Eden Ross LipsonThe New York Times Parent's Guide to the Best Books for Children: 3rd Edition Revised and Updated

This book was last updated in 2000, I don't see a newer edition. With curbside being a way of life during 2020, I have been using booklists for both our library orders and purchases.I would really appreciate an updated copy of this book that being said being 21 years old isn't a deal breaker (to purchase a used copy) since so many recommended children's books on almost every list are really old many from the 1940s-1970s. It is recent enough to list The Rainbow Fish and Stellaluna. I'll have to see if I can the NYT updated yearly lists mentioned by a 2015 reviewer of this book

This is a wonderful tool for parents trying to guide their children's early reading intelligently. The organization of the book and the descriptions of each book are generally helpful, though information about age level and number of pages should have been included. Organizing categories in the main listing are vaguely defined (wordless books, picture books, story books, early reading books, middle reading books and young adult books), making the indexes the better access point. These indexes are sufficient to help you find a relevant book. There is: a title list; an author list; an illustrator list; an age appropriate list (which might have based a better organization for the main listing); a read-aloud list; and a subject list of 53 headings, including Adoption, Adventure, Alphabet, Bedtime, Divorce, Horses and Nature.The author renders a valuable service in examining multiple editions of popular books, for example you might find that one particular treatment of the Mother Goose tales is rather musical and illustrated with pen and ink drawings, while another is more colorfully animated and textually simplified for very young readers.Unless you really know children's literature, a book like this is an invaluable tool. Similar but more directed resources are Great Books for Boys and Great Books for Girls by Kathleen Odean, which is organized into reading levels and then genre, and includes age level but not page count. Jim Trelease's The Read-Aloud Handbook is a very good, somewhat evangelical, resource organized by genre with age level and page count included in the description.

This book has been a great reference to help me pick out quality books for my daughter at our local library, and I'll often turn around and buy our favorites for our home collection. At 15 years old, this book is very dated, and so some books aren't even on the library shelves anymore; but I've always managed to find something from the same author that we can try out.As for newer books, the New York Times makes a list of the year's notable children's books every December, and I've gone back and saved all of those lists up to this guide's publication date so that we're not missing out on the quality work of the past decade and a half. If they ever update this guide, I imagine that's where they would draw a lot of their new entries. But beyond the new books, I know Lipton also kept an eye out for republished old classics, so it would be nice to have an update showing good books that may have been out of print in 2000, but can now be found again today.Overall, I love this guide, and I'm glad I bought it. But if someone could overhaul this book with newer entries and republished old favorites, I'll buy more copies not only for myself, but as gifts for other families as well.

The descriptions of the stories are very helpful. They jar your memory of stories you read as a child and you read to your children. The indexes were helpful for age ranges and topics. I did not understand the significance or where you wound use the number beside each title.

HEY! Hello? It's been 14 years since this book has been updated and there has been yet another Golden Age of Children's Literature in that time - with Kate DiCamillo, Neil Gaiman and Brian Selznick - to name but a few creating modern classics.A nearly exhaustive resource that begs to be updated - the 3rd edition was published in 2000. A few authors are favoured with multiple entries (one alone has 13!) while other great and acclaimed books and authors are omitted - a fact that needs to be corrected in the 4th edition. I'd never leave out "Charmed Life" by Diana Wynne Jones, "The Wolves of Willoughby Chase" by Joan Aiken, "The Twelve and the Genii" (aka "The Return of the Twelves") by Pauline Clarke or "The Family under the Bridge" by Natalie Savage Carlson.

Good book recommendations in this one. If you're a parent wondering what books to look for at the library for your kiddo's... this is the book for you! I had gotten this book at the library, but I soon found that it was so good... I wanted a copy of it for my very own to mark in and to keep! I love good children's book lists... some other really good ones I like are Honey for a Child's Heart and Books that Build Character and The Hand that Rocks the Cradle.

I first bought this book when my boys were young in the 1990's and used it to purchase books for them. Sometimes we forget a book we read as a child and find it again in this book. Sometimes it introduced me to a book that was newer and I felt good about buying it for them. I am now a grandparent and have purchased this book used in Very Good or Like New condition for my son's family to use and for friends that are new grandparents! It is an invaluable resource!

Have given it many times as a baby shower gift.