The Little series are my favourite because it takes what would kids love to do and makes the animals characters hate it. Little Hoot is forced to stay up late even though he wants to go to bed early like everyone else. Little Pea is forced to eat CANDY everyday, even though he would rather eat spinach and Little Oink has to keep a dirty room, even though he’d rather keep it nice and clean. Such fun books and when your students notice the reversals, they love it too!
Daniel Kirk: Library Mouse series
I love the words to these stories, it promotes writing in my class. I’m not a huge fan of the illustrations, but the storyline makes up for it. After reading the story, I’ve created my own mouse-sized pencils and books for the students. As they write their stories (about the things they know about), they feel like they’ve become REAL writers.
Oliver Jeffers: How to Catch a Star, Lost and Found, The Day the Crayons Quit (illustrator)
Melanie Watt: Scaredy Squirrel series
Scaredy Squirrel has been a favourite for years. I love the way she created a character that everyone can relate to – either you’ve been there or know someone who is exactly like Scaredy. The humour goes beyond Grade 1 level, which makes me chuckle more than my students at times. Love that she uses a variety of text forms in her writing that can be easily be created by my students. These books in my classroom library are usually taped up a few times, because they’ve been read so much. A sign of a great book!
James Dean & Eric Lutwin: Pete the Cat series
I’m not sure what’s better, the books or the fact that the books have audio songs. My students LOVED Pete and Cat this year. I think we sang his song all through the year at different parts of the day, even on the bus on the way to a field trip. What I love most about these books, is Pete’s mantra, “It’s all okay”. We have taken that up as our motto in class when things just don’t go our way or we’re talking about flexibility. If we break something, do we cry about it? Oh no… we say it’ll be okay, try to fix it, while singing our song. 🙂 Go here for the songs.
Mo Willems: Knuffle Bunny series, Elephant and Piggie series, Pigeon books
I LOVE these books. My students LOVE these books. Knuffle Bunny has captured audiences in my classroom from Kindergarten to Grade 6. When Trixie goes ‘boneless’ in the first book, I can hardly contain my laughter. When she grows up in the third book, I can hardly contain my tears. Mo Willems is just that good! 🙂
My Grade Ones LOVE the Elephant and Piggie books, not only because they’re funny and love hearing them read aloud, but because THEY can read them too. What a great series to create independent readers.
To top it off, Mo Willems also writes all the pigeon books too! I’m sure I can go without saying anything, because who hasn’t read one of these? They’re just so engaging!
So, there is it, my favourite authors I just couldn’t live without, nor could my students. My 10 for 10… even though if you were counting books, you’d see that there was definitely more than 10 – but less than 10 authors. So, technically it’s not “cheating”, right? 🙂
What are your “must have” picture books?