Guest Author - Diane Claus

I am a big fan of nursery rhymes. I love creating crafts and projects based on the nursery rhymes that my son is familiar with. They are fun to sing and easy to remember.

The books use a large and simple font for the words. The pictures directly relate to the words on the page. The pages either have no background or it extremely minimal which helps preschoolers focus on the main subject without any added distraction. I cannot stress how great this is. Preschoolers in general are not known for their attention span or their ability to sit and attend to one thing for long periods of time so having this format is a huge advantage.

Two things that I have found with most books aimed at preschoolers is that often the pages take too long to read out loud and the pictures are so detailed that it ends up confusing them or causing them to lose interest in the story. These books did neither and became an anytime favorite. My son enjoyed being able to follow along just by looking at the pictures. He attended to these books longer then any other books he has on his shelf and still requests them regularly.

In short these books are perfect for preschools!

Available Books

Humpty Dumpty
My son’s favorite! Humpty Dumpty is simply illustrated with minimal detail on the subjects. I highly recommend this book for children who are easily distracted by visual details.

The only thing I had trouble with was the order of the King’s Men and King’s Horses. I learned it “all the King’s men and the King’s horses” and the book presented it as “all the King’s horses and all the King’s men.”

Hey Diddle Diddle
My personal favorite!

Little Boy Blue
I had a bit more trouble figuring out what the pictures represented. However, my son did not have any trouble and was able to explain it to me.

Jack and Jill
This is another book that I would recommend for children who have trouble sorting out too much visual input.

This Little Piggy
The rhyme always gets a giggle when done on the toes and the book is a wonderful representation of the rhyme. There was a smile on my son’s face the entire time we were reading this book. The illustrations perfectly represent each line in the rhyme. This is another book that I would recommend for children who have trouble sorting out too much visual input.

Baa Baa Black Sheep
This book has simple illustrations that follow the rhyme perfectly. This is another book that I would recommend for children who have trouble sorting out too much visual input.

It’s Raining It’s Pouring
This is a lovely portrayal of the classic rhyme.

To Market To Market
As one would expect, this book has more detail then several of the others. The details do not overwhelm but still manage to give the sense of a busy, old fashion, market.

Little Miss Muffet
There is nothing scary about this spider as he sits down beside Ms. Muffet. The illustrations are beautiful and match the text perfectly.

Rock-a-Bye Baby
I was pleasantly surprised with the illustrations in this book. The baby is depicted as falling but gently and landing safely and smiling.

A Swarm of Bees in May
This is probably the most detailed of any the books. The swarm of bees changes from page to page and even on each page the bees are not the same and have features that one would expect on people. The swarm had mature bee’s, young bee’s, hip bee’s and, of course, the Queen Bee.

Sippity Sup
I was unfamiliar with this rhyme prior to this and neither was my son. I enjoyed learning a new Nursery Rhyme. Even though my son was not familiar with it he still enjoyed the book for it’s simple layout and easy to learn rhyme.