“One day in class, Duncan went to take out his crayons and found a stack of letters with his name on them.” Duncan’s crayons write him a series of letters to plead their cases for better treatment, and the result is beautiful--and hilarious. All my kids, ages 3 to 10, love to hear this one read aloud. They die laughing at the peach crayon every time. Just read it--you’ll see what I mean.

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“I used to only play princess until Mommy showed me pictures and told me stories of real, great women....” Instead of the usual, this little girl dresses up as some of history’s great women: from aviator Amelia Earhart to jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald, scientist Marie Curie to Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor, there’s something--and someone--in these pages to capture every young girl’s imagination.

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When a pilot crash-lands his plane in the Sahara, he meets a charming young prince who’s fallen to earth from his tiny home planet, Asteroid B-612. This timeless tale is whimsical and wise, with just the right amount of absurdity. The watercolor illustrations spring to life in this gorgeous pop-up edition. More info →

“Good morning,” said the scissors to the pencil. “What shall we do today?” “Let’s make rabbits,” said the pencil. And so the pencil drew a rabbit, the scissors made one out of scraps of paper, and what happens next will surprise you. This is a great book, although let’s be honest: adults will think the ending’s kind of dumb. Read it anyway.

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A young girl doesn’t have the ingredients at home to make an apple pie, so she embarks on a whirlwind tour around the world to gather her (rather common) ingredients. She gets wheat from Italy, and sugar-cane from Jamaica. A fancy French hen delivers the needed egg, the milk comes from a British cow, and the cinnamon comes all the way from Sri Lanka! Age 5 and up.

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