I often find myself wondering if elementary school students today are reading the same books that I was reading back in the day. Even though new books get written, I like to think that some will be read by generations of children who want to read them to their own children someday.

Here are a few of my favorites books from early childhood, mostly pre-elementary to elementary school. I know I’ll have more to add to this soon:

• The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
  
• The Art Lesson by Tomie DePaola
  
• Tikki Tikki Tembo by Arlene Mosel
  
• Good Night Moon by Margaret Wise Brown
  
• Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson
  
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
  
• If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numeroff
  
• Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle series  by Betty MacDonald
  
• Wayside School series by Louis Sachar
  
• Max and Ruby series by Rosemary Wells
  

Honorable mention goes to The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg, because it was kind of a tradition for me to read it every holiday season although I don’t remember much about it. (You know that all I really took away from the movie was that stellar hot chocolate musical number.)

Another honorable mention is Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, which I never really loved as a child, to be completely honest. But again, it was kind of a tradition for me to read it when I was young.

I definitely have more to add, but I’ll leave you with these for now. I had fun reminiscing, so I’ll be back with more!

What were your favorite childhood books? Did I mention any of them? Which ones did I miss? Have you read all of these?