Library Picks 2011: Top Picture Book Picks

Last year I published our “Please read it for the 7432th time” list of Immy’s favourite library books. Towards the end of 2011, Immy started to enjoy us reading a lot more novels and chapter books with her (which I will share in a later post) but we all still love a good picture book.  Here are the 10 of our most requested picture books borrowed from the library in the past year…

1. Pirate Small in Big Trouble by Julie Sykes, Illustrated by Jan McCafferty. Oxford University Press, 2006.

Oops! Pirate Small sold the Captain’s precious parrot in the ship’s deck sale and now he is in BIG trouble! If Polly Feathers isn’t back by sunset, Pirate Small will be fed to the sharks!

the journey home by alison lester

2. The Journey Home by Alison Lester. Lothian Children’s Books, 2009.

We are massive Alison Lester fans and The Journey Home is definitely a new (to us) favourite. Wild and Woolly dig a big hole in their sand pit and fall through it, landing at the North Pole. They meet a host of interesting characters as they make the long journey home.

josephine wants to dance

3. Josephine Wants to Dance by Jackie French, illustrated by Bruce Whatley. HarperCollins Australia, 2010.

The French/Whatley partnership shines again with this story of Josephine who know that kangaroos are meant to hop, but she just wants to dance. When the lead ballerina and understudy of a touring ballet troupe are injured, Josephine leaps into action to save the day.

mr chicken goes to paris

4. Mr Chicken Goes to Paris by Leigh Hobbs. Allen & Unwin, 2009.

Mr Chicken views the magnificent sights of Paris and makes quite an impression himself. I wasn’t the biggest fan of this one but Immy was repeatedly drawn to it.

super duck by jez alborough

5. Super Duck by Jez Alborough. HarperCollins Australia, 2009.

Jez Alborough stars once again on our top picks list. In his attempts to help out Duck never fails to cause chaos for his friends, Goat, Sheep and Frog.  This time however, Super Duck may just be able to save the day!

6. Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans. Puffin, originally published 1940.

I love that Immy discovered (and loved) this classic picture book and its remarkable heroine, Madeline, and the girls in two straight lines.


7. Clancy and Millie and the Very Fine House by Libby Gleeson, illustrated by Freya Blackwood. Little Hare, 2010.

Clancy is sad when his family moves house, his new house is just not the same – its too big and lonely. And then he meets Millie and they build box towers up to the sky and trains that spread out onto the street. They play at The Three Little Pigs and Clancy re-discovers the home he thought he had lost.

a girl and her gator
8. A Girl and Her Gator by Sean Bryan, illustrated by Tom Murphy. Arcade Publishing, 2011.

I must admit, this was one of my faves! Who wouldn’t want a gator in their hair assumes Pierre (the gator Claire unexpectedly discovers has taken residence on her head)? Fun repetition, rhyme and splendid illustrations make this one a winner 🙂


9. Little Platypus by Nette Hilton, illustrated by Nina Rycroft. Koala Boos, 2000.

Maybe he is a kookaburra, an emu or a wombat? But nobody looks just like little platypus. Or do they?  This is a wonderful, touching story following little platypus as he seeks connection with another just like him.

10. Cinderella by Max Eilenberg, illustrated by Niamh Sharkey. Candlewick Press, 2008.

Immy really enjoys this version of the traditional story. It really is a fun, simple retelling, which makes it work well for younger children who enjoy fairy tales.

Have you had any recent additions to your own “Please read it for the 7432th time” list?

10 Comments

  1. We haven’t read most of these, thanks for the ideas!

    My three year old loves ‘My Name is Mr Fox’ by Shen Roddie at the moment. We got if from the library and had to track down our own copy.

    1. Oooh, I will have to try and find a copy at our library, thanks for the suggestion 🙂

  2. My daughter is just 2 so our range of books is somewhat different to yours and we have only just really made the transition to book with more of a narrative sequence rather than the point, say and discuss the picture books. Some favourites that we keep getting presented with “Torybook Mummy!” every time we dare let ourselves sit on the couch are:
    Grandpa and Thomas – Pamela Allen (she loves the swish-swash-swoosh sang the sea)
    Dear Zoo – Rod Campbell (flaps are the winner)
    My Presents – Rod Campbell (again the flaps)
    Baby Boomsticks – Margaret Wild (apparently these pictures are hilarious!)
    and
    Who Sank the Boat – Pamela Allen (accompanied by hysterical laughing at each picture and absolute delight with the picture of the mouse on the final page)

    Then there are the Maisy books that we have all come to dread since she got them for Christmas but thankfully she can pretty much tell herself those stories by now – yes that’s how often we have read them!!! Groan.

    1. So many of our favourites are also on your list, Naamah 🙂 We are Pamela Allen made and also love Rod Campbell and Margaret Wild.

  3. I myself love Gleeson and Blackwoods “Amy and Louis” – its a wonderful book full of different themes which can be used for all sorts of lessons and examples. I used it last year with the Kindy class I had ! I have yet to read it to my daughter. Miss almost-4’s fav at the moment is “Martha doesn’t share”! (Xmas present focusing on sharing ith her brother!) and so MANY more !!!!! 🙂
    Lauren

  4. All of these look so good, especially the platypus one! I will have to look for it at our library.

    We had a few books given to us for Christmas and have a new favorite “Dream big, Little pig!”

    1. Ooh, Dream Big, Little Pig sounds great. Will add it to my list to find 🙂

  5. My then-three-year-old’s most frequently borrowed library book in 2011 was the simple, delightful, engaging Press Here by Herve Tullet http://www.amazon.com/Press-Here-Herve-Tullet/dp/0811879542/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1328493757&sr=8-1).

    I am a new reader and have been enjoying browsing your archives and hearing your fantastic ideas (and have added your site to my blogroll). But some of your posts have created a conundrum for me: you advocate making fewer toys accessible to children at any one time so that you can rotate them out and let the kids rediscover them when they get tired of playing with the current crop. I like that idea very much–sometimes on playdates my head spins at the sheer number of toys that my son’s friends have, and we ourselves have more toys than we need.

    But that’s nothing like the number of books at our home….

    Our son has two bookcases in his room, packed so tightly that it’s hard to get books back in, with more books on all other horizontal surfaces; even our baby daughter has a full bookcase in her room. I know it’s getting out of control, but it’s due to several reasons: I still have dozens of favorite books from my childhood; we’re raising our kids bilingually so I snap up (almost) every used children’s book in French that I find on eBay and other places; my mother is a retired remedial reading teacher who frequents rummage sales and finds all sorts of treasures for my children; and I work in the children’s section of a public library and regularly bring home discarded books for the kids.

    When other parents were giving their toddlers a piece of chocolate for going potty correctly, we gave our son a (used) book or (used) magazine. (Not realizing how long the toilet training process would take with him!)

    Anyway, now he has books he’s never even read, since we only read together in French (my husband handles the books in English, but he works full time and simply has less time to read with the kids). And we still bring home books from the library every week and read books in French on my iPad and via websites!

    It’s too late now to pull 75% of his books aside and cycle them in and out of his bookcases–I think–he would certainly protest–so any advice on how to keep our kid-lit-biblioholism under control would be welcome! (We’ll donate them as the kids outgrow them–at least half, I expect 🙂 . But in the meantime???)

    And may my experience be a lesson to your readers…just say “NO” to Grammy’s enthusiastic gifting and to books you don’t love, even if they’re cheap or free!

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