children's literature

I’m still raving about yet another delightful tale from Kate DiCamillo!

The Magician’s Elephant is the story of ten-year-old Peter Augustus Duchene and his search for his long lost sister, Adele. Peter, an orphan being raised by a cantankerous old soldier with ailing health, chances his luck with a fortune teller one day, who tells him that his baby sister, whom his caretaker told him had died in childbirth, is still alive—and that an elephant will take him to her. Read more

Fans of Eric Carle will not be disappointed with this beautiful, expansive book. Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me, dedicated to Carle’s own daughter who asked the very same question as a child, tells the story of a little girl, Monica, who wishes to play with the moon. Try as she might, however, she just can’t reach it.

So her loving father gets the largest ladder he can find and climbs atop the tallest mountain and asks the moon permission for his daughter to play with it. The moon is happy about the idea but says he’s simply too big. However, he will get smaller, and when he is small enough, Monica can play with him. Read more

Like any intangible concept, peace can be a difficult lesson to teach to children. We can start with basic lessons—be nice to your friends, don’t hit your sister, don’t throw the cat—but even teaching what peace is can seem a bit tough to do. It’s very easy to complicate—even a simple explanation, like “Peace means not hurting each other,” can get mixed up with questions like, “But what about when we argue/ Jennifer takes my toys/ I get a time-out?” on the table.

Even if your child is likely to come up with his own eloquent and beautiful idea of what peace is—and he probably will—it may not encompass all of the ideas that you wish to share with your own values. Does peace include the environment? A universal brotherhood among all countries? Being a good neighbor? Is it simply the absence of violence, or also the continual goodwill and helping of people by all of humankind? Read more

hostaAll of Dar Hosta’s books are enchanting, but this one is perhaps my personal favorite. With its soothing nighttime story and stunning graphics, it’s no wonder the book was the winner of the Teacher’s Choice Award in 2004.

The story itself is gorgeous enough for older readers, with or without the images; but Hosta’s art is, as ever, enchanting enough for all ages to fall in love with.

Hosta gives a friendly face and a neighborly voice to animals like crickets, spiders and bats—animals that normally may seem strange and scary to little ones. Hosta gives them a calm sort of beauty, and a definite place in our world that we start to feel a reverence for creatures we may have once feared. Read more