Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Want to Share With Shortcake

As avid readers, my wife and I want to make sure we share that love of reading with Shortcake.  Our local library has a program called 1,000 Books Before Kindergarten. The goal is to read 1,000  books to your child before he or she starts kindergarten.  The good news is that when your young reader finds that one book that he or she likes to read over and over again, each time you read it counts as one book. So, you don’t necessarily have to read 1,000 different books to your young reader.

Humble brag time:  Shortcake isn’t two yet, but we’ve already read her 1,000 books.  Keep in mind that many of the books we’ve read to her are short (board books tend to be). And we’re blessed to live in a state that pioneered the Books from Birth program, so a new book arrives in the mail each month courtesy of “Aunt Dolly” Parton.

Shortcake and I have a great time going to the library and she loves to pull books off the shelf.

All of that is a long way around to this week’s Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by the Broke and the Bookish).  This week’s topic is the top ten books you want to share with a young reader.

1.  There’s A Monster at the End of This Book by Jon Stone.  I loved this book growing up.  Humble, lovable Grover spends page after page trying to convince you to not read onward because, well, see the title.  If you haven’t read this one, I won’t give it away.  I will confess this is one that we’ve already added to our collection and that Shortcake and I have shared together.
2. The Doctor Suess books.  We’ve already shared a couple of these with Shortcake and I’d forgotten what a tongue-twister these can be to read!  Thank goodness our library had an audio version of several of the most popular stories read by noted actors. I can’t help but wonder what the outtakes sounded like.
3. Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein.  I loved this collection of humorous poems growing up.  I know The Giving Tree gets all the love, but I honestly like this collection more than The Giving Tree.  Not that we won’t read it, mind you. But I can see Daddy gravitating to this one first.
4. The Winnie the Pooh stories by A.A. Milne.  I loved these growing up and I think Shortcake will too.
5. The entire Beverly Cleary library.   As I’ve said many times before, I read, re-read and wore out copies of the Beverly Cleary books growing up.  And I am excited to share them someday with Shortcake. I can’t wait to discover them all over again with her.
6. The Fudge books by Judy Bloom.  Another series I read and re-read growing up.   I think there were only two books that really focused on  Fudge and his family when I was younger, but I believe there are more now. When she’s ready, I’m going to point Shortcake in their direction.
7. 

   

   

   How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell.  The title alone makes this one a favorite from my younger days. I’ve gifted it to younger readers over the years and their parents tell me it holds up. Shortcake and I should have a lot of fun with this one.

8. Bunnicula by James Howe.  This whole series was so much fun growing up.
9. The Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  As a teenager, I read the entire Holmes canon and loved it.  It was one of my entry levels to the mystery world.
10. The Harry Potter series.  I have a feeling this one will show up on a lot of Top Ten Tuesdays this week. And with good reason. I hope that Shortcake will share my conviction that while the movies are good, the books are better.