Picture Books I First Read as a Grown Up

A while ago, I shared picture books I loved as a child and have shared with my little ones.  However, today, I want to share five picture books which I have read for the first time as a grown up.  Now, I thoroughly enjoy reading, and re-reading, these titles to my little ones.  {I should note that each of these books was in print when I was a child, all for decades before my birth.  Yet, somehow, I never read them as a child.} 

5.  Bread and Jam for Frances, by Russell Hoban, first printed in 1964*.  All Frances wants is bread and jam to eat.  One day, that's all she gets.  Is it as good as she hoped?

4.  Stone Soup, by Marcia Brown, with a copyright date of 1947.  Three hungry soldiers enter a village and are denied a meal.  The soldiers then begin making a meal of stone soup.  The villagers are intrigued and begin to gather, bringing ingredients for the soup.

3.  Make Way for Ducklings, by Robert McCloskey, first published in 1941.  Mr. and Mrs. Mallard are looking for a perfect home for their family.  Though one is found, the Mallard family must cross through the busy streets of Boston to get there.  Will the ducks arrive safely?  Another McCloskey title we love is Blueberries for Sal, printed in 1948.

2.  The Biggest Bear, by Lynd Ward, published in 1952.  Johnny is aghast that his family's barn is the only barn in the valley without a stretched bear skin displayed on the wall.  He is determined to have one, and sets out to hunt down a bear.  Instead he finds a cub.  The little cub becomes a pet to the family, but once full grown, becomes more of a pest.  Johnny must determine how to get rid of the bear.

1.  The Little House,  by Virginia Lee Burton, published 1942.  A little house, in the countryside, ontop of a hill, is loved by a couple.  The little house loves the family and the country pace of life.  All too soon things begin to change as more people move into the countryside.  A town grows into a city.  All the while, the little house yearns for the countryside.  Until one day a couple sees the little house, and the wife remembers a similar house which her grandmother lived in as a child.  Two other titles by Burton we love are Katy and the Big Snow Storm, 1943, and Maybelle: The Cable Car, 1952.


*In an effort to be completely honest, this book was published not quite decades before my birth but over one decade and under two.  Since that's more than one, is it technically still plural?

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Picture Books I Love