Friday's Five: Sweet Children's Stories

Lots of the kids books we read are silly, funny tales (past and current favorites are Click Clack Moo and its sequels) or they're practical lessons about using the potty and sharing toys and recycling. But once in awhile, we run into a story that is so sweet, either in its message or its ending or its characters or its illustrations (or all of the above) that it makes me melt a little.

Here are five sweet, sweet stories that you (and your kids) can enjoy:

1. Thing-Thing by Cary Fagan and Nicolas Debon: This story might just be the sweetest one of all. Thing Thing is a stuffed toy that defies category and longs for a child to love and love it back. Unfortunately, he's given to crabby Archibald Crimp, who throws Thing-Thing out the 6th-floor window. What will happen on the way down and where will Thing-Thing land? I don't want to spoil the ending, but it's, well, about the sweetest thing-thing ever.
2. Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson and Jane Chapman: One by one, a crowd of adorable little animals set up camp in Bear's cave while he's hibernating -- and Bear snores through the whole party. But when a sprinkle of pepper sneezes Bear awake, what will he do? Gasp! I'm not giving it away, but it's a sweet surprise.
   
3. A Visitor for Bear by Bonny Becker and Kady Macdonald Denton: Spoiler alert, but I love the online summary for this book: "Cheery persistence wears down a curmudgeonly bear in a wry comedy of manners that ends in a most unlikely friendship with a mouse." See there, I gave away the ending that time.
   
4. Edwina, the Dinosaur Who Didn't Know She Was Extinct by Mo Willems: From the author of Knuffle Bunny and the Pigeon books, this is the tale of what happens when Reginald von Hoobie Doobie is determined to convince the cookie-baking Edwina and the rest of the town that dinosaurs are extinct. The ending offers a great example of how to respond to bad news. Plus it's fun to get to say "von Hoobie Doobie."
5. Hippos Go Berserk by Sandra Boynton: "One hippo all alone calls two hippos on the phone" -- and so starts a counting book about a partying crowd of hippos. It's silly and funny (and we like to throw our hands in the air and wave them like we just don't care when all the hippos actually go berserk), but it's also touching to see the lonely little hippo on the final page.