From classics to new favorites, 100 Best Books for Children “points parents in the right direction [to] 100 titles no child should miss” (Booklist). With thirty-five years of experience at the heart of children’s publishing, Anita Silvey is better equipped than anyone to help parents make the right reading choices, given the enormous range of children’s books available today. From board books to titles for older readers, Silvey narrows the field to 100 “best books,” organizing them by age and providing essays on plot summary, along with fascinating insights into the story behind the story that only an insider would know. Essential and inspiring, 100 Best Books for Children is a perfect handbook for parents who want to help their child develop a passion for reading that will last a lifetime. Anita Silvey has spent more than thirty years in the children's book field, including eleven years as editor-in-chief at the Horn Book Magazine. She is the editor of Children’s Books and Their Creators and the author of 100 Best Books for Children and  The Book-a-Day Almanac . 100 Best Books for Children A Parent's Guide to Making the Right Choices for Your Young Reader, Toddler to Preteen By Anita Silvey Houghton Mifflin Company Copyright © 2005 Anita Silvey All right reserved. ISBN: 9780618618774 Board Books Birth to Age 2 Goodnight Moon Written by Margaret Wise Brown (1910–1952) Illustrated by Clement Hurd (1908–1988) Published in 1947 by Harper & Row Birth to age 2 32 pages Upon awakening early one morning in 1945, Margaret Wise Brown wrote down the entire text of Goodnight Moon in almost ?nal form, and called it "Goodnight Room." That morning Brown, or "Brownie" as she was known, telephoned her editor, the legendary Ursula Nordstrom, to read her the text, which Nordstrom accepted immediately for publication. In those days, editorial taste rather than publishing committees determined the fate of geniuses. Margaret Wise Brown, who would write more than a hundred books for children in her short career, claimed that she dreamt her stories, and Goodnight Moon appears to be a case in point. However, Brown"s creative dreaming followed years of intense training. A student at Bank Street College"s School of Education, Brown began to explore writing books that incorporated the revolutionary ideas of Lucy Sprague Mitchell, the visionary founder of Bank Street. Both Brown and Mitchell believed that books should expose young children to the "here and now" world of their own home surroundings. Children need to hear about and see all the things that they feel comfortable with in their own world. So in Goodnight Moon, the mother and child say good night to all the familiar objects around them. Everything present in the great green room is part of a child"s real world and re?ects Brown"s "here and now" philosophy. After the telephone call, Nordstrom began searching for an appropriate artist for the text, but Brown insisted she wanted no one other than Clement Hurd. Goodnight Moon demonstrates how great books are made, and almost unmade, by seconds and inches. For his original sketches for the book, Hurd drew his protagonists as a human grandmother and a young boy. This version went through several proof stages, but eventually Margaret Wise Brown and Ursula Nordstrom insisted that the characters be bunnies. Hurd relented; as the illustrator of The Runaway Bunny (also by Brown), he could draw rabbits like an angel. In fact, those close to him often said he looked like a rabbit. Hence, the resulting book, rather than being tied to a human environment, achieved an otherworldly, timeless dimension. Hurd also accepted Brown"s and Nordstrom"s criticism of the cow in his original picture. He altered it anatomically so that no one would object to the udders. And on Nordstrom"s suggestion, he replaced a map with a bookcase because she wanted to promote the idea of children having books in their rooms. However, Hurd worked out many innovative concepts that remained in the ?nal art. Half-page black-and-white illustrations display all the objects in the room; but Hurd used only one piece of color art for the main scene of the book. That art was simply darkened, by degrees, by the printer. As the story moves forward — "Goodnight bears / Goodnight chairs / . . . Goodnight mush / And goodnight to the old lady whispering "hush"" — the child and parent keep going back to exactly the same room, but each time a little more light has been removed. Goodnight Moon met immediately with the kind of criticism that all too frequently welcomes our great books. A Harper sales representative wrote, "Frankly I"m having a tough time with [Goodnight Moon]. . . . As soon as [most buyers] see the size of it for $2.00 they throw it at me. They like the color, story, and idea, but will not touch it at that price. . . . I don"t think we"ll even sniff the quota. At $1.00 it would really move." But the book was not reduced to $1.00, and it