One thing I am eternally grateful to my mum for is her instilling a love of books and reading in me early on. She made it fun. Thanks, Mum! Here are a list of 9 children’s books I remember loving when I was a little kid.

Staff reporter Ian Bartholomew writes:

“… there is lots of good acting, a splendid plot and a string of mildly funny literary jokes (referencing The Wizard of Oz, Peter Pan and Sinbad the Sailor) mean that there is plenty to be getting on with.

…

So without giving away any more of the story, Inkheart can be recommended wholeheartedly as ideal Lunar New Year viewing for the whole family. One or two sequences might be upsetting for very young children, but on the whole the mood is playful rather than frightening, and its loosely allegorical treatment of a reader’s relationship with the books gives it some depth as well.”

I’ve never read Inkheart so if I see the movie, I won’t be able to judge which is better. If you have read the book and do see the movie, I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts.

Inkheart opens in theatres on Friday, January 23.

The Nassau County Museum of Art (Roslyn Harbor, NY)  is launching a new Ridder MiniArtMuseum for Children with a fantastic exhibition designed to capture the attention of young museum visitors. Babar’s Museum of Art opens at the NCMA on January 18 and runs through May 26, 2009.

Featuring Laurent De Brunhoff’s illustrations, Babar’s Museum of Art introduces children to some of the world’s greatest works of art but with a bit of a modification – all human subjects are replaced with elephants!

Babar’s Museum of Art started as a book to introduce children to notable works of art found in museums and galleries throughout the world.  The exhibit, which has been a feature of art museums worldwide, displays the original illustrations created by Laurent de Brunhoff  for the book. (In the UK, the book is known as Babar’s Gallery.)

Everyone who loves art, Babar, or children will love Babar’s Museum of Art. The old train station in Celesteville stands empty—should it be torn down? “No!” declare Celeste and Babar, who decide to turn it into an art museum. Their children (like many young museum-goers) have a lot of questions about art: “Does it have to be pretty? Does it have to be old? Does it have to make sense?” Celeste’s patient answers explain the basic ideas of art appreciation. Babar and Celeste’s generous donations to the new museum include witty and striking elephant-inspired version of Michelangelo’s Creation of Man, George Seurat’s A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, and Sandro Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, along with many other celebrated paintings. Children and adults will want to visit Babar’s Museum of Art again and again!

Even if you don’t ever get to see the exhibit, the book is a great way to introduce children to art.  It’s also good for a chuckle!

Everyone participating in the World Record Attempt must read the complete Munschworks 2 collection by Robert Munsch or the 5 individual books from the collection in the following order:

1. Pigs
2. Mortimer
3. Purple, Green and Yellow
4. Murmel, Murmel, Murmel
5. Something Good

The Family Literacy Day World Record Attempt will be held across Canada at various locations on January 23 and January 24, 2009. For full details, registration and event location information, or if you would like to host an event, visit the ABC CANADA site.

“You can’t stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.” — Winnie the Pooh

Move over Britney Spears and New Kids on the Block, Winnie-the-Pooh is making a comeback!

80 years after the last official Pooh sequel, The House at Pooh Corner, a new book featuring the bear of little brain is due out in October. Return to the Hundred Acre Wood is the first authorized sequel, with the blessing of the estates of both author A.A. Milne and the most notable Pooh illustrator, E.H. Shepard.

Return to the Hundred Acre Wood author, David Benedictus is not new to the world of Pooh. He has adapted and produced audio versions of Milne’s books starring big names such as Dame Judi Dench, Stephen Fry and Jane Horrocks. Illustrator, Mark Burgess has also worked with residents of Hundred Acre Wood having illustrated Winnie-the-Pooh’s Pop-up Theatre Book and Peek-a-Pooh!

The actual plot of the new book is being kept secret but rumour has it that the book is a continuation in which Christopher Robin grows up.

In a press release Benedictus said, “I hope that the new book will both complement and maintain Milne’s idea that whatever happens, a little boy and his bear will always be playing.”

Two-thirds of profits from the book are to be donated to charities including the Britain’s Royal Literary Fund for struggling authors and the Clare Milne Trust, which supports disability projects in Devon and Cornwall.

Welcome back, Pooh!

Children’s author, Joyce Barkhouse was named as a Member to the Order of Canada on December 30. The Order of Canada is the highest civilian honour within the country and recognizes a lifetime of distinguished service.

The Nova Scotia native is honoured for her contributions to children’s literature and the Canadian literary community.  The now 95-year-old Barkhouse is most recognized for her book, Pit Pony which was made into a CBC movie and a 44-episode TV drama.

Barkhouse published her first full-length novel, George Dawson: The Little Giant in 1974 at the age of 61.

Writing skills seem to be in the genes – Barkhouse is aunt to well-known Canadian author Margaret Atwood with whom she wrote Anna’s Pet.

Of course, political correctness is rife but children are still children. I wouldn’t take these results as gospel. Where are all the movie-related children’s books for instance.

Last night, my six-year-old daughter and I finished Danny the Champion of the World. Another winner from Roald Dahl. She’s now an expert on poaching, which should serve her well in the future. As the book went on, she began to actually act out the scenes as I was reading them. When Danny and his dad are sneaking into Victor Hazel’s wood, she crawled on her belly around the bedroom. As the doped pheasants were falling from the trees, she ran around the room pretending to pick up the stunned birds. In fact, the thing my daughter found the most confusing was when Danny was caned – I had to stop and explain how kids used to be caned in schools and she looked completely baffled.

If the Telegraph report is to be believed, I should not be reading Danny the Champion of the World to my daughter. 1) It promotes stealing as a good thing, 2) Some pheasants are drugged against their will and six die, 3) A fat man’s Rolls Royce is defaced, 4) The policeman is corrupt, and 5) Danny drives a car on the road despite being only nine.

Of course, Danny is being brought up by a single parent so that might balance things out.

Hot off the Ladybird Books newsletter press comes the news that Spot the dog is coming to cinema’s throughout the UK during January and February.

The popular storytime pup will star in his own feature animation. The event also includes interactive storytelling  and an opportunity to meet Spot in person (or should that be in dog?!).

Nap times may suffer due to excitement over the dog’s public appearances.

Tickets go on sale two weeks before the date of each event.  Visit the Ladybird website for information on locations and booking tickets.

Can’t make any of the events? Why not bring home some Spot books?

We started with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and then followed up with James and the Giant Peach, which was completed in three days during a snow-bound weekend. Last night we started Danny the Champion of the World. After reading the opening three chapters, I looked at my watch, saw it was 7.28pm and said “Right, that’s it – bedtime.” My daughter jumped at me, grabbed my shoulders and begged me to continue. I crumbled and carried on.

I love Roald Dahl and I’ve told my daughter he is one of the world’s most famous writers – she loves that fact. I love how he doesn’t sugarcoat anything in his books. In Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, I had forgotten how vividly he describes the wretched starving state of Charlie’s poverty-stricken family. On the opening page of James and the Giant Peach, James’ parents are killed by an escaped rhino from London Zoo – after reading this sentence to my daughter I stopped, whispered the word ‘dead’ and drew my finger across my throat to ensure she fully understood that James had just been orphaned. She nodded calmly and we carried on. The deaths of James’ evil aunts are celebrated in James and the Giant Peach. On the opening page of Danny the Champion of the World, Danny explains that his mother died while he was a baby. Again, she didn’t even blink.

None of these dramatic events has affected my daughter. In fact, it’s the Scooby Doo movies that give her nightmares rather than Dahl’s tendency to give his young heroes miserable up-bringings.

The other beautiful thing about Dahl is the simplicity of his language. My daughter gave me more grief after I finally said that I would read no more of Danny the Champion of the World and I explained she should hurry up and learn to read herself. She is currently at a French immersion school (read Things White People Like to understand this better) and we’re teaching her to read in English at home.

I opened Danny at the bookmark and encouraged her to read the next paragraph, which she did slowly with a little help on the world ‘excitement.’ I explained that she could be reading this book very soon if she continues to practice. Dahl does not have a complex style of writing or use difficult language. He had a wonderful grasp of what children need from a book – practically and literally.

I don’t remember having his books to read to me but I do remember reading them myself at roughly eight, nine or 10. Frankly, it’s great fun to be reading them again because there are huge chunks that I simply can’t remember.

I got a very strange feeling when in James and the Giant Peach the peach floats over New York and the New Yorkers flee because they think it’s a huge bomb. Suddenly images of 9/11 was rushing through my head. Thankfully, that’s something my daughter has yet to discover. While I was reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, I couldn’t help feeling the oompa loompas were being exploited and the factory probably didn’t meet the latest food safety regulations but I guess that’s adulthood.

This is exactly what happened to Kazuno Kohara, whose book we have featured on the AbeBooks.com homepage in the “Best Illustrated Books of 2008″ carousel.

Kohara graduated from the MA in Children’s Book Illustration program at the Cambridge School of Art in 2007 and had her first book published in August of this year in the US and October in the UK.

The book titled Ghosts in the House! in North America and The Haunted House in the UK, caught the attention of the panel of judges selecting the New York Times Best Illustrated Books of 2008.

New York Times Book Review Editor Gregory Cowles says of the book:

“…sweet and beautiful…(Ghosts in the House!) provides a welcome timeout: its simple linocut illustrations are limited to three candy-corn colours, orange and black and white, and it is so insistently un-ironic that it ends, sincerely, with the words “And they all lived happily ever after.”…the story manages a gentle charm.“

Described as “JUST THE RIGHT MIX OF SWEET AND SCARY for the youngest trick-or-treaters“, the book tells a tale of  the resourcefulness of a little girl and a witch who after putting ghosts through the washing machine, turn them into useful things such as table cloths, sofa covers and bed linens.