My Favourite Kids Books
My Dad is coming to visit me here in a few weeks, which always makes me a bit nostalgic for my childhood. Living far apart from my family is hard, so when I have people come to visit, it inevitably brings back memories that I’d forgotten since I moved away from home. Other than relying on family taking pity on me and flying out here to visit, I can also use my childhood books as a way to connect with my past. When you become an avid reader like myself, there’s a good chance that you devoured a ton of books when you were a kid, and I’m no different. Below are a few of my favourite kids books.
The Balloon Tree by Phoebe Gilman is a beautiful book. It’s got a nice (short) story and the pictures are stunning. You may also remember the “Jillian Jiggs” books that featured cute little pigs-this is the same author. And get this: Gilman was not only the author, but the illustrator as well. This author is what people in the publishing industry call a GOLDMINE.I suspect one of the main reasons I liked this book so much as a kid was because it featured a balloon tree that was rainbow, and I had a particularly love of rainbows from the age of 5-13, as I’m sure many young girls did. My friends can attest to this.
Another favourite book of mine was The Jolly Postman series, by Janet and Allan Ahlberg. There were three books in this series, and they were amazing because each page was its own little envelope that held a letter or small package that the postman was delivering. The Jolly Christmas Postman was great because some of the envelopes contained little puzzles or games that you could play with. Never underestimate the power of an interactive book, it clearly did wonders for my childhood imagination, and is the main reason I’ve saved this book for 25 (plus) years.
The last children’s book I wanted to highlight was a very important book to my adulthood-or should I say, the beginnings of it. M is for Moose by Charles Pachter was the first book I worked on as a book publicist. Because it was wildly successful, I was thrown into a world I knew nothing about, but immediately loved. A world of television shoots, radio shows, cold-calling producers and pitching to crotchety book reviewers was something I will never forget, and I have Cormorant Books to thank for this trial by fire introduction into the Canadian book publishing industry. Pachter was also a lovely author to work with, and I’ll never forget his generosity and humor. So in closing-the point of this post? Turns out kids books aren’t just for kids!
