Favourite kids' books

I realized I was missing a very important category of books in my review of 2009 - childrens'.

So, here are a baker's dozen of some of the books that make us laugh out loud, or that have beautiful illustrations or that we just really like. Top honours goes to "The Story of Frog Belly Rat Bone" by Timothy Basil Ering, a beautiful, whimsical tale of greening 'cementland' that we delight in reading over and over again. In a similar vein is "Miss Rumphius" by Barbara Cooney.

A brace of beautifully illustrated stories are "The Wild Girl" by Chris Wormell, and "The Raft" by Jim LaMarche. In bibliography, we love Brian Wildsmith's "Saint Francis." In traditional tales, Margot Zemach's "It Could Always Be Worse" is a favourite.

In the fun category are "Tacky the Penguin" by Helen Lester/Lynn Munsinger and "Todos Hacemos Caca" by Taro Gomi. In the fun for kids, but especially for adults category are "Where's My Cow?" by Terry Pratchett/Melvyn Grant and "Duck for President" by Doreen Cronin/Betsy Lewin.

Finally, the family favourites. These tend to be a moving target, but here are ones we read on a regular basis. For Maggie: "The Paper Bag Princess" by Robert Munsch/Michael Martchenko, which ends with the immortal lines, "'Ronald,' said Elizabeth, 'your clothes are really pretty and your hair is very neat. You look like a real prince, but you are a bum.' They didn't get married after all." For Seth: "Skippyjon Jones" by Judy Schachner - "Holy Frijoles!" - whose website is as cool as her book. And then, when we just need some pre-school humour, "Pooh! Is That You Bertie?" by David Roberts - the family that boffs together, stays together!