Best I Can Read! early reader books, authors and illustrators from my childhood

Hello my friends of the Omschool! I have good news! Remember my post about how to find kids books you had loved and lost? I told you about a book I'd been hunting for probably 56  years. All I could recall was that a boy wanted to get his mother green lipstick for her birthday. Well I unearthed it along with another book my best friend Heather had that I had loved. I couldn't recall the title just the beautiful medieval pictures. That one is called Shadow Castle and the other is "The Happy Birthday Present." 

Now, something especially wonderful about "The Happy Birthday Present" is that it is one of the earliest offering from the I Can Read! Book Club which is probably the oldest book club for kids. It began with Little Bear (Else Holmelund Minarik) which featured early illustrations by Maurice Sendak (Where the Wild Things Are). 

I wasn't in the book club but you often found the books at doctors' offices waiting rooms, along with Uncle Arthur which I'll write about later. Anyway, I must have been about 4 when I read the first one, "The Fire Cat." And I was so proud because I read it myself. Here are my favorite books and authors from the I Can Read! series. 

The Fire Cat (Esther Averill, 1960) I just learned that this is part of a Cat Club series I'm going to explore. 

The Happy Birthday Present (Joan Heilbroner, 1962) I'm really taken with Mary Chalmers illustrations which left an indelible image in memory, particularly Davy's green lollipop. 

Danny and the Dinosaur (Syd Hoff, 1958) Actually I liked all of Syd Hoff's I Can Read! books. You might mistake his work for H.A. Rey of Curious George fame. 

Frog and Toad series (Arnold Lobel) Lobel won the Caldicott Medal several times as well as a Newbery Medal, the highest honors in children's literature. His other works are Fables Mouse Soup and Owl at Home. I still recall my anti-book son Jakob being lured into reading and loving it with books like Owl at Home. "Tear Water Tea" is the best! 

Hurry, Hurry Edith Thatcher Hurd and her illustrator husband Clement Hurd (and then their son Thatcher Hurd) gave us some of the best in children's literature. You'll know Clement Hurd for his illustrations of "Goodnight Moon" (Margaret Wise Brown) She studied at the prestigious and very lateral thinking school called Bank Street College of Education (where I had aspired to go in the early 1980s, but let fear of failure stop me). Many of Edith's books are of ships, the ocean and creatures that live there and that resonates too. 

Emmett's Pig (Mary Stolz, a favorite author who's book "The Noonday Friends" is one of my top picks for unconventional and relatable girl sheros. 

And last but by no means least is the Mrs. Malaprop of the housekeeping domain, the one and only Amelia Bedelia. Peggy Parish wrote the first and there have been many more, thankfully!