Best Childrens Books
The Best Childrens Books for Your Child!

Description

Now every kid can write like a Wimpy Kid! An exciting companion to the bestselling Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. “First of all, let me get something straight: This is a journal, not a diary.” This innovative interactive journal based on Greg Heffley’s own “diary” lets kids express themselves in an exciting new way...

Reviews

Mike's review

by Michael Boyd from SAINTE GENEVIEVE, MO, US on 2010-04-14
Fantastic book. My two youngest kids - my son and daughter, respectively - loved the Diary of a Wimpy Kid Do it Yourself book. It actually was for my son, but my daughter kept stealing it from him and writing her own things in it, thus creating arguments (typical for those two anyway). Now they both want more Wimpy Kid books from the series and she wants her own Do It Yourself book. I now have ideas for useful birthday and Christmas presents that's not another toy and motivates them to put their day and thoughts in written words and do so creatively. THANK YOU Jeff Kinney. As a longtime sportswriter, I feel writing, especially a journal or diary, is very important at every age. :) Mike Boyd Ste. Genevieve, Mo.

They love it!

by Noname from on 2010-05-13
I have a kindergartener and a third grader who are gung ho over "Diary of a Wimpy Kid Do-It-Yourself Book." My 8 year-old son, who never enjoyed writing, is writing every day in his own diary. The kids fought over it until my kindergartener went out and bought her own. I asked my son what was so special about this diary. He said it asks him questions. I looked and half the book is filled with pages prompting things like "Five things nobody knows about you because they never bothered to ask" or "The worst nightmare you ever had." There are 16 pages of full color Zoo-Wee Mama comics followed by lined blank pages for the children to write freely. This Do-It-Yourself Book is a hit. My kids have shown their books to all their friends and I've seen other kids toting them around, as well. It inspired my children to go on and buy their own private locked diaries after having gone through this one. If you have a "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" fan, this book is sure to delight.

Description

Science has never been so easy - or so much fun! With The Everything Kids' Science Experiments Book, all you need to do is gather a few household items and you can recreate dozens of mind-blowing, kid-tested science experiments...

Reviews

Everything you need to have fun...(and learn, too)

by Reader from Dublin, Ireland on 2002-03-09
This is a great book, chock-a-block w/ very accessible experiments. One of the best features is the way the experiments are grouped together: a 'theme' (say, Acids, in the Chemistry section) will have a group of experiments of varying degrees of complexity that together add up to a pretty good understanding of the concept. Also, most of the materials are readily at hand- for many of them we really did already have everything in the house. This is esp. gratifying for the kids, who of course want to do the experiment *right now*. I would imagine that home-schooling families would enjoy this, but our school-going kids enjoy doing these experiments after school & on weekends. p.s., one of the easiest experiments is also a real showstopper, though it takes a couple of days to complete: dissolving the eggshell of an egg, leaving the egg inside intact!

Science fun for kids of all ages!

by Dave Wright from Kent, WA on 2001-10-21
Wow, what a great book! My kids love it. It is set up as a series of activities that begin with a question followed by an experiment that answers the question. Questions such as "How do you peel a raw egg?", "Does air take up space?" and "Why can't I taste medicine when I plug my nose?" are all examples of questions posed in the book. The fun is in the experiment that answers the question. I think I counted something like 30 different experiments from 5 main science areas (biology, chemistry, physics, planet earth, and the human body). Following each area is a "science fair project" for the kids to use at the next science fair at school! What a great resource it will be for our family in the years to come. All in all a great book at a great price.

Reviews

Common sense, practical ideas for challenging students

by Jill A. Lindberg from Milwaukee, WI United States on 2001-10-19
I have collected many useful books on classroom management and have even written one of my own. This book offers realistic insights into what motivates these challenging kids as well as a variety of excellent strategies and ideas that absolutely can be implemented by classroom teachers. In addition, it suggests a number of resources to help teachers in the area of behavior, social, and academic assessments for these students. I am a mentor teacher and have recommended this book to my colleagues as well as classroom teachers and university professors. It's just great!

Tools that Teach

by from on 2000-03-30
This book provides useful, simple, free strategies to deal with every type of student! In addition, it allows students to take ownership of their behaviors. When this occurs, students begin to realize the inherent rewards that come with fabulous behavior!

Description

The first four books in the bestselling Diary of a Wimpy Kid series are available together for the first time in a collectible boxed set. Included are Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Rodrick Rules, The Last Straw, and Dog Days, in a specially designed package that features six pages from Rowley Jefferson’s journal, “Diary of an Awesome, Friendly Kid”—an original cartoon by Jeff Kinney.

Reviews

Or why you never want to play a tree in a school production of The Wizard of Oz

by E. R. Bird from Manhattan, NY on 2007-03-25
The world has not yet invented a method of finding the best webcomics currently available on the Internet for kids. So basically, for every twenty low-quality/poorly thought out amalgamations of crap, you get one bright shining star. "Diary of a Wimpy Kid," the webcomic, was one such star. The only conclusion I can really draw at this point is that somebody at Abrams is a friggin' genius for plucking the comic up and making it into a book. Now normally I don't like to separate titles into "girl books" and "boy books", but Jeff Kinney has written such a marvelous "boy book" that for every parent that walks in the door of my library I'm going to be cramming this title into their arms. Heck, I'll slip it into their purses if I have to. This book is going to reach its intended audience whether I have to wrestle skeptical parents to the floor with it clamped firmly in my teeth. Want to transfer your Captain Underpants lovers from graphic novels to fiction? This book won't do that. It's just something that every single person will get a kick out of. First things first. Boys do not have diaries. Girls have diaries. Let's get that straight cause things could get messy if we don't. Basically, what we have here are the gathered thoughts and memories of Greg Haffley. Greg's got a pretty average life, all things considered. His older brother is a jerk, his younger brother annoying, his best friend a doofus, and his parents perfect dweebs. To top it all off, Greg's been thrown into his first year of middle school and things are really weird. Suddenly friendships are shifting and Greg's not sure who he wants to be. Add in some haunted houses, wrestling, downhill games involving bodily injury, forbidden cheese, and basic family fears and you've got yourself one heckuva debut. I should specify that in spite of the fact that this book is based on a webcomic, it's not a graphic novel. Not really. Comic illustrations appear on every single page and complement the storytelling, but this is really more a (what's the term again?) illustrated novel. What this appears to be, more than anything else, is a notebook that's been written in by hand with the occasional cartoony illustration here and there for effect. It never breaks up into panels or long illustrated periods. There are just tasty little comic treats on each and every page. Now the term "laugh-out-loud funny" is not to be bandied about. When I say that something is "laugh-out-loud funny" I don't want to be talking titters, mild chuckles, or undersized, underfed guffaws. I want to describe something so amusing that you think about it later and start laughing in an embarrassing manner on the subway. Jeff Kinney gave me that more than once. There was the moment when Greg's trying to get out of performing as an apple-throwing tree in his school's production of, "The Wizard of Oz." He thinks that maybe if he screws up what he has to say, that might be his out. "But when you only have one word to say, it's really hard to mess up your lines." The next thing we know, "Dorothy" has picked an apple and Greg's trying out a tentative, "Owwwchhh?" Oh! And the form thank you letters! Greg figures out that he says basically the same thing to all his relatives. So he just cranks out a form letter and fills in the details. This works great until he gets to something like, "Dear AUNT LORETTA, Thank you so much for the awesome PANTS! How did you now I wanted that for Christmas? I love the way the PANTS looks on my LEGS! All my friends will be so jealous that I have my very own PANTS." I think I was laughing over this for a good three hours after I read it. There's something particularly charming about Kinney's illustration/cartoons too. The lines are incredibly clean and precise, even as they are showing some pretty raucous stuff. Kinney's grasp on visual gags is without comparison. At one point Greg happens to mention that if you "mess up in front of Dad" (i.e. kick over your little brother's toys maliciously) he'll throw whatever he has in his hands at you. We then see two shots of Greg misbehaving. The first is labeled, "GOOD TIME TO SCREW UP:" and shows him kicking over some blocks while his dad is holding the newspaper. The second reads, "BAD TIME TO SCREW UP:" and shows him doing it while his dad is cementing together a brick wall. Comedy gold, people! The comics are drawn over lined paper, making the whole enterprise really feel as if you're poring through someone else's journal. And for all that, the writing's not too shabby. When Greg talks about week-ends he says, "The only reason I get out of bed at all on weekends is because eventually, I can't stand the taste of my own breath anymore." Been there. Tasted that. Kinney's able to point out all kinds of funny school details we adults may have forgotten, but that kids will recognize instantly. For example, why should you tell kids that "It's great to be you," when a lot of people really should think about changing themselves? We see two bullies shoving some poor kid down at this point yelling, "It's great to be me!," you you have to concede the point. I mean, Kinney remembers what it was like to roll a really big snowball and then see that you were ripping up the grass on your lawn in the process. No one remembers that! Characters are also lovingly delineated, not only in words, but in their little comic illustrations. Take as your example the character of Greg's fellow student and neighbor Fregley. Fregley is weird. So how would you, as the writer/cartoonist, convey this? You might want to have him say things like, "Wanna see my secret freckle?". You might draw him with a mouth wider than his head. You might have him stabbing kites in his front yard, shirtless. For a start, anyway. Every character in this book feels real. Even Greg's annoying, practically mute, little brother. And so much more. Such as the name of Greg's older brother's band. Loaded Diaper, only it's spelled "Loded Diper" with an umlaut over the "o". Greg suspects his brother thinks that it really is spelled that way. And there are the small failures and triumphs of your average pre-adolescent. No one in their right mind would ever want to return to the days of Middle School, but if Jeff Kinney keeps churning out books like this one, I'll follow him there any day of the week. This title has already been getting some pretty choice reviews here and there. Can I make a nomination for funniest children's book of 2007? Consider it a necessary purchase.

Hilarious Even for Adults

by Noah D. Karchmer from Maryland on 2007-12-08
I learned of this book in my University of Maryland alumni magazine and I'm very glad I did. The author, Jeff Kinney, wrote a popular comic strip called "Igdoof" in the early 90's for the Maryland student newspaper, the Diamondback. His comic alone made me look forward to each new issue of the paper and I continued to seek it out even after I graduated to read Kinney's comic. From what I understand, he fought to get the strip syndicated after he graduated, but it never happened- presumably because his somewhat simplistic and crude artistic style is nothing like what you see in the daily comics sections. I had often wondered what became of Kinney, whose considerable talent should not be going to waste, so I was happy to pick this book up once I discovered it. The book, likely written for kids at or above a fifth or sixth grade reading level, was better reading for a 37 year old than I could have possibly imagined. Kinney picks up right where he left off with the Igdoof strip with the very same humor and art that made me enjoy it so much. The book was laugh-out-loud funny throughout and I would recommend it to not only kids, but anyone who can appreciate humor books. I wish Jeff all the success in the world and look forward to reading more of his works-- he has really found his calling.

Description

One of the classic Little Critter picture book titles by Mercer Mayer, this simple story shows our preschool hero resisting his father's efforts to get him ready for bed. By the end of the book Little Critter's understanding father has finally succeeded in moving his energetic, imaginative son through bathtime and pyjamatime into sleeptime.

Reviews

WE LOVE LIL' CRITTER

by jjlamont from Albany, OR USA on 2002-03-06
A perfect book for reading just before tucking your toddler into bed. A great book for fathers and sons to read together and an absolutely heartwarming book that all kids and parents can relate. We give this book as a gift. It really encourages reading before bedtime. Our other favorite book is "Going to Sleep on the Farm" by Wendy Cheyette Lewison.

Mercer Mayer is a genius

by M. Green from New Castle, DE on 2007-04-09
He writes so that kids and parents both get it. His irony is hillarious and the kids totally enjoy that their feelings are portrayed. LOVE it.