I’ve been reading books to little kids for almost forty years. These are some favorites. Their meanings are inexhaustible and reward repeated readings.
Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney
This book is so lived-in, it feels like it must be based on a true story. It’s told by a young girl about her great-aunt Alice (known to locals as “the Lupine Lady”) and how she grew up with three goals: see faraway places, come home to live by the sea, and do something to make the world more beautiful. She does all three and at the end, the little girl telling her great-aunt’s story gets her own marching orders: do the same! There’s something about the way she admits at the end that she doesn’t yet know what she’s going to do to make the world more beautiful that brings tears to my eyes every time; something about having that amazing question before you, knowing how much there is to find out about and having no doubt that you’ll have the time to do it.
MADDI’S FRIDGE by Lois Brandt & Vin Vogel
One friend is good at climbing, one is not; one has a fridge full of food at home and one has almost nothing. How these two negotiate a way to get each other what they need without injuring each other’s dignity is incredibly moving and handled so lightly, it’s almost like magic. I love this book.
THE IMPORTANT THING ABOUT MARGARET WISE BROWN by Mac Barnett & Sarah Jacoby
Margaret Wise Brown wrote GOODNIGHT MOON, THE RUNAWAY BUNNY and a bunch of other great books. She had a habit of kicking one leg high in the air when she was happy. She fell in love with men and women, had a dog who bit and died at 42 on her way to get married in France. This is a book that reminds us how big and strange and beautiful life can be if WE make it so.
I’LL BE YOU AND YOU BE ME by Ruth Krauss & Maurice Sendak (and maybe some kids IDK)
Because I say so!
UP THE MOUNTAIN PATH by Marianne Dubuc
This quiet and sweet book tells the story of how an older badger lets a cat tag along one day on her daily trek up the mountain, how they become friends — and how the day comes when the mountain seems to belong more to the cat than it does to the badger and how the cat invites a little bunny along. It is a book that teaches how growing old and letting go is a part of life and can be made more bearable by sharing what you’ve learned with others — and it says all that without ever saying it, which is always the best way, isn’t it…?
HELLO LIGHTHOUSE by Sophie Blackall
A lonely lighthouse keeper tends his flame, saves lives, waits patiently for love until love comes, then love takes him away to a life farther from the crashing waves. Pretty pictures provoke a longing for the life you can have right now if you just concentrate on the important things and forget about the rest.
If you don’t pray or meditate, the peaceful focus of reading a book that deserves to be read to a child who’s interested is just as good. But it has to be a good book, or you turn into a TV and life suddenly feels awful. Someday I’ll do a whole Fancy about Barbara Cooney and tell you about ROXABOXEN and HATTIE AND THE WILD WAVES and ISLAND BOY, oh, just get them, please? And THE ANIMAL FAMILY by Randall Jarrell, in which the Mermaid tells the Hunter his fresh water tastes “hollow”? That’s enough…! Goodnight!