Richard Scarry's Best Storybook Ever

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So many stories - Rated
I had this book as a child and was delighted to see it still available. My daughter is two and always wants this book at bedtime. There is a great mix of stories, pictures and funny rhymes. My daughter and I love Goodnight little bear, it makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside!

Fantastic book for children - Rated
This book was known as the "wow" book in my family due to all the amazing stories and pictures. This book was handed down to me by my sister who loved having the stories read to her.

My favourite was "The egg in the hole" - I think it was called this - I asked for it every night and knew it off by heart. I loved the bright pictures that not only were fun to look at but were also very educational. It also contained stories about people who lived or visited other countries - another favourite was Schtoompah, the Funny Austrian.

I don't think my Aunt realised what a wonderful gift this book truly was. I now buy it for my friends when they have children and highly recommend it. Well worth the cost.

Oodles of Richard Scarry and I Am a Bunny, Too! - Rated
Researchers constantly find that reading to children is valuable in a variety of ways, not least of which are instilling a love of reading and improved reading skills. With better parent-child bonding from reading, your child will also be more emotionally secure and able to relate better to others. Intellectual performance will expand as well. Spending time together watching television fails as a substitute.
To help other parents apply this advice, as a parent of four I consulted an expert, our youngest child, and asked her to share with me her favorite books that were read to her as a young child. Richard Scarry's Best Story Book Ever was one of her picks.

This book was my daughter's choice night after night during the years from ages 3-6. The stories are all vividly colored, humorous, and reasonably short. They just suited her perfectly.

She would plead after each one, "Just one more story, Dad." (This was after her mother had read to her, as well.) I would read until I had almost no voice left. Eventually, we negotiated that she could pick two stories from this book, and if I was in the mood (and in good voice) we could go up from there. Otherwise, bedtime would have been delayed for hours!

If you don't know Richard Scarry, he has a wonderful, light sense of humor. He usually features intelligent animals, but in human-like contexts. This makes the moral of the story easier for the youngster to swallow, while making the story more interesting. For example, A Castle in Denmark is about the rules that you should follow in a castle (or a house) such as not leaving things on the floor where people can trip on them. Who else would have come up with such a wonderful way to help establish household rules?

The stories in the book contain all the elements needed in a preschool book, with lots of alphabet, numbers, socialization, and charming stories with important lessons attached. The book includes one of my daughter's all time favorite stories, I Am a Bunny by Ole Rison. This story was repeated like a mantra around our house by all four children. It is a great beginning reader story.

The stories vary in sophistication from simple ones to mini-mysteries involving detectives. My daughter especially loved the mini-mysteries.

Here are her favorite stories in the book (in the order they appear):

The Rabbit Family's Home

I Am a Bunny

Work Machines

Pip Pip Goes to London

A Castle in Denmark

Couscous, the Algerian Detective

Officer Montey of Monaco

Pierre, the Paris Policeman

The Country Mouse and the City Mouse by Patricia Scarry

Schtoompah, the Funny Austrian

From a value perspective, it is much less expensive to buy these stories in this form than to get them in the various Richard Scarry books. Of all the story books we bought for our children, this one was definitely the best value. I suspect it only cost about a penny per hour used. Running the television costs more than that!

Some readers have complained about the binding. Ours is a little loose in back after four years of hard use. For such a thick book, that's about par for the course. If your child is a hard user of books, you may want to get a new copy at some point.

After you have finished enjoying this book for the 4,317th evening in a row (if you have a large family), I suggest that you think about how these stories could be made even funnier by changing the context. For example, a castle in Denmark could become Cinderella's castle after she married the prince. What rules do you suppose Cinderella would have wanted to have? In this way, you and your child can exercise your imagination to have even more fun.

Take great stories and build on them . . . together with your child!

BUY THESE BOOKS for your children - Rated
If you've never heard of any of the titles by Richard Scarey, please ensure your children do. This guy created a wealth of characters and colour. There isn't a child on this earth that hopes that animals are actually really like this in the world somewhere and Richard Scarey confirms that using imagination and good old fashioned learning through fun - I'll have none of this Teletubbie nonsense thank you.

Certainly a childhood friend for me!

Best Storybook ever! - Rated
My wife and I both had this book as children and were overjoyed to see it still in print after all these years. Terrifically detailed colour drawings, lovely colours and fun stories. Sadly no Lowly Worm, or Huckle Cat in this book (I think they came a few years later), but the "Denmark Castle" with Ghosts putting sheets in the washing machine, squeeking mouse armour and dragons in the moat still make me laugh nearly 30 years later. Buy this book, your children will curl up with laughter, or just curl up with you as you read them the stories , nursery rhymes and poems.