Children's Books for Parents and Teachers - book reviews and suggestions for parents and teachers.
NEA Top 100 of 2007

The following list was compiled from an online survey in 2007 conducted by the National Education Association. Parents and teachers will find it useful in selecting quality literature for their children.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group

One Sunday a very hungry caterpillar hatched. He eats his way through a variety of foods that are boldly and colorfully illustrated. The story progresses with the caterpillar spinning a cocoon and waking up into a butterfly, illustrating one of nature’s common but lovely marvels.


Tuck Everlasting

When ten-year-old Winnie Foster stumbles upon the Tuck family’s disturbing secret, she is forced to come to terms with her conflicting emotions. She feels drawn to the loving, gentle and rather eccentric Tucks, but what they tell her is too incredible to be believed. Doomed to—or blessed with—eternal life after drinking from a magic spring, the Tuck family tries to make Winnie understand that the terrible magic of the forest spring can never be revealed. The consequences to the world could prove to be disastrous! But then an unexpected complication …


Where the Sidewalk Ends

Come in . . . for where the sidewalk ends, Shel Silverstein’s world begins. You’ll meet a boy who turns into a TV set, and a girl who eats a whale. The Unicorn and the Bloath live there, and so does Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout who will not take the garbage out. It is a place where you wash your shadow and plant diamond gardens, a place where shoes fly, sisters are auctioned off, and crocodiles go to the dentist. Shel Silverstein’s masterful collection of poems and drawings is at …


Where the Wild Things Are

Max is being so terrible that his mother sends him to his room without supper. But Max doesn’t care — he sails off to the land of the Wild Things, and they make him his king. There, Max can be as terrible as he pleases, and the Wild Things join in the rumpus. Finally, Max is tired of being wild, and yearns to go home. Marvelous pictures and the superb story combine to make this a quintessential picture book. In it, readers will recognize their own wild side.