Each year I think we’ve hit a new high water mark for children’s books, but 2019 was a stellar year in the book world. Each week seemed to bring something more wonderful than the week before so it’s hard to narrow the list, but with the knowledgeable input of Gwendolyn at Buttonwood Books and Toys in Cohasset, here are our recommendations for your holiday shopping….
Board Books for kids who could possibly tear the pages of a real book:
• Dinosnores by Susan Boynton
• The Moon is a Silver Pond by Sara Cassidy (This is a quiet and lovely book about the moon. A perfect bedtime book for children – which may double as biblio-melatonin for their parents)
• Snowball by Sue Hendra and Paul Linnet (Gwendolyn showed this brightly colored and funny book to me – and now I want to buy a copy for myself!)
• Who is Sleeping? By Petr Horacek
• What’s Going on Here? By Olivier Tallec
• Goodnight Rainbow Cats by Barbara Castro Urio (This is such a creative book. Each cat goes into the house, and on the last die-cut page, there are 12 sleepy cats.)
For the child who wants every book to be 32 pages (the number of pages in the typical picture book):
• I Want a Dog by Jon Agee
• What Miss Mitchell Saw by Hayley Barrett (a picture book biography of the astronomer Maria Mitchell)
• Dandy by Ame Dyckman
• The Scarecrow by Beth Ferry & the Fan Brothers
• Bear is Awake! By Hannah Harrison (An alphabet book and a delightful story!)
• Fry Bread by Kevin Noble Maillard
• Saturday by Oge Mora (A special story of a young girl and her mother whose regular Saturday together does not go as planned.)
• Bear Came Along by Richard T. Morris
• I Am a Tiger by Karl Newson (A story about a mouse with a tiger-sized imagination)
• You Are Home by Evan Turk
• Small in the City by Sydney Smith (One of the year’s most beautiful books. Every illustration in this award-winning book is memorable.)
• Home in the Woods by Eliza Wheeler
For the new chapter book reader:
• Filigree’s Midnight Ride by Pam Berkman
• Penny and Her Sled by Kevin Henkes
• Frank and Bean by Jamie Michalak (another set of mismatched friends, but Frank (a frankfurter in a bun) and Bean (kidney, that is) won me over!)
• Charlie & Mouse by Laurel Snyder
• The Dog Who Lost His Bark by Eoin Colfer
• Bernard Pepperlin by Cara Hoffman (If you know a fan of Stuart Little, this is the book for them. It has that “old fashioned gift book” quality to it. Hoffman’s book is a sweet fantasy starring the Dormouse from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and set in modern-day New York City)
For readers who are ready for longer and more complex stories:
• I Can Make This Promise by Christine Day (Evie, a 12-year-old Native American girl knows her mother was adopted by a white family, but has never heard the story of why she was separated from her birth mother. Over the course of this lovely novel, Edie discovers her family’s history.)
• Beverly Right Here by Kate DiCamillo (A companion novel to Raymie Nightingale…for lovers of the distinctive world of Raymie and Louisiana)
• The Year We Fell from Space by Amy Sarig King
• Dear Sweet Pea by Julie Murphy
• Strange Birds by Celia Perez
• Look Both Ways: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks by Jason Reynolds
• My Jasper June by Laurel Snyder
• Other Words for Home by Jasmine Warga
• Some Places More Than Others by Renee Watson
The awesome picture at the top of this post is a friend’s son who is proudly showing off his very well organized book shelf. It looks like he may have a future working in a library or bookstore!
Happy Holiday Shopping….
Sommer Reading 