Sorry, kortez, can't help you on the bonus question, but my hands down faves were "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle, "Old Hat, New Hat" by Jan Berenstain and "The Monster at the End of this Book" from the Sesame Street Series which filled me with giddy, toe curling terror each time I read it.

(Being easily amused is clearly in inherent trait for me.)

The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes! Gorgeous illustrations, wonderful story. Also any of the Little Bear books are wonderful. Ooh! And speaking of the marvelous Maurice Sendak, you definitely can't go wrong with the Nutshell Library! And while we're talking about indispensible box sets, the Pooh Library is essential, too.

"Stand Back," Said the Elephant, "I'm Going to Sneeze!"

All the early reader Seuss canon, like "Mr Brown Can Moo! Can You?", "Ten Apples Up On Top", "One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish".

And for the love of god, only get real A A Milne Pooh books, not the Disney stuff. It's terrible when the rights to something great are owned by a corporation that just plain doesn't get it.

everyone poops!
more later

Well of course, Maurice Sendak. Where the wild things are is awesome. And Dr. Seuss. Ooh, and Put me in the zoo by robert lopshire.

Harold and the Purple Crayon.

Small Pig.
George and Martha.
Or anything by Arnold Lobel or James Marshall, actually.
And for when the kids are a little older, or for everyone here to read: Moomins.

Thornton Burgess.

Wow. Some great suggestions here. I had completely forgotten about The Monster at the End of this Book, Everyone Poops (my niece has this one), Harold and the Purple Crayon, etc.... Plus suggestions I'm not familiar with but will no doubt enjoy perusing at the bookstore.

Wolfdog: Thank you for that. My grandmother in Lincoln, MA read us those books, and then when we visited Granny in Chicopee, MA, she took us to Laughing Brook where you could see Reddy Fox (actually an injured red fox undergoing rehab) and other characters.

This is a nice trip down memory lane--thank you everyone. Keep 'em coming.

By the way, I just found the answer to my bonus question: The Biggest Bear. Children's books don't have illustrations like these anymore....

Nobody Poops But You

Mike Mulligan and His Steamshovel was a great pick!

For babies - Pat the Bunny and Goodnight Moon, and The Very Hungry Caterpillar are awesome...absolutely the bestest.

And then - The Velveteen Rabbit, Millions of Cats (a really great book), Make Way for Ducklings, Caps For Sale. There are lists online of Newberry (sp?) and Caldecott award winning children's books too, that you might want to check out. And you can't lose with most Dr. Seuss. Books are such a great idea for baby shower gifts.

Strong second on anything Maurice Sendak, but especially Where the Wild Things Are.

From a practical standpoint, sturdy, portable board books will get a lot of use. I recommend Peek a Who by Nina Laden. We read that one so much that I had to hide it.

OMG, iconomy, 'Caps For Sale'! Oh how I looooooved that book!

Seems I have a thing for hats.

Oh, and "Guess How Much I Love You", which my neice loves and makes me cry each time I read it. Plus, it has bunnies.

there are things like the stinky cheese man and other classics of "kids books". i was enthralled by the arthur rackman illustrated books and the fairies and gnome books, witches and all those coffee table size picture books, of which i think there is a hitchhiker's guide and mythological types.
not just for kids, but i'm sick that way and think it's good to get things the parents can enjoy that the kids may get to later. someone made me a gift of this:
≡ Click to see image ≡

Goodnight Gorilla

Goodnight Moon

Icky Sticky Frog

Dr. Suess ABC - I'm convinced it's the book that taught my son the alphabet...for who can forget Camels on the Ceiling, and Zizzer Zazzer Zuzz?

that Guess How Much I Love You is a creepy book.

When I was a little kid my dad, who didn't normally do this sort of thing, brought me home a book. It was a large landscape picture book that contained an Australian poem titled "The Man From Ironbark". You can read it here however it can be summarised thus: country yokel goes to the city, pops into the barber for a shave, the city barber decides to play a prank on the yokel by making his razor red hot and dragging the back of it across his neck making the poor guy think his throat has been cut, thus leading to a punch up. Probably not the most appropriate story for a young child particularly when you throw in some vivid illustration.

Now this may seem like a harmless enough tale to me now, but when my dad got to the bit where the barber pretends to cut the guys throat I was in quite some distress and I bawled my eyes out to the extent that my dad couldn't finish the story. I hated that damn book - to me it was like a horror story.

Funnily enough the book is on my bookshelf now and is the only book I still own from my childhood (apart from a Grange Hill and a Tiswas annual).

Already mentioned: Where the Wild Things Are. I also liked those Shel Silverstein books, too. The last baby shower I brought a book to involved the Communist Manifesto (you know, for kicks).

A Hole Is To Dig

One of my favorite books as a child was this early 1950s paperback that was falling apart. Had great pen & ink illustrations, very sort of social realist looking. It was about a bear who went to sleep one fall and when he woke up a factory had been built around and over his cave. So he tried to get out but the people in the factory kept telling him: You're not a bear, you're a silly man who needs a shave and wears a fur coat. The bear ends up going to see all the executives - each one has a bigger desk and more secretaries - and each one takes him somewhere that "real" bears are: the circus, the zoo. The other bears tell him "You're not a bear, you're a silly man who needs a shave and wears a fur coat." So finally the bear gives up and goes to work in the factory and everyone is happy. Then the factory closes down and the bear doesn't know what to do - this is where I used to get very sad and worried - but the bear, after a couple days of being lost, suddenly realizes that he IS a bear after all, no matter what everyone else said, and he finds a cave and goes back to sleep. Something about this story blew my small mind and I read it to my own children (it was really falling apart by then) until it disintegrated.

amberglow and safetyfork get dibs on the first daily snorts.

mygoth, that would do a number on my mind as well.

someone get them the giving tree. i had to hide in bookstores to read it.

i had those books with the pig in lederhosen running around and all the anthropomorphized animals where they show cross sections of houses and grocery stores with the words for all of the items.
i have a fondness for things bound like children's books.
i can't wait to do the adult versions.
i remember emmet otter's jug band christmas and the little cloud.
Cloudy with a chance of meatballs.
I, Leonardo.
fairy tales from other countries are worth it for the illustrations

Milton the Early Riser