Best Kids Book Recommendations
Book Recommendations

Stunning Children’s Books We Love

Best Kids Book Recommendations

“There are many little ways to enlarge your world.  Love of books is the best of all.” – Jacqueline Kennedy

My world must be ginormous because the book love is big here, ha! I have some beautiful ones to share with you today. I’m so excited! I hope you’ll love them too…

Best Kids Book Recommendations

The Lost Words

Book Depository | Amazon

This book is a beauty, and the story behind it makes me treasure it even more.

In 2007, the new edition of the Oxford Junior Dictionary decided to cut a number of words relating to nature. The dictionary’s guidelines state that it must reflect “the current frequency of words in daily language of children”. There was much opposition to this decision, and a number of authors united in a campaign to have the words reinstated, one of them being Robert Macfarlane.

And so, ‘The Lost Words’ was born. A spellbook, to conjour back the words that were once part of children’s everyday vocabulary. For how can children understand, imagine, or care for the natural world if they don’t have the words to describe it?

Best Kids Book Recommendations

I adore it!Best Kids Book Recommendations

Stunning illustrations to accompany stunning words.
Best Kids Book Recommendations

Each word is accompanied by a ‘spell’.

We drink hot chocolate in the garden and read our spells.Best Kids Book Recommendations

“The earth extends an invitation to us, to connect, to restore an ancient relationship. We will become truly alive when we accept this invite and nurture the bit of the wild that runs through our veins.” – Lucy AitkinRead

Best Kids Book Recommendations

This is Sadie

Book Depository | Amazon

My kids love Sadie! Especially Miss 2. She brings me the book and says ‘it’s my best friend Sadie!’Best Kids Book Recommendations

Sadie is a girl who loves to read and make up stories. Her stories can take her anywhere she wants to go.Best Kids Book Recommendations

I agree with Miss 2, you just want to be Sadie’s friend! She’s funny and adventurous and inspiring and full of ideas and imagination! She can do anything, and she makes you feel like you can too.

Best Kids Book Recommendations

The Illustrated Compendium of Amazing Animal Facts

Book Depository | Amazon

I knew Miss 9 would love this one. We read it for ages just last night and couldn’t stop laughing. Did you know that goats have different accents depending where they’re from? What? Ha! Or wait, what about that the original name for a Butterfly was a Flutterby? That totally makes more sense! Did you know that baby elephants suck their trunks for comfort? AwwwBest Kids Book Recommendations

Each page has funny or weird or gross or fascinating tidbits of information so you can just pick it up and flip to anything you fancy! It’s fantastic. Most of the things I had no idea about. I don’t want to spoil them all but did you know crocodiles can live without food for up to 3 years? THREE YEARS!!!! What the?
Best Kids Book Recommendations

This is so fab for the animal lovers out there.
Best Kids Book Recommendations

AND there’s also ‘Animals of a Bygone Era‘ which is just the same but about animals that are extinct that you never knew existed! I got that one for my dino lover Miss 7.

Best Kids Book Recommendations

Yellow Kayak

Book Depository | Amazon

I really like this book! It’s beautiful!

Best Kids Book Recommendations

The book is mainly rhyming two-word phrases, and it’s a joy to read! If my kids want to read this one over and over then that’s fine with me, ha!Best Kids Book Recommendations

The story of a boy and his giraffe friend who set off in a yellow kayak for an adventure. It’s so dreamy!Best Kids Book Recommendations

I think the pictures speak for themselves. How beautiful is it? Just a delight people. A DELIGHT!

Best Kids Book Recommendations

Pandora

Book Depository | Amazon

Oh Pandora. It starts off a little bit heartbreaking but then ends up to be about hope, love, making the best of your situation, and how you can effect change. A heartwarming story.

Best Kids Book Recommendations

“Pandora lives alone, in a world of broken things. She made herself a handsome home, from all that people had left behind, but no one ever came to visit.”Best Kids Book Recommendations

Until one day a little bird needs her and she nurtures it back to health.Best Kids Book Recommendations

A beautiful story about connection, hope, and healing.

Best Kids Book Recommendations

Moon

Book Depository | Amazon

I got this book with Miss 4 in mind who is currently very interested in the moon. She asks to get the telescope out and look at it, and has lots of questions. I remember the other girls wondering about the moon and stars at the same age, I think it’s a common interest.Best Kids Book Recommendations

A lovely rhyming book that shows the moons phases and how it changes through the month.Best Kids Book Recommendations

Best Kids Book Recommendations

Return

Book Depository | Amazon

You might recognise this one, the final installment in this trilogy of wordless books. The previous two, Journey and Quest, are loved by the kids.Best Kids Book Recommendations

The illustrations are stunning as usual! The girls love that they don’t need to be able to read to tell the story.Best Kids Book Recommendations

I won’t spoil the ending, but if you enjoy wordless books then these are a must have.

Best Kids Book Recommendations

Look Up

Book Depository | Amazon

Another book for those interested in the stars, which Miss 7 is in particular. I love reading them stories of strong women, and this one is about Henrietta Leavitt an astronomer who was the first person to discover the significance of a star’s brightness.Best Kids Book Recommendations

I love how it starts with her as a child, wondering about the sky, just like my girls do.Best Kids Book Recommendations

The book talks about how as a woman working in the observatory she was expected to ‘work, not think’. Her job was only to record, measure, and calculate. But, she knew she had a mind and wanted to use it! She measured but she also took notes and discovered patterns. She kept studying in her spare time.Best Kids Book RecommendationsHenrietta’s discoveries were the first that allowed astronomers to measure the distance between the Earth and faraway galaxies.

————

What books are you or your children loving lately?

Best Kids Book Recommendations

Comments

Jessica Powers
April 8, 2018 at 6:04 pm

Our nearly 3 year old asks us to read Malala and the Magic Pencil over and over. And I am delighted every time she brings over Mrs. Mo’s Monster (I make the monster a girl).



Becca
April 8, 2018 at 10:09 pm

Lovely post!! These all look incredible!! Thank you 😊



April 9, 2018 at 5:03 am

Thanks for the excellent recommendations, and the surprising story regarding “The Lost Words.” I feel the Oxford Junior Dictionary may be measuring the wrong source: public school kids. The kids here still use otter, acorn, and raven on an almost daily basis. It puts me in mind of the story related by Colin Ward of a 4 year-old in Norway who frequently purchased fish for the family across town independently, and how Ward contrasted that to Piaget’s data stating that children below the age of 7 could not reason geospatially. Piaget was, of course, researching public school kids.



Erica
April 9, 2018 at 7:43 am

Hi, I love reading your posts about your books. Do you tend to look for books relating to the particular interests which your children have. I’d also be interested to know where you find your books? Thanks.



Dina
April 11, 2018 at 11:57 am

This so is exciting!!!! Thank you for these. I can’t wait to purchase these over time.. especially after babe isn’t as into ripping books but I may consider getting one even before.



Paula
August 16, 2018 at 8:20 am

Hi Sara, I’m looking for one book. I think I saw it on your blog but I can’t find it now. Maybe I am mistaken. So it’s fairy tales that you can read from the top of the page down or from the bottom up and they still make sense. Do you know this one? Thank you!



Clarissa
September 6, 2018 at 12:49 am

I just love your blog.



Leave a Reply