Weekly Round-up: Crazy, Zany Easy Readers

The final post in my early reader categories lineup. Here is the rough breakdown in which many early readers fit:

1. Cute stories involving one main protagonists (i.e. Little Bear books)
   
2. Stories about two best friends, usually animals and usually incompatible and/or quite different at first glance (i.e. Frog and Toad)
3. Super simple words/text and, sometimes, zany plots/illustrations (i.e. Dr. Seuss books)
4. Person + Pet: the more unlikely the "pet," the better (i.e. Danny and the Dinosaur)

Let's look at some zany early readers. Of course, no one has done this quite as well as Dr. Seuss, so we'll begin with him. After all, there's an easy reader award named after him--featuring his "real name": The Geisel Award.

The Cat in the Hat/ The Cat in the Hat Comes Back

I mean, c'mon--who else could write a story this entertaining with such a limited vocabulary? And not just a limited vocabulary in terms of numbers, but in terms of ease of reading. Fun to read aloud and wonderfully fun for early readers.

Ten Apples Up on Top
"Theo LeSeig" (another pseudonym of Theodore Geisel)

This one never fails to delight young children. And, it's an easy one to read right when they first start to really read.

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish Blue Fish and Hop on Pop and Fox in Socks
Dr. Seuss

Three quirky, wonderful early readers. There really isn't a plot, per se--just funny pictures, crazy rhyming texts, and the charm that comes with "reading it myself!"

See Me Run
Paul Meisel

The new kid on the block, this one garnered a Geisel Honor this year. And, in the spirit of Seuss, the text is disarmingly simple, but the illustrations and plot are appropriately zany.




Well, folks, that's all my tired brain is generating right now. I was out of town last week, and kept thinking of titles without jotting them down....

So, what would YOU add to the list?