Back before my lengthy and mostly unintentional blogging hiatus, I was also in the habit of sharing our favorite childrens books from our library haul each week. Our lives have changed significantly since then, but I do want to make a point to share our favorite children’s books once a month.

We read a great many children’s books (so far it has been between 700 and 900 every year, not counting rereads) and it is just not practical to share them all, nor is it worth it. While they all have their merits, there are some that the kids will return to over and over again through the month and those are the ones that I’ll share in these posts.

Poems to Learn by Heart compiled by Caroline Kennedy. We love reading poetry together and this anthology is particularly enjoyable. It’s a mixture of the traditional with some more modern work and is thoroughly enjoyed by us all.

This is the Feast by Diane Zuhone Shore . One of the most enjoyable picture books about the first thanksgiving that I’ve ever read. I know it’s early to be thinking about Thanksgiving, but I would so much rather the children have Thanksgiving on their minds than Halloween that I start grabbing the Thanksgiving books as soon as the year turns toward fall.

Ah, Music by Aliki. This is a nonfiction, basic music theory book, but the ideas are presented in a very accessible, engaging way. Even my smallest children enjoyed looking at the pictures and I’m sure they gleaned some new idea from it.

P is for Pilgrim: A Thanksgiving Alphabet by Carol Crane. I love this alphabet series. We also read G is for Galaxy and S is for Shamrock this month. They’re written by different authors, but the format is the same. There are two elements in each book–the poetic stanzas based around the alphabet and whatever topic is at hand, and a 2 or 3 paragraph history/explanation. We read through the stanzas like a poem and just stop for the background information whenever something is particularly intriguing.

Wildheart: The Daring Adventures of John Muir by Julie Bertagna. Sophia and Klaus have recently been very interested in graphic novels and comic strips, so I was totally delighted to find a biography written as a graphic novel. This seemed so well done to me! I was never one for graphic novels or comics, beyond the occasional Calvin and Hobbes or The Family Circus, so I’ve felt a bit out of my depth searching for great books in these genres. But, this one was a winner!

So there. New ideas for your next library trip, or amazon cart! What have you read and loved with your children lately?