Sing-song kid book ideas
October 12, 2023 5:04 PM   Subscribe

My mom loves reading the book Chicken Soup with Rice by Maurice Sendak to my kids. What other children's books can you think of that have that sing-song, chanting feel? Thanks!
posted by Emmy Rae to Writing & Language (23 answers total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
Best answer: 100 Cats (and 100 Dogs)
posted by Peach at 5:11 PM on October 12, 2023


Hairy Maclary.
posted by paduasoy at 5:17 PM on October 12, 2023 [1 favorite]


Wait Till The Moon Is Full, by Margaret Wise Brown (of Goodnight Moon fame). It’s about a little raccoon who wants to go out and dance in the moonlight, but his mother sings him a song about waiting until the moon is full. It’s so lovely.
posted by Pallas Athena at 5:23 PM on October 12, 2023


Margaret Mahy's Bubble Trouble is my pick, if she's up for a challenge! It gets pretty tongue-twistery.
posted by aws17576 at 5:24 PM on October 12, 2023


Best answer: Read-Aloud Rhymes for the Very Young is an absolute joy to read aloud.
posted by evilmomlady at 5:41 PM on October 12, 2023


Sandra Boynton has a lot of these - her Barnyard Dance and Dinosaur Dance especially.
posted by Mchelly at 6:05 PM on October 12, 2023 [7 favorites]


I have no knowledge but there is world synergy....nouvelle-personae posted a real similar ask 10 days ago. On preview, Sandra Boynton is in both threads.
posted by holyrood at 6:09 PM on October 12, 2023 [2 favorites]


Best answer: Bee-bim bop! by Linda Sue Park does this really well.
posted by Adridne at 6:09 PM on October 12, 2023


Best answer: Christoph Niemann’s Subway is still one of my favs.

And I hope you know that Chicken Soup with Rice is an actually song performed by Carole King.
posted by Xalf at 6:26 PM on October 12, 2023 [4 favorites]


Best answer: There's the rest of the Nutshell Library, which Chicken Soup with Rice is part of. Carole King wrote songs for all of them.
posted by mollweide at 6:28 PM on October 12, 2023 [2 favorites]


Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb

I can still recite most of it, and I haven’t read it to my daughter since about 1983.
posted by MexicanYenta at 6:35 PM on October 12, 2023 [3 favorites]


Chicka Chicka Boom Boom
posted by Redstart at 7:10 PM on October 12, 2023 [3 favorites]


Being reminded of the excellent Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb has reminded me of Jamberry. We used to read that one A LOT.
posted by Xalf at 7:30 PM on October 12, 2023 [2 favorites]


3rding Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb. Our kid especially liked it when I did it like a bad beatnik poetry reading with bongo accompaniment.
posted by dr. boludo at 8:21 PM on October 12, 2023


Eric Carle's Brown Bear.

+1 Subway, still cannot avoid continuing "left or right" with "dark as night" to this day. +1 Jamberry.
posted by away for regrooving at 12:07 AM on October 13, 2023 [1 favorite]


Room on the Broom
posted by imalaowai at 1:15 AM on October 13, 2023


The Wonky Donkey there is a song that goes with it. You can find it on YouTube.
posted by Enid Lareg at 6:06 AM on October 13, 2023 [1 favorite]


Mortimer by Robert Munsch
posted by leslievictoria at 6:26 AM on October 13, 2023


In our house, Sandra Boynton books are never read, but basically sung to a bastardized version of "I'd like to teach the world to sing." Except I understand there's actual sheet music for Your Personal Penguin among others: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6C4Qk2cLofg

My kids are not reading board books anymore, but I still have "to take a bath/in one big tub/with soap all over/scrub scrub scrub" burned into the firmware. My consciousness will have been uploaded to a server on Alpha Centauri, and the OS of that server will have faded to be all 0s...but the echo of "the sun has set/not long ago/now everybody goes below" will still reside, in silica, in perpetuity.
posted by adekllny at 7:12 AM on October 13, 2023 [2 favorites]


Chicken Soup with Rice is one of four books in Sendak's Nutshell Library. They're all written in the same vein.
posted by Wilbefort at 8:18 AM on October 13, 2023 [1 favorite]


Llama Llama, Red Pajama and Bear Snores On are both great for this!
posted by juliapangolin at 9:14 AM on October 13, 2023 [1 favorite]


Yes to the other books in that little series (the Nutshell Library)! And if you haven't ever seen the Really Rosie animated tv special by Carole King that animates them, it is *wonderful*!
posted by lysimache at 10:58 AM on October 13, 2023 [1 favorite]


Each Peach Pear Plum by Janet and Allan Ahlberg! A beloved British classic.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 9:09 AM on October 16, 2023 [1 favorite]


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