What Are the Top 10 Classic Books Parents Should Read to Their Kids
This question was posed to the Kids Marketing Group I belong to on Linked In. What To Do With The Kids Special Report posed this question and received suggestions from hundreds of people from around the world with more than 300 different books recommended. I found that all but of the books suggested have been released to DVD and most are included in our KIDS FIRST! Top 100 list. Here are the top 10 suggested:
1. Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown
2. Stone Soup by Marcia Brown
3. The Giving Tree by Shel Siverstein
4. The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams
5. Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
6. Curious George by Hans Augusto Rey
7. The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
8. Charlotte’s Web by Elwyn Brooks White
9. Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr. & John Archabault
10. Green Eggs & Ham by Dr. Suess
Goodnight Moon was produced by HBO Home Video (2005) in a wonderful version with guest stars such as Susan Sarandon, Tony Bennet, Natalie Cole, Billy Crystal and Patti Labelle. The kids and celebs collaborate in presenting classic bedtime stories including, the title story, Goodnight Moon. It’s truly an evergreen title. Weston Woods/Scholastic also created an anthology that is distributed through New Video and contains Goodnight Moon, A Creature Was Stirring and Gladys Goes Out to Lunch.
The Velveteen Rabbit has been produced by a number of companies. Last year, in our Film Critics Search Campaign, we featured the one starring Jane Seymous and Tom Skerritt, directed by Michael Landon Jr, produced by Feature Films for Families and distributed by Anchor Bay.
Where the Wild Things are was released as a feature film by Warner Bros and is now available in DVD or Blu-Ray. There is also a shorter version included as part of an anthology with other Maurice Sendak stories (The Nutshell Kids and In the Night Kitchen) produced by Weston Woods and available through New Video. There is also a version from Rabbit Ears narrated by Meryl Streep (2003).
Stone Soup was included in an anthology released by Weston Woods called, The Amazing Bone and Other Caldecott Classics. Other book based videos included are Where the Wild Things Are and Googles.
The Curious George books have been turned into many DVDs and are available through Universal both as a TV series and as DVDs. Recent DVD releases include: Curious George Goes Green, Curious George: Follow that Monkey!, Curious George: A Very Monkey Christmas, Curious George: Beats the Band and More, Curious George: Camping with Hundley, Curious George: Sea Monkey. Weston Woods also includes it in an anthony which includes Curious George Rides a Bike, The Great White Man-Eating Shark, Flossie and the Fox, The Happy Lion and Cat and the Canary.
The Very Hungry Caterpillar was released by Disney in 2006 as part of an anthology of Eric Carle’s most popular stories including Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me, The Very Quiet Cricket and I See a Song. It is also included in the HBO DVD Goodnight Moon and Other Sleepytime Tales and New Video’s Strego Nona…and More Caldecott Award-winning Folk Tales (Scholastic Video Collection 2004).
Charlotte’s Web, the classic story of loyalty, trust and sacrifice was released as a feature film by Paramount i 2007 starring the young Dakota Fanning with Julia Roberts playing the voice of Charlotte. It is available in DVD and Blu-ray.
Chicka Chicka Boom is offered as part of a collection through New Video which includes four animated children’s books (Trash Town, Rosie’s Walk, and the Caterpillar and the Poliwog) produced by Weston Woods.
Green Eggs and Ham is part of the Seuss collection released by Universal that includes The library says that it contains:
The Cat in the Hat, The Lorax, Pontofell Pock and His Magic Piano, Green Eggs and Ham, Sneetches, Zax, Grinch Night, The Grinch Grinches and Cat in the Hat and The Hoober-Bloob Highway.
If you are a new parent or grandparent or well-meaning auntie or uncle, your efforts to wow the child in your life will be well rewarded by including some or all of these to your DVD library. All are available online at amazon.com.
