Luke: Hands down, I best love the types of books that make me think about the world just a little bit differently.

Mama: Hands down, I best love the types of books that help me extend our reading conversations beyond storytime.

Luckily, books about the wonders of children’s imaginations fit both bills like a glove.  It was really tough deciding which books to include in this list, but these ten are favorites for both of us, so we had to list them all.  They are ordered according to complexity of ideas, not necessarily text.

   Not a Box by Antoinette Portis: Very simple text, very simple illustrations, but worlds of possibility.  A rabbit finds a box and pretends that it is many different things: rocket, mountain, building on fire, etc.  After we read this book, Luke began pretending that all sorts of objects were “not” (e.g. not a couch, not a cup, not a coat).

  The Squiggle by Carole Lexa Schaefer and Pierr Morgan: We found this book by chance, but it quickly became a standard around the time Luke turned one.  A girl finds a piece of rope (a squiggle) and transforms it into a variety of things: a dragon, a pool of water, a wall, a tightrope, etc.  What made this book so much fun for both Luke and me were the sound effects that I made up for each new object.  I’d trace the squiggle with my finger and make the sound, usually repeating the sound and tracing twice.  Use your imagination with the sounds!

  A Boy and His Bunny by Sean Bryan and Tom Murphy: A boy wakes up one morning with a bunny named Fred on his head.  The boy’s mom is skeptical about what can be done with a bunny on one’s head, but the boy and Fred work together to convince her that “you can do anything with a bunny on your head.”  The final page is pretty funny when the sister walks in with a small _______ (you’ll have to read to discover the punch line) on her head.  You can imagine what sort of things can be put on a toddler’s head after reading this book….

  Raf by Anke de Vries and Charlotte Dematons:  Super cute book we found by chance.  Amazon reviews don’t do this book justice.  A boy named Ben loves his stuffed giraffe, but one day when he wakes up, Raf is gone.  Ben soon starts to receive postcards from Raf, however, as Raf journeys through Africa.  Eventually Raf returns, albeit a little changed from his adventures.  We used this book as a way to extend some of Luke’s imaginative play scenarios (“Where do you think ______ might go next?  What does she see?  What does she hear? etc.”).  For parents: perhaps Raf needed a good wash or mending and Ben’s parents needed a way to ease the discomfort of losing a beloved toy?  Might be a nice activity for washing days….

  Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak: Clearly, this book is a classic, but it has been a favorite of ours for a long time now, so we had to include it.  Max gets in trouble and is sent to his room without dinner one night.  But his room begins to change into a different world, and Max sails away in his private boat to the land of the wild things.  The illustrations are gorgeous, the text is poetically minimalist, and the lesson of unconditional love is timeless.

  Chalk by Bill Thomson: An absolutely gorgeous wordless picture book that tells the story of three friends who happen upon a bag a magical sidewalk chalk.  Whatever the friends draw with this special chalk comes to be–draw the sun and the sun comes out, draw butterflies and they emerge from the pavement to dance around your head, draw a t-rex…..ummmm….  Luke and I had so much fun drawing and telling stories about what happened when the things we drew came to life.

  A Few Blocks by Cybele Young: A new find for us.  The illustrations are fantastic, if a little tough for younger children to decipher because there’s so much going on in them.  The story is about a brother and his older sister who are on their way to school in the morning.  The little brother does not want to go, but his sister uses her imagination to entice him to walk those few blocks.  She imagines a cape and rocket blaster shoes, and they go flying high above the city together, defeating monsters all the way.  She imagines a leaf is a boat, and they jump aboard to find buried treasure.  She imagines a shield and a helmet and the boy becomes a knight who fights a dragon to save a princess.  In the end, the little brother has to find a way to encourage his very tired sister to walk the final block.  I didn’t think Luke would like this one, but he’s asked for it at least once a day for the past week.  Fantastic!

  Journey by Aaron Becker:  Speaking of beautiful illustrations, this wordless picture book is breathtaking.  In the same vein as Harold and the Purple Crayon, a young girl finds a red crayon in her bedroom, draws a door, and steps through it to a land of wonders.  In this land, she has all sorts of adventures and manages to draw herself out of a number of predicaments.  The illustrations have tons of small details that are great fun to discuss, and we’ve gone from me noticing things and narrating the story to me asking Luke questions about the story that he answers in depth.

  The Green Bath by Margaret Mahy and Steven Kellogg: A green bathtub that comes to life?  What?  That’s the premise of this book, and it really worked for Luke.  Sammy’s neighbors come home from a flea market with a speedboat, while Sammy’s dad returns with a claw-footed green bathtub.  Sammy is just a touch jealous of the neighbors, so he imagines the coolest bathtub on the planet and goes bounding into the sea with it.  There he meets mermaids, a sea serpent, and a boat full of pirates who want to steal his bathtub for their own washing pleasure.  The line between fantasy and reality is probably pretty blurry for children, but it just makes the fantastic adventure all the more fun.

  Tell Me Some More.. (An I Can Read Book) by Crosby Newell Bonsall and Fritz Siebel: An I Can Read Book definitely more suited to older children as the story is long and the concepts fairly involved.  The story begins with Andrew telling his friend about a place that he knows where he can carry an elephant under his arm.  Curious?  Luke certainly was.  And the story just gets taller from there.  Hold three camels in two hands?  Put a seal in your father’s chair?  The friend keeps saying, “Tell me some more,” until Andrew decides to just show him the place: the library.  All of these things can be found in books.  Love the message of this book (the power of reading and the imagination), and while I thought it might be too advanced for Luke (at two and a half), he has really taken to it.