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

Eden Ross Lipson (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Now in its third edition, revised and updated, The New York Times Parent's Guide to the Best Books for Children by Eden Ross Lipson cites the top 1,001 children's books of the 20th century. In her introduction, the children's book editor of the Times describes the Harry Potter phenomenon and its impact on adult and child readers as well as the blurring lines between books for young adults versus adults. The titles, divided by age range into six sections, progress from wordless books to "middle reading books" classics such as E.B. White's Charlotte's Web and Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (as well as J.K. Rowling's British boy wizard), through young adult books such as S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders and Walter Dean Myers's Scorpions. Plenty of white space allows room for artwork in the margins, such as a fabulous view of a certain lovable elephant riding down an elevator, from Jean de Brunhoff's The Story of Babar. (Crown/Three Rivers, $18 paper all ages ISBN 0-8129-3018-5; Nov.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

From Booklist

This revised and updated guide to some of the best American children's books of the twentieth century retains many of the features that made the previous editions so successful. Written in the same warm, insightful language as her annotations, Lipson's new introduction notes the inclusion of more biographies, history, science, and books about diverse cultural experiences than the previous editions. Broadened to include emerging classics and favorites from the 1990s, the entries include award winners through 1999. The multiple indexes are here again, grouping books by title, author, illustrator; age appropriateness; read-aloud potential and special interests--from the specific (cats) to the general (family life). The format, too, is similar to that of the previous volumes, with well-reproduced illustrations from selected titles and wide margins that leave room for recording children's reactions to the titles, etc. Finely written and organized, this is a resource no library (or parent) should be without. Gillian Engberg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 528 pages
• Publisher: Three Rivers Press; Revised edition (September 24, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812918894
• ISBN-13: 978-0812918892
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.1 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #2,305,088 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

71 of 72 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars very helpful, but not perfect, September 28, 2001

By	audrey (white mtns) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The New York Times Parent's Guide to the Best Books for Children: 3rd Edition Revised and Updated (Paperback)

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.

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Delightful resource for involved parents!, November 9, 2003

By	Sokste "KtS" (Minneapolis, MN U.S.A.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The New York Times Parent's Guide to the Best Books for Children (Paperback)

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

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great! Exactly whatI was looking for!, December 2, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: The New York Times Parent's Guide to the Best Books for Children (Paperback)

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.