Finally! What you have all been waiting for: a guide to children’s books with MUSHROOMS. This is for those of you who decided to have kids in order to further celebrate fungi, toadstools, and the like… in illustrated form – and I know there are many of you. (In fact, I am bracing myself for this post to go viral just like that crazy outcropping of Mycena galericulata around our rotting tree stump last spring…)
Your little budding mycologists will love these books in general, but they will take particular joy in the pages featuring mushrooms, especially if you learn to the read the word mushroom in several different high, low, and just-plain-weird voices all conveying excitement and extreme appreciation. Even more so if you tickle your child while saying the word mushroom. Ahh, the power of suggestion. (Stage parent? No, ‘shroom parent.)
Who wouldn’t fall in love with the following pages? In fact, blowing these up 1,000 percent then using them as wallpaper is a perfectly normal reaction…
1. from Oh, the Thinks You Can Think! by Dr. Seuss
2. from Little Owl’s Night by Divya Srinivasan
3. from The Crown on Your Head by Nancy Tillman
4. from Red Wagon by Renata Liwska
5. from I am a Bunny, by Ole Risom and Richard Scarry
I know this post has forced you to ask many questions i.e. “Mushrooms? Really?” And: “Is she okay?” And: where can I get these excellent mushroomy books? Powells.com of course! But I have some questions for YOU:
1. Do you know of any more kids books featuring mushrooms? (Typed with the shaky hands of someone obsessed…)
2. What weird predilections are you actively (or passively) passing on to your kids? (Hopefully harmless, though this is always up for debate…)
3. Mushrooms aside, isn’t reading to your kids (and to yourself) THE BEST? Cheers!
***I heart your comments even more than mushrooms! ***
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Categories: Mushrooms, Parenting Humor
I would be surprised if there weren’t some somewhere in the Beatrix Potter books. I looked a little online, but I don’t have my copy of her complete works handy to check. But so many of her stories are set in the woods, I’d be surprised if there weren’t some somewhere.
ahhh, yes, thank you! I bet you are right 🙂 I LOVED her books as a kid, and we have a little set here that we haven’t dug into yet with 22 m.o…
I may or may not have a sizable collection of children’s books about owls. Passing on your love (or obsession) of mushrooms is a very good thing. One day, your little guy will give you a mushroom book or a mushroom card or an actual mushroom, and you’ll know he’s been listening. He knows you. 🙂
This thought both scares and thrills me 🙂 You are a wise woman.
I trust that your collection of owl books inhabits a special place in your tree. I mean, house. 🙂
(I see that your post was from a long time ago, but I happened to find it just now while searching for mushroom books for kids also, so I figured I’d paste the link to that one for you, in case you have yet to come across it, which is one our 4 year old likes a lot)
I was actually searching more for a sciency kind of kids book on mushrooms, or a kids identification guide, or something like that, but haven’t found it yet. If you are aware of something like that, I’d love to know about it, thanks!