For those bookworms out there, I have discovered a good reference book to aid in instilling a love of reading in your child. Now in its third edition, revised and updated, The New York Times Parent’s Guide to the Best Books for Children by Eden Ross Lipson names the best 1,001 children’s books of the 20th century. The book is organized into sections by text level categories (wordless books, picture books, story books, early reading books, middle reading books and young adult books). The guide provides a synopsis and gives information about the value of the book to the child’s learning. The best part of this guide is the “indexes” pages. These are available to help in finding a specific book because it is divided into sections by title, author, illustrator and subject headings.

Although this book is a helpful tool, I felt the organization could have been better. To me, it would make sense to classify the books based on grade levels, so that parents who don’t have much knowledge on children’s literature can gauge which books should be a necessary vs. a supplementary read during the school year.