ABOUT The WIL 101 Best Book List
After looking at our list, many of you will be wondering, "But, where is Curious George?" Or, "How could you leave out Make Way for Ducklings?" The 101 Best Books have been selected for a home-school library, meaning they are to be used in class and sent home to be read as well. Our CIERA research with low-income families suggests that many of these "best books", much celebrated by the field of children's literature, are seen as "too long" or "too difficult" by Head Start some adult readers. Whether these comments are an indication of the challengingly high readability of many Caldecott winners or whether they reflect families' and children's developmental levels in read-aloud experiences, we do accept the reality of these responses.
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So, in selecting the 101 Best Book list, we have considered readability and length as important factors. Another key factor for us has been cost. Simply put, America's Head Start classrooms are not flush with funding. Recognizing that book clubs frequently offer prices far below retailers, we have taken advantage, whenever possible, of the considerable selection and excellent pricing from Scholastic Books. Scholastic's strong discounts on individual titles bring most books under $3.00; this allows us to create a 101 book library that costs around $300.
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We at WIL recognize that reading a range of genres to young children is critical to their ultimate success in school. Though Scholastic offers many excellent choices, certain books on our list must be purchased from other sources. No preschool library, for example, would be complete without that most exemplary alphabet book Dr. Suess's ABC or the delightful predictable book Brown Bear, Brown Bear. Similarly, our desire to include quality informational texts has also compelled us to look beyond Scholastic's offerings. Our book list indicates which books are available from Scholastic and which books must be ordered elsewhere.
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Each month, four books from the library are featured in the Book-A-Week classroom instruction.
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