Read to children and read with children!
Lisa TAM
Here are some reference books for you to start!
Lukens, Rebecca J. A critical handbook of children’s literature. Boston : Pearson. 2007.
Russell, David L. Literature for children: a short introduction. Boston: Pearson. 2009.
The Oxford encyclopedia of children’s literature. New York: Oxford University Press. 2006.
Funny & Humorous stories (boys’ choices)
Stories about princesses and fairies (often requested by girls)
Stories with animals as main characters, especially dogs
Realistic stories about school and family life, friendship, sibling rivalry, bully
Stories with positive messages but not preaching
Most of them have 32 pages
The illustrations play a very important role in the books
Most of the picture books are made for very young children but not all of them are so easy. Some
sophisticated picture books have profound messages and require a high level of understanding.
Caldecott award
His books are just perfect for beginning readers: the sentences are simple and repetitive, the stories are
humorous and childish, the illustrations are funny and appealing to children
Popular series: Elephant and Piggie, Pigeon
Genre: humorous animal stories
Mo Willems Official Homepage
His books are widely used by the lower primary English teachers around the world
Popular titles: The very hungry caterpillar, The grouchy ladybug, Papa, please get the moon for me, A house for hermit crab, Pancakes, pancakes, The tiny seed
Genre: animal stories
The Official Eric Carle Web Site
He was appointed the sixth Children’s Laureate in
2009. To many readers, his illustrations are even more powerful than the words in his books for delivering the stories.
Popular titles include My mom, My dad, My brother, How do you feel, Me and you, Changes
Genre: realistic stories and fantasy
The Gruffalo, The Gruffalo’s child, A squash and a squeeze, Charlie Cook’s favorite book, The magic brush
Julia Donaldson wrote children’s songs for TV
programs before and that’s why most of her popular stories are rhymed
Her most popular books were illustrated by Axel Scheffler
Genre: folk tales, stories in rhyme
Julia Donaldson Official Website
Popular titles include The Polar Express, Jumanji, Just a dream, Two bad ants, The garden of Adbul Gasazi
These titles are the examples of the sophisticated picture books
Genre – fantasy
Chris van Allsburg Website
She retells fairy tales and legends from different
culture, such as The empty pot, Liang and the magic brush, The Greatest treasure from Chinese culture. She also writes biographies about famous people such as Alexander the Great, Buddha, Marco Polo
Genre: Legends and biography
Demi homepage
Black Lagoon series: stories about children’s fear relate to school settings with humor
Titles include The teacher from the Black Lagoon, The principal from the Black Lagoon, The librarian from the Black Lagoon
Genre – humorous fiction
The author of the popular Captain Underpants series
His Dumb bunnies series is a good example for what kids like to read - they may not have a high level of literary achievement but they made kids feel that reading is fun!
Genre – humorous fiction/animal stories
Dav Pilkey Website
The Fancy Nancy series is the example of “girlish picture books”
The Fancy Nancy stories teach young readers a lot of
“fancy words”, such as “posh” means “fancy”,
“conceal is a fancy word for hide”.
Kids expand their vocabularies when they just read for fun
Genre – humorous stories
Titles include Lilly’s big day, Lilly’s purple plastic purse, Owen,Wemberly worried,
Chester’s way
Stories about school life and daily life with mice as main characters
Genre – animal stories but even the stories
have animals as main characters the contents
are actually realistic
Curious George series
Titles include Curious George rides a bike, Curious George takes a job, Curious George feeds the animals
The main character is a very curious and active monkey who makes mistakes because of his
curiosities. But he always learn something from the experiences
Genre – animal story
Titles include Two of everything, Prince Cinders,
Princess Smartypants, Long live Princess Smartypants, Smartypants rules, Bad habits
The stories have unconventional viewpoints which make readers see things differently
Genre - humorous stories
They are also called bridging books, which serve as a bridge for young readers to move from reading books mainly with pictures to the books with more words.
There are several chapters in a story. Readers don’t have to finish the whole book at once. They can stop at a certain chapter of the story and continue to read it again when they have time
Young readers can be very proud of themselves if they start to read chapter books
Titles include Hi, Fly Guy, Super Fly Guy, Shoo Fly Guy, Fly Guy meets Fly Girl
The series is very appealing to boy readers even the struggling readers.
It makes young readers feel that they can read the books with chapters and build up their confidence
Genre-humor fiction/animal stories
Rotten Ralph series for younger readers (The author won the Newbery Honor for his Joey Pigza series
but these titles are for G5 or above)
Titles include Not so rotten Ralph, Rotten Ralph feels rotten, Rotten Ralph’s rotten romance
Kids see themselves when they read about
mischievous things Rotten Ralph (a red cat) had done
Genre - Humorous animal stories
http://www.jackgantos.com/
Nate the Great series
The main character is a boy detective who pays attention to all the details to solve the mysterious cases or find the missing items.
The stories were written in very short and simple sentences. The author also used very easy words so young readers can read on their own.
Genre – mystery
Horrid Henry series
Short stories about a very naughty boy who also has the problem of sibling rivalry
Kids can make connection with the mischievous behavior of Horrid Henry and his relation with his younger brother Perfect Peter.
Genre – humorous and realistic fiction
The main character is a girl who uses her sharp memory to solve a lot of mysterious case
Young Cam Jansen series is for younger readers and Cam Jansen series is for chapter book readers
Genre: Mystery
Cam Jansen Website
My weird school series – titles include Mrs. Roopy is loopy, Coach Hyatt is a riot, Ms. Krup cracks me up, Mr. Granite is from another planet
The adult characters in the books are “weird” in students’ eyes but what they did were fun and educational!
The books are popular among both boys and girls
Humorous school stories
Rainbow magic series is about two girls meet different kinds of fairies such as rainbow fairies, jewel fairies, flower fairies and help them to outwit their enemy and restore their magic power
The titles are very attractive to the girl readers who start to read chapter books
Genre: fantasy
Rainbow Magic Official Site
A to Z Mysteries
26 titles in the series – The absent author, The bald bandit, The canary caper, The deadly dungeon…The kidnapped king…The panda puzzle…The zombie zone
Ron Roy also has published other two series- Calendar mysteries and Capital mysteries
Genre - mystery
Louis Sachar’s The holes won the Newbery Medal in 1999
Marvin Repost series – Titles include Kipnapped at birth?, Why pick on me? Is he a girl? Alone in his
teacher’s house, Class president, A flying birthday cake
Wayside school series – Wayside school is falling
down, Sideway stories from Wayside school, Wayside school gets a little stranger
Genre-humorous fiction
Marc Brown creates the unique image for Arthur and his friends: they have human’s body and animal’s head, with funny and childish facial expressions.
Popular titles include Arthur’s teacher trouble, Arthur’s popularity test. Stories about Arthur are both available in picture books and chapter books series
Genre: realistic stories, animal stories
Biographies for children
The title starts with “Who was…” such as Who was Marco Polo?
Include a lot of titles about famous people such as Queen Elizabeth, William Shakespeare, Anne Frank, Charles Darwin, Thomas Edison…more than 20 titles
You wouldn’ want to be…series
Include more than 30 titles such as You wouldn’t want to sail on the Titanic, You wouldn’t want to be an aristocrat in the French Revolution
The humorous writing and funny illustrations show children why “you wouldn’t want to” live in that
period of time and readers can learn something about history without being bored.
Shel Silverstein – The giving tree, Falling up, A light in the attic, Where the sidewalk ends, The missing piece
Jack Prelutsky – A pizza the size of the sun, The new kid on the block,
Book talks – genres, series, authors
Work closely with English teachers- poetry writing contest, curriculum topics such as plants
Book fairs & author visits
Love of Reading Week – Drop Everything And Read (DEAR), buddy reading, Reading Passport, character day and book swap
Questions?
Comments?
