Random Reading: Today's Picture Books

Occasionally I just get a stack of picture books that I've collected form the library and we sit and read through them. They might be all of a theme or quite random. Today, after finishing our chapter read-aloud book, I read three picture books that all three kids LOVED:

• The Important Book by Margaret Wise Brown (illustrated by Leonard Weisgard) – here’s one I’d never heard of by the author of the well-known Goodnight Moon. This is a very cute book about important things – spoons, daisies, snow, etc – and the most important being “you”!
• Nature’s Paintbox: a seasonal gallery of art and verse by Patricia Thomas (illustrated by Craig Orback) – would be a fabulous book for a seasons unit or an art unit or just a wonderful book to sit, listen and enjoy! Starting with pen and ink drawings of winter, the author than describes spring as being like chalk pastels, summer as being bright and clean as watercolors, and autumn as colorful as oils. What a great way to try different art media!
• Babar’s World Tour by Laurent de Brunhoff is one of the Babar books I had never seen before. I love Babar – we used to have to read his books in French class when I was in elementary school and I STILL loved the adventures in Celesteville! This one would be great for kicking off a continent unit or just having a bit of fun with geography – and you’ll learn a few vocabulary words in different languages too!

These kind of days (particularly on a blustery, snowy off-and-on kind of day like today) are always such fun. I just never know where we'll go with books like these ... atlases were pulled out to find the various locations mentioned in the Babar book, we have decided to try different art media based on the Paintbox book and the Margaret Wise Brown book was just a wonderfully gentle book to cuddle with!

So what books would you recommend I collect for our next Random Reading day?