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Our list of the best new kids books for September highlights some amazing books from many different genres: non-fiction, reality fiction, fantasy, and even a beautiful picture book that addresses gender identity. Take a gander and let us know which titles and covers catch your eye ... Read the rest of this post

#44 The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear by Audrey and Don Wood (1984)
40 points

Great to read aloud and fun to read again and again. Gotta love the expressions on the mouse’s face, the ways he “protects” the strawberry, and the surprise ending. Was there ever a bear? Is the narrator the bear? Are we bears? The kids get a kick out of it! – Gina Detate

I can read this book over and over again, and it still feels fresh and new with each re-reading. Little Mouse’s expressions are priceless, and we love helping him gobble up the strawberry at the end. Such a clever plot. – Audrey Johnson

There are three things I love about this book: the unique point of view (the reader basically becomes the narrator!), the fact that we never see the bear though we fear him all the time (at least I did at age 3), and the image of the strawberry wearing a disguise. I don’t think this is Don and Audrey Wood’s best known book, but it’s always been my absolute favorite. – Katie Ahearn

Because it works every time. It was the first picture book I bought for my personal collection as a young children’s librarian, and I still, almost twenty years later, always have that copy in my office just in case there is a storytime emergency and I need to read aloud. - Laura Reed

Four blurbs!  Now we’re cooking with gas!  Inevitably this poll revealed big favorites that I was personally unfamiliar with.  Of course I’ve heard people gush over this title.  But somehow I’ve never sat down and read it for myself.  Now that I had an excuse to do so, I found it a charming tale.

The plot from the authors’ website reads, “First published in 1984, a picture book in which the Little Mouse will do all he can to save his strawberry from the Big, Hungry Bear, even if it means sharing it with the reader. The Little Mouse and the Big Hungry Bear are known and loved by millions of children around the world. Little Mouse loves strawberries, but so does the bear…How will Little Mouse stop the bear from eating his freshly picked, red, ripe strawberry?”

Beyond that there’s actually not a lot out there on the book.  If you go to the website of Don and Audrey Wood you’ll find lots of activities and secrets behind their other books, but not this one.  Methinks they don’t fully appreciate how popular it has remained all these years.  Someone would do well to inform them.

• Be sure to check out the world’s cutest tie-in recipe.

Missed this one.  Apparently they performed this book at the Scholastic breakfast in 2009 when the ALA Conference was in Chicago.  Huh!

#64 King Bidgood’s in the Bathtub by Audrey Wood, illustrated by Don Wood (1985)
30 points

My all time favorite, favorite, favorite picture book. I would pore over the illustrations of this book and look at all the details in each page. Stunning artwork and a fun story. - Sarah

Don and Audrey are two of my favorite author/illustrator combinations. This one never fails to induce giggles. – Heather Christensen

King Bidgood may have been the first Wood title I ever saw. I missed their books for the most part in my childhood, though in the case of this particular book I do remember seeing it in the possession of the younger siblings of one of my friends. It would be years before I came to know Audrey and Don’s work any better. What we have here is a Caldecott Honor winner and in 2005 there was even a 20th Anniversary edition, complete with a CD of six original songs.

Here’s the description of the plot from School Library Journal: “In this humorously original tale, various members of the Court, all clothed in elaborate Elizabethan dress, try to dislodge the King from his bubbly tub. Instead they are drawn into it with him, to ‘do battle’ with toy ships and warriors; to eat a lavish feast; to fish and to dance. It is the young page who finds a solution, finally, by pulling the plug. Much of the delight is in Don Wood’s meticulous oil paintings, which juxtapose the starched, overdressed, ’shocked’ demeanor of the Court with the King’s twinkling, sensual, even lascivious manner. Minute details in the paintings emphasize this contrast; the red-haired naked King frolics while the fully-clothed courtiers emerge dripping from the bath with literally all their starch taken out.”

Newbery Award winner Susan Patron reviewed this book for SLJ and called it, “A voluptuous book whose rich range of colors and tones reflect the passing hours of the day.”