Books We’re Thankful For: 6 Parents on the Kids’ Books They Love

In honor of Thanksgiving, we asked some phenomenal moms and dads what kids’ books they were most thankful for. Here’s what they told us.

“I am thankful for The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan. Besides being great fun for our third grader, it was also the first book she pressed into my and her dad’s hands and insisted that we’d love. We did, and now all three of us have read every book in the series.” –Nicole Steeves, Chicago librarian

“How I loved to read my son Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge by Mem Fox. In the story, a young boy helps an old woman in a nursing home regain her lost memories by bringing her objects he finds: an egg, a football, his grandfather’s old war medal. ‘What’s a memory?’ the young boy asks everyone he meets along the way. For me, a memory is the joy of reading to my son night after night after night.” –Steve Edwards, author

“If I had to suggest two children’s books a bit further off the radar that I really, really love, the first would be Zen Ties by Jon J Muth. It is a simple book full of haiku and watercolor, and it has the perfect blend of lessons and sweetness. The other selection would be Zorgamazoo by Robert Paul Weston, a tale of fantasy and adventure that dances along with the singsong rhythms of Dr. Seuss channeling Arthur C. Clarke. Both books are a lot of fun, and more than that — they are childhood printed across a pretty pound of paper, and that is something worth reading.” —Whit Honea, author of The Parents’ Phrase Book

“I’m so thankful we discovered Julia Donaldson’s books. My family cannot get enough of Stick Man. It’s so fun to read aloud. Also, I’m not sure what we would do without Richard Scarry’s Cars and Trucks and Things That Go. It has provided countless hours of reading pleasure!” –Jodie Rodriguez, GrowingBookbyBook.com

“I have many favorites from my first decade of fatherhood, but few books are as magical in their prose and illustrations as James Howe’s Houndsley and Catina and The Quiet Time. From the first page, read quickly as one does in a bookstore when looking through shelves of the unknown, I became enthralled by the beauty of the sentences, which let you know immediately that this early reader chapter book pays deep respect to children and childhood: ‘Houndsley gazed out his window at the silent white falling everywhere. The world had no shadows, only white on white on white.'”–Jeff Bogle, OutWiththeKids.com

“The book series I’m most thankful for would have to be the Big Nate books by Lincoln Peirce. Yes, it can be a little crude. There are nasty bullies and snarky one-liners. But there is something about it that captured my son’s interest at just the right time. Next thing I knew, he’d collected every single book in the series and was reading them over and over again.” –Joanna Schroeder, GoodMenProject.com

What books are you and your kids most grateful for? Share your treasured reads in the comments below.