to steer you in some good directions, give you some resources, some criteria, and some ideas you might not yet have thought of. After all, we all have the same goal, namely to put books in front of our children that will stimulate a lifelong love of reading. Right?

Let's get to it!

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