Top Ten Gift Ideas for Great Children's Picture Books

Books always make a great holiday gift because they can be enjoyed over and over, and even passed down for generations. Some of my most cherished books the older books I was read as a child and now read to my children. If you choose hardcover books, they will have a greater chance of standing up to the test of repeated readings and becoming a favorite to be handed down.

Books are relatively inexpensive, so they are a wonderful gift option if you have lots of kids to buy for. Check Half.com, e-Bay or Amazon Marketplace for great deals on slightly used books in great condition, or buy new for a few dollars more.

Here is a list of guaranteed kid pleasers:
1. Alexander and the Wind Up Mouse, by Leo Leoni
A childhood favorite of mine, now I read this book to my kids and it's still a favorite. Alexander is a mouse with problems. Whenever anyone sees him, they scream and chase him with a broom. All he wants are a few crumbs. One day, he meets Willy, the wind-up mouth, Annie's favorite toy. Willy lives a life of ease and everyone loves him, however, Willy can only move when someone winds him and has to stay put most of the time. Alexander loves Willy too, but deep down inside, he is envious of his easy life.

One day, Willy tells Alexander about a magic lizard that can change one animal into another. Alexander is thrilled to think that he, too, could be a wind up mouse. But when it comes right down to it, that is not the decision that Alexander makes.

This is a cute book about realizing that the grass is not always greener on the other side. The illustrations are a funky collage style, similar in style to those of like Eric Carle, but with a lot more texture and pattern.

2. Joseph Had a Little Overcoat, by Simms Taback
This is a delightful retelling of a Yiddish folk song called "I Had a Little Overcoat." The book tells the story of a man named Joseph who has an overcoat that eventually wears out. Instead of throwing it out, he cut off the bottom and made it into a jacket. When the jacket wears out, he makes it into a vest, until eventually, he makes it into a button. One day he loses the button, so he wrote down this story, which shows that you can always make something out of nothing!

This is such a unique story with a wonderful moral. The colorful illustrations are done in a fun mix of drawing and collage with cut outs in some of the pages to show how his overcoat gradually makes its transition to a little button. If you can play an instrument, the music and words to the original Yiddish song are in the back of the book.

3. The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry, and The Big Hungry Bear, by Don and Audrey Wood
This is a sweet tale of a little mouse who finds a delicious, ripe strawberry. The text is written in a way that the reader and the mouse seem to have a conversation. The reader mentions that the big hungry bear will surely want to take that delicious strawberry away from the mouse. Panicked, the mouse tries all kinds of tactics to hide, disguise or otherwise protect his valuable strawberry. The solution is a great example of a "win-win" situation, and pretty funny too. Great illustrations and fun story line, this book is a wonderful addition to any child's library.

4. Chrysanthemum, by Kevin Henkes
Chrysanthemum absolutely, positively, loves her name...until she gets to Kindergarten and meets Rita, and Victoria, and Jo, who don't have names that scarcely fit on their name tags.

Kevin Henkes illustrations are delightful and clever, with many little treats just for adults. But what I love is the writing. The style of writing doesn't talk down to children. Instead it brings children up to its level. But it's more than that, it's funny. Even if kids don't understand all the vocabulary, they don't miss a thing from the story because it's so clear what is going on and exactly how Chrysanthemum and her parents are feeling.

This is one of those books that is a treat for children, as well as their parents. Oh yeah, it also teaches a great lesson about enjoying your own unique qualities and not putting others down. What you once thought was terrible, in a different context, could be absolutely perfect.

5. Harold and the Purple Crayon, by Crockett Johnson
Harold is an imaginative little boy with a magical purple crayon. Harold draws himself right out of his bedroom window and into an adventure one night as he decides to take a walk on a path. Of course he has to draw the path, and a boat, and some water, and of course a dragon to guard his apple tree. Finally, Harold realizes he's lost and he can't find his way back to his bedroom window. He continues to draw, creating a mountain to climb up for a better view, and a hot air balloon. Finally, he realizes that his bedroom window is always right around the moon, so Harold draws a window frame around the moon and climbs through, and is back in his room.

The story is fun and really imaginative that every kid should love.

6. Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, by William Steig
Sylvester is a donkey, and one day, as he is out and about collecting unusual pebbles for his collection, he happens upon a magic pebble. He starts home to show his parents, thinking of all the great things he will be able to do with it, when a Lion jumps out from behind the bushes and stares, menacingly, at Sylvester. Out of all the things Sylvester could have wished for, he wished he was a rock! Sylvester is safe from the Lion, but completely unable to hold the pebble to make another wish, as the pebble as rolled away and Sylvester the rock can not move to reach it.

They way Sylvester is reunited with his loving parents is a little too coincidental, but charming at the same time. Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, is a Caldecott Medal winner, which is a prize awarded annually to the most distinguished American picture book for children.

7. If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, by Laura Joffe Numeroff and illustrated by Felicia Bond
This book tells the cause and effect story of what happens when a little boy gives a mouse a cookie. Of course you can't have cookies with out milk, so the mouse decides he needs a glass of milk, but then he gets a milk mustache. This clever tale continues on to more and more outrageous requests until finally the mouse is asking for a cookie again. It's a great book to get little kids minds thinking about how one event can trigger a series of other events.

8. Gingerbread Baby, By Jan Brett
Jan Brett's books are beautifully illustrated retellings of classic folk tales. Gingerbread Baby is based on "The Gingerbread Man" and Brett's illustrations are so intricately detailed. There are "frames" around each illustration showing details of a parallel story line. For example, in Gingerbread Baby, while the Gingerbread Baby is being chased by all the different people and animals in the main story, in the margins it shows a little boy, the original baker of the Gingerbread Baby, baking something else that we find out to be a Gingerbread House. He decorates it and places it in the forest just ahead of the huge procession and the fleeing baby. Sure enough, the baby takes the bait and goes into the house, and the baker boy is able to capture the Gingerbread Baby once and for all.

Add this book to a layered gingerbread cookie mix in jar, with a gingerbread man cookie cutter and you have a darling gift for a child or loved one.

9. Gray Rabbit's Odd One Out, by Alan Baker
This book takes its reader on an organizational journey with Gray Rabbit. Grey Rabbit can't find his favorite book because things are such a mess, so he starts to organize. In each picture, Gray Rabbit has organized different things into groups, but one thing doesn't belong. The reader is asked, "What was the odd one out?" Then the odd item is put with similar items and the organizing continues. At the end Gray Rabbit finds his favorite book, which is actually "Gray Rabbit's Odd One Out."

The pen and ink illustrations are brightly colored and realistically drawn. If you have a child that likes to organize things, or a child you wish would organize things, this is a terrific story to share with him or her.

10. Georgie, by Robert Bright
This weekend my husband fixed our squeaky front door, and our creaky garage door. I was telling him how happy I was at our new, non-squeaking doors, when he quoted one of our favorite kids' books, "Now the stairs didn't squeak anymore, and the door didn't creak anymore, so Georgie went to find some other house to haunt."

So goes the tale of sweet little Georgie the ghost. This book, by Robert Bright, published in 1944 is a cute little story about a kind Ghost who loses his "job" squeaking the stairs and creaking the doors so the Whittaker's know when to go to bed. When Mr. Whitaker fixes the squeak and creak, Georgie has nothing to do. Finding another house to haunt seems to be a problem though, and Georgie ends up in an old cow barn.

Some of the phrases in this book are marvelous, funny old colloquialisms that sound great when read aloud. This is a sweet story about everyone's need to feel useful.

One of the greatest gifts you can give a child is the gift of time. So why not take a few moments and read with him or her. Some of my happiest memories are of my mother reading to me, and of me reading to my children.