by Stephen Fife-Adams

Created on: December 21, 2006   Last Updated: May 08, 2007

I have a four-year-old daughter who, luckily for me, has never seemed to get "stuck" on a favorite book for weeks at a time. This has allowed me to survey a wide range of picture books and early readers, and we have recently started in earnest on chapter books. This article will focus on the picture books, which may be enjoyed by a wide range of ages. Here are some of her favorites, and mine.

Zen Shorts by Jon J. Muth. As the siblings Addy, Michael and Karl get to know Stillwater the Panda, who speaks with a "slight panda accent," he tells each of them a story adapted from a Zen koan. Muth's paintings are extraordinary, and the stories Stillwater tells are both funny and enlightening. This is my personal favorite picture book. My daughter likes it too, but not that much.

The Olivia books by Ian Falconer. Olivia the pig likes to be loud, has to try on everything to find the right outfit, and is never, ever tired, except when she wears herself out. Sounds just like a certain four-year-old I know. These books started out more as daddy favorites (much of the humor is easier for an adult to appreciate), but in the past couple of months they've caught on with my daughter as well. The first book was all in black, white and red; as subsequent books have been published (there are currently four), Falconer has added additional colors, and part of the fun comes from having your child figure out what the new color is.

Francine, Francine the Beach Party Queen by Audrey Colman. Francine the dog narrates her own story in rhyming couplets. The unhappy and unloved pet of the "boring, persnickety Crabapple clan," forced to eat "Bland Brand Nuggets" and stifle her natural exuberance, Francine runs away and finds a true home with a dance troupe who call themselves the Dancing Fools. Colman did the computer-generated illustrations for the Walter the Farting Dog books; her style is unmistakeable. I admit I've grown weary of it, but this one has been a source of ongoing fascination for my daughter.

The Miss Bindergarten books by Joseph Slate and Ashley Wolff. Miss Bindergarten, an Australian sheep dog, shepherds a class of 26(!) kids through a wild year of kindergarten. Each child is represented as a different animal whose name starts with a different letter of the alphabet (Fran the Frog, Lenny the Lion, Quentin the Quokka, etc.). There are several of these books now, but my daughter's favorites continue to be the first one (Miss Bindergarten Gets Ready for Kindergarten) and the one

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