HarperCollins Treasury of Picture Book Classics: A Child's First Collection Hardcover – Picture Book, October 15, 2002

I cannot say enough good things about this book in one review, quite simply because this book is actually a collection of twelve beautiful children's classics in one big volume. So, I should be writing twelve raving reviews instead of one!You can search for each story using the Amazon search engine to find the corresponding entry for each story book, and you will realise that they are all great stories that we should be reading to our children. This volume simply puts them all in one place, at a great price!When I first read this to my daughter, she could not get enough of it. After each story, she would turn to the front cover and point to the picture of another story and say, "I want that one!" This can go on for the entire night as she would keep saying, "I want another one!"I guess the bad thing about such a volume is simply its size and weight. It is pretty heavy for a toddler. Also, my voice is a little hoarse right now from reading so many stories to my daughter last night.

A few years back I bought the "20th Century Children's Book Treasury" for my kids--and we've really enjoyed it. It's chock-full of great stories--both favorites and some ones I wasn't familiar with. My one complaint is the size of the pages. Because of the volume of stories, each page in the book contains two or more pages from the original story book--so things are a bit cramped. I notice that it also made things more difficult for my emerging readers.The great thing about the "Harper Collins Treasury of Picture Book Classics" is that each page in the original story book is one page in the compilation. So they're nice and large and full size. My early readers can read the pages easily--and the large illustrations keep my pre-readers interested.Although I own many of these as stand-alone books, I still am glad I bought the compilation. It's great for story time--as we find ourselves reading extra stories just by flipping through. We also discovered a new favorite called, "Pete's A Pizza." Since first reading it, we frequently turn our kids into pizzas on grumpy days too!

This book came right on time just as planned. I wanted my visiting friend to bring it from California to Thailand where I am living. I gave it as a baby present for my friend from England who also lives in Thailand and has a family here. She loves children's books but is very hard to find good English children's stories here. This is the perfect book because it contains so many classics! She loved it and so did her two and half year old daughter and I bet her baby on the way will love it when the time comes as well! She said her best memories as a child are from reading treasuries and can't wait to read it to her children. The book is in excellent condition as well. It is a bit heavy but it has to be to hold so many great picture stories. :)

This is a great collection of classics, 12 in all, including Good Night Moon. If you own only one book for your child, I suppose this might be the best one. As an added bonus, the profits are for a worthy cause. I have it for my own child and have given it as gifts. It is beautifully bound and makes an impressive gift for a newborn or one year old. The glossy paper book jacket will likely come off or get wrinkled or possibly torn if your child reads this often, but the hardcover underneath has the same beautiful artwork on it and a glossy finish on the actual hardcover, so it looks just as nice. Mine just kept coming off so I removed it and it looks just as nice.

I purchased this book when my first grandchild was born ten years ago. I now have 5 granchildren and this is their favorite book and they each have their favorite story in the book! They love acting out, "Caps for Sale" and "Pete's a Pizza". They've memorized most of "When you Give a Mouse a Cookie". My soon to be 11 year old granddaughter received her first cell phone yesterday. I texted her, "My how you are growing up! I hope you are never to old to read, "Crictor the Boah Constrictor" with your grandma! and she replied, "I will NEVER be too old to read Crictor the Boah Constrictor with you!" It made me cry! But my point is, in this day of modern technology, it is so important to establish old fashioned traditions of reading favorite stories...as that never goes out of style and it creates lasting memories. I plan to purchase one for each of them, so that hopefully one day they will read it to their children and remember our times together.

My daughters love this book, and so do I! The picture quality is excellent, there's a great variety of stories, and the book looks very classic. The book has pictures of the cover of each individual story on the front cover; this is how my 4-year-old picks which book she'd like to read. It also has a table of contents for you to find the story you're looking for. Please note, the book is for children ages 2-5 (I did not know this before buying, but my children are 19 mos and 4, so still w/in the range). Also, one great feature I like is that I can determine if a books is appropriate for their bedtime story by looking at the side of the book and seeing how "thick" the book is (too thick = too long for bedtime story in my house).

As a librarian, I wrote a grant for family literacy and gave this book to each family that attended our family literacy programs. It was like giving them a starter library for their home! I have since bought this book for family members and friends. I retired recently and now care for my 2 year old grandaughter while her parents work. This book is part of our daily reading. She LOVES it, and there is no bedtime until we've read Caps for Sale. This book is a BARGAIN and I would recommend purchasing any of the books included in the collection, but you can save a ton of money by just buying this one!