Customer Reviews

New York Times Parent's Guide to the Best Books for Children

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a wonderful tool for parents trying to guide their children's early reading intelligently. The organization of the book and the descriptions of each book are generally helpful, though information about age level and number of pages should have been included. Organizing categories in the main listing are vaguely defined (wordless books, picture books, story books, early reading books, middle reading books and young adult books), making the indexes the better access point. These indexes are sufficient to help you find a relevant book. There is: a title list; an author list; an illustrator list; an age appropriate list (which might have based a better organization for the main listing); a read-aloud list; and a subject list of 53 headings, including Adoption, Adventure, Alphabet, Bedtime, Divorce, Horses and Nature.

The author renders a valuable service in examining multiple editions of popular books, for example you might find that one particular treatment of the Mother Goose tales is rather musical and illustrated with pen and ink drawings, while another is more colorfully animated and textually simplified for very young readers.

Unless you really know children's literature, a book like this is an invaluable tool. Similar but more directed resources are Great Books for Boys and Great Books for Girls by Kathleen Odean, which is organized into reading levels and then genre, and includes age level but not page count. Jim Trelease's The Read-Aloud Handbook is a very good, somewhat evangelical, resource organized by genre with age level and page count included in the description.

This book is very straight-forward and easy to use, chock full of useful information. The organization is simple, and listings are complete (containing year published and prizes received, as well as author, illustrator and edition info) and informative. Not only do they give information about the content and it's value to a child, but also its source and its context and an opinion about the best edition in which to invest and the availability of different editions (where useful)!

Wide margins are included, for note-taking.

There are multiple indexes at the end which are invaluable in themselves - about 80 pages worth! The titles are indexed by title, author, illustrator, age-appropriate, and special subject. A bibliography is also included.

This resource is a valuable and delightful resource for any family

This book was exactly what I was looking for to find new books to read aloud to my children. It reminded me of books that I had read as a child, and suggested new ones that we have loved. In addition, I have a lot of new ideas for presents for my neices and nephews.

This is great for early books, for books for toddlers and early readers. The description gives the impression that it is a guide for many years of childhood. My boys are 7 and 8 and there is nothing in this book for them.
But my neices are 1 and 2 and their Mom will be getting this book for Christmas.

This is a great book with tons of books listed. But, it could be better... The book descriptions are very terse (usually only one or two sentences). .... A couple other things missing that I would have liked to see is the number of pages in each book and approximate reading level (ex. low-4th grade). That would make this guide more useful when picking a book for a book report. Overall the quantity and quality of the books listed and the index in the back that cross-references the books based on subject interests makes this book an invaluable resource.

It's not the end-all of children's book research (Amazon is just as useful) but the NY Times Guide can be a valuable tool and resource for parents in the early years.

Pros
-- Useful author index that points you to other books by authors you enjoy
-- Useful topic index, with topics such as health, death, history...
-- Helpful, though short, description of many popular books
-- It is particularly good, for example, when you looking up topic ideas -- as when you need a children's book on adoption or death
-- Good for those times when you are looking for ideas but can't quite put you finger on what you want to buy or check out of the library next
-- In addition to using the book as a source of ideas, I also use it to keep track of books we have enjoyed or loathed.


Cons
-- My principle complaint is that there are so many good authors that are not covered. For example, how can they not mention the Rev. Awdry, author of the many Thomas the Tank Engine stories. Also, I have found their `early reading section' to be deficient. They do not include any primers or series. Not even all of the dozens and dozens of Margaret Hillert.

Four Stars. [B-]. A useful resource for parents or other buyers of children books.

Find a list of what's actually in the Indices below (since it's not listed elsewhere):

Index to Indexes
Index to All Titles
Index of Authors
Index of Illustrators
Age Appropriate Indexes
Read-Aloud Index
Special Subject Index

Now is 2005, so this book is four years old. I wanted to write an updated review here to let anyone who is considering a copy of this volume that I think it would be worth it to pick up a used copy for five bucks or so. Obviously, it doesn't include anything that's been published in the last four years, so in that sense, it's utility can be limiting, but most of the books that are reviewed are still in print. One of the book's features that I appreciated the most was that it includes a bibliography of wordless books, and unlike other such lists I have found, most of the books are actually in print and I don't have to try to order a copy from some small press overseas.

Another thing I've used this book for is for suggestions for birthday presents for my nieces. Since they're not the same age as my kids, I'm not as familar with what they might be ready to read.

Parents' Guide to the Best Books for Children appears in its third revised, updated edition to provide the hundreds of new entries, expanded descriptions, and notes on related recommended children's books. Parents will find the organization by reading level lends to quick and easy consultation, while the indexes make it easy to match child to book subject.

Great reference book for beginning teachers to have. It will give you a clue as to what books to supply in your classroom. Also, excellent book for parents because it gives them an idea of what GOOD BOOKS their child needs to be reading

Parents or young readers,do you want a book for a books?Ok,just buy "The new york guide to the best books"