I love books...especially childrens books

As a child, I always loved to read. I remember belonging to the library book club every summer and trying to read as many books as I could in order to win a prize (which was probably a book).

I also remember reading a lot of the classics that we now carry here at freckle face, and I remember what an impact they had on me.

I love Watty Piper's "The Little Engine that Could", and "The Carrot Seed" by Ruth Krauss, for their wonderful lessons in faith, perservence, and strength.

I also love "Harold and the Purple Crayon" by Crockett Johnson and "Where the Wild Things are" by Maurice Sendak, for the way they tap into our imaginations.

Now, as a buyer of childrens books to sell at freckle face, I get to share my passion for children's literature with all my customers.

No matter how old some of these classic books are, they seem just as impactful now as they did then. I am obviously not alone in this opinion, because I sell these books all the time. Which is great, because I love the idea that they are touching new readers in the same way that they touched me.

While I love offering the classics, I also like to give our customers a good selection of current titles. And, I am happy to say, this is not very hard to do.

I'm always finding new titles and authors that continue to strike a chord with me (I don't know why, but it seems I'm always surprised every time I find another great book).

Some of my more recent favorites have been "Stop Kissing Me" by Ethan Long, a silly book that enthuses both children and adults; "Odd Velvet" by Mary E. Whitcomb (who, by the way, is from Madison, Wisconsin) that teaches the age old lesson of accepting differences in one another; and "The Little Pea" by Amy Krouse Rosenthal, which is about a pea that cannot have his vegetables for dessert until he eats all his candy.

The latest book I just took out of the box, (and the one that prompted me to write this post) is "Not a Stick" by Antoinette Portis -- a very simple book about the magical imagination of a pig and his "not a stick". This is the second book from this author, and her first book, "Not a Box" (just as creative and clever and also offered at freckle face) won several awards.

I often wonder which of these great authors are currently making that same impact on our young readers as their predecessors had on me.

Will these books all become classics too? I don't know the answer. But something tells me they just might.

Then again, as long as they impact at least one child's life, they're all classics in my book.