Children's Books

My son is about a year old.  Every night, as part of the bed time ritual prescribed by all of the child rearing "experts", we read him two or three books.  At this rate, one can go through a lot of books.

Now the first thing that I have to say about children's books is that they are absurdly expensive: "A dollar a word" as one friend and parent said to us.  Now, it's not really that bad.  They're probably closer to $0.20/word, and some of them may even go less than $0.04/word.  Still, can you imagine paying that rate for your typical novel?  I've mostly gotten over this.  If I find a really good children's book, I will simply ignore the price tag as I take it to the register and pay for it with my credit card so I don't ever have to acknowledge the actual cost.

My real issue with children's books is that on the whole, they are so bad.  They insult the intelligence of the readers (both the children and their parents) by sloppily throwing together pictures and a few uninspiring notes with little semblance of a story.  At the risk of committing a bit of copyright infringement I'll give you an example, the complete text of one of the board books we own:

Baby bunnies enjoy an early morning wash.
Heads down, tails up! Bunnies drink their breakfast milk.
One, two, three... Hide and seek is fun to play.
One young rabbit learns how to hop.
Cuddle up, it's time for bed.  Goodnight!

Now, with the exception of an old college mate of mine who would have liked the cute pictures of bunnies, I can't see how anyone could enjoy reading this book once, let alone the hundreds of times a parent can expect to read each book they own.  That's why when my son decided he liked to use this book as a teething ring I didn't discourage him until the pages started to fuse together and I started to worry about what kinds of glue he might be ingesting.

Fortunately, there are a few stars that shine through the dark, books with nice stories, clever rhymes, intelligent words, and good illustrations.  They include words like "cavort" and "rapscallion".  A few I've discovered so far include "Slinky Malinky", "Harry Maclary and Zachary Quack", "Edward the Emu", "Edwina the Emu", "Olga the Brolga", "The Very Hungry Caterpillar", "Barnyard Dance", and "But Not the Hippopotamus" (who can resist a story about a hippopotamus?  It's just a fun word to say - try it).

Have you read these books?  Do you have other suggestions or remember favorites from your own early childhood?

By the way, if you're ever giving a children's book as a present to a young child, make sure it is a board book, otherwise it will either be torn and crinkled or stored away to save it from that fate.  I'm not sure at what age this no longer applies, but certainly beyond 1 year.