Top 20 Read-a-Loud Countdown: #7 and #8

7.  Caps for Sale, written and illustrated by Esphyr Slobodkina.  This classic 1938 easy reader still enchants the little ones.  I frequently use the Big Book version, which can be cumbersome and yet makes a strong favorable impression, but there was a nice edition recently released (ISBN:  9780201091472) that is larger than the smallish original edition without being ginormous.  Anyway, this clever play on the whole "monkey see, monkey do" idea has a peddler in an uproar after he discovers a bunch of monkeys have stolen his merchandise (a bunch of caps) while he slept.  Kids love imitating the peddler as he shakes one finger and then both fists at the playful creatures who respond with "tsz, tsz, tsz".  The old-fashioned illustrations (the peddler looks like a distant cousin of Charles Chaplin's Little Tramp character) still delight.  And the whimsical nature of the tale prompts giggles.  It's simply timeless.

8.  My Friend Rabbit, written and illustrated by Eric Rohmann.  I fell in love with this book, winner of the 2003 Caldecott Medal, the very first moment I saw it.  I  wrote about it on this blog a while back.  Rohmann's charming woodcuts take readers/listeners on a nonsensical comical trip as a rabbit accidentally throws mouse's plane high up in a tree where they cannot retrieve it.  So the titular character comes up with a plan that involves making a tower of several animals (including a sleeping hippo!) in order to reach the lost airplane.  The expressions of the animal's faces are hilarious.  I notice something new each and every time I revisit this book.  And children love the absurdity of it all (the rabbit pulling in an elephant several times his size).  A clever, beautifully rendered treat.