The 20th-Century Children's Book Treasury: Picture Books and Stories to Read Aloud

I love this book enough that I regularly buy it as a new baby gift. Even though it's over twenty years old now and doesn't contain newer books, it's still relevant. I love this book for so many reasons. This treasury contains a number of different genre's, themes, and time periods and is suitable to read to a baby on up to new self-readers reading to you. With 44 stories inside, there's enough of a good mix of classic stories that you don't get sick of re-reading. There a lot of books from my childhood in here that I love sharing with my children.The illustrations are vivid although.....since this is a treasury, some pages of the illustrations have completely been removed from stories in the interest of total page count. Even so, for most stories there is enough visual interest to keep little ones paying attention. There are a couple of stories such as "Millions of cats" that have almost no pictures; even with me trying to use silly voice inflections, I find those kind of stories in here challenging to hold attention of little ones. Once you read the stories through once, you'll know which to skip. Also, there are many pages of this treasury that have 4 book pages condensed down onto one page or over a left and right page.One thing that has always annoyed me about this treasury is that the age levels are completely intermixed throughout this book. So you have to hunt around to find the stories that are age-appropriate for your child. Even though I was reading it so much, I was completely ignorant to the fact that there are color-coded pages for the three different age levels until recently (duh, now I know.) I wish they would have put all of the baby appropriate stories at the front, little kid books in the middle, and new readers at the end. I usually read a few stories out of the book at a time and it is so aggravating to flip around the book. On the bottom of each right hand page is the title and page number. The way that this book is marked for age levels is that there is a color coded symbol indicating the age level next to the title (red, green, or blue). Red is for the youngest audience - mostly picture books withfew pages. Blue is for intermediate listeners and is a good mix of pictures and words. Green is for children who will sit and listen without requiring a lot of pictures. Buried between biographical notes of each author (which is actually pretty interesting) and an index is a listing of books by their age level. I truly wish that they would have organized the book by age level instead of mixing it up, but sometimes because of it I end up reading something random that catches my listener's eye as I am flipping by.Because this is made of thin paper, reading this to an active toddler can be challenging if he or she wants to turn the pages on their own. I still recommend this book for parents of those children: Even with very active ones it's possible to establish nightly snuggly reading time when they are more docile and it's mommy or daddy's job to turn the pages versus during the daytime when they are in charge of turning the pages. If your child has fallen in love with one of the stories in the book and wants to read it over and over and over again, this probably isn't the book to use - you will want to also get the board book.I have spent countless hours reading stories out of this book to my sons. I doubt I would have bought all of these books separately to read to them, so it was wonderful when I stumbled across this ages ago.All in all, this is a great gift for new parents. The people you gift it to will be sure to have lifelong memories of reading together with their loved ones. I've had so many thank yous months and even years down the road over this gift!

This is a beautiful book. It is made of very durable material that will survive many readings and mishandling by little hands. The variety of stories is impressive. I bought it as a gift and envision parents reading it to an older child and that older child finding stories she can in turn read to her younger sibling. What a treasure!

The best example of what I was looking for in, "The 20th-Century Children's Book Treasury", is the first story. 'Madeline' by Ludwig Bemelmans, Begins: "In an old House in Paris / that was covered with vines / Lived twelve little girls in two straight line.", a simple, lyrical story just right for a 5 year old. Sometimes you buy a book and the words have to many syllables, the story is too complex, or the story line is to difficult to follow, or just plain boring. A story like 'Madeline' uses simple words, many are basic words that a five year old needs to learn/memorize. The Story is entertaining and easy to read. Another Story 'Freight Train' by Donald Crews is just like 'Madeline, but the words are simpler and deals with colors, and great pictures. This story is perfect for beginning readers, which is my main interest.There are other stories like 'Curious George' by H. A. Rey which are more involve, yet can still be use for an early reader. The story 'Sylvester and the Magic Pebble' by Willaim Steig is a bit more advance and would demand a reader with a good command of basic words and basic vocabulary or someone with a good beginners dictionary. The 20th-Century Children's Book Treasury... should satisfy the reading wants and levels of most young readers, and it should give parents a good choice of reading levels to chose from.The Book edited by Janet Schulman, is a collection of the most popular book of the 20th century. She has done the research, brought the books together most parents would buy for their kids; you can save some space and buy this wonderful collection.The illustrations/pictures are true to the individual books, very professional. I would have like if they had given the works a reading grade level, such pre-school, first grade, 4th grade etc.

This is one of my favorite anthologies and has many stories that you don't find elsewhere as individual books (and some favorites that you do). You will discover new stories and revisit familiar ones. I spent hours reading from this book to my children. I couldn't find my original copy after a move, so I re-purchased it for my "library". Perfect to give as a gift or for reading to children or grandchildren.

I don't remember whether I bought my first one of these or whether someone gave it to me, but since then it has been my go-to gift to new parents and new grandparents. My now six-year-old grandson loves it; he's about to start first grade, and now he sometimes reads the stories to me! There is an enormous number and great variety of classic tales, including many that were new to me -- some that I missed when my boys were little in the '70s and '80s of that have come out since then,. Sometimes a few of the illustrations are missing, but all the texts are there. In addition to the benefit of having the book at home, It's great to take on road trips or vacations. So many stories in one volume!