100 Books Like Bedtime for Rosie Rabbit

My family and I moved to a new neighborhood a few years ago and for the first time we discovered what a community can feel like. We feel connected to a diverse group of people. We explore our park and surrounding streets, regularly supporting local shops and frequently bumping into our neighbors and other familiar faces. It’s given us a sense of place. All these books, as well as The Adventure Friends series, encourages this sense of wonder for your local community. You don’t have to go to far off lands to find adventure. Often, it’s right in your backyard!

Since an early age, I loved getting lost in a good story and knew I wanted to be a writer one day. As an adult, I tried writing in many genres but it was when I had my children that I knew I wanted to write children’s bedtime stories. I loved that special time at the end of a busy day when I could snuggle down with my children and get lost in a story with them. I now write children's bedtime stories for a podcast called Koko Sleep. The stories are written in a soothing way and are designed to help the listeners drift easily to sleep.

I have always loved animals and felt a deep empathy for every living creature. But it wasn’t until the COVID lockdown that I truly connected with them. Locked up with a partner, a boy, two dogs, and three cats in a small house with a yard, I realized that it's not just us taking care of them—they're doing their best to take care of us, too. Trained in art since childhood by my mom, it was during the COVID lockdown that I began to draw our furry companions in earnest. I spent every waking hour capturing their funny and endearing moments, ultimately putting it all together in a picture book.

Since an early age, I loved getting lost in a good story and knew I wanted to be a writer one day. As an adult, I tried writing in many genres but it was when I had my children that I knew I wanted to write children’s bedtime stories. I loved that special time at the end of a busy day when I could snuggle down with my children and get lost in a story with them. I now write children's bedtime stories for a podcast called Koko Sleep. The stories are written in a soothing way and are designed to help the listeners drift easily to sleep.

I’m a little bit obsessed with children’s books. I have an extensive personal library of books from my own childhood as well as my kids'. I’m also a person who has become increasingly, shall we say, concerned about the deepening of the culture wars in our society and the ways in which children’s libraries end up being the battleground for those wars. Children’s books matter; if they didn’t, no one would be trying to censor them. And I’d argue that children’s books about ethics and morality might matter even more than most. The five books I’ve recommended here are, in my opinion, truly among the best. 

I’m the author of Raccoon Tune, Elena’s Story, and eight books about goofy sheep. My family didn’t get a TV until I was nine, so I used the library for entertainment. I liked all kinds of books. I’m still a voracious reader and I’m fascinated by the nuances of words. My kids loved silly books--especially where someone ignores the obvious--and so does my granddaughter. I also grew up playing with words. Once, on a car trip, I started rhyming about sheep driving a jeep, and even a preschooler knows you shouldn’t forget to steer. I think that seeing foolish characters in stories helps kids make sense of the world.

Since I was a girl, I’ve had an enduring sense that women must work harder, be cleverer, think more creatively than men, both at work and sometimes at home. So I love a woman who stands up for herself, who doesn’t suffer fools gladly. At one time, when the series Spooks was popular on TV, I wanted to be Ros, the operator who, when a dodgy guy followed her, hid around a corner. She flattened him with some nifty moves, stole his car keys and said: “Never follow me again.” Brilliant! I hope you enjoy all the feisty females on my book list. 

Lots of us rely occasionally on technology to help us entertain a young child, but the connection we form when looking at a book together cannot be beaten. I have found, both personally and professionally, that great books are born when a kind of magical mix-up is created in a child’s imagination between the words you read and the pictures they see. It feels so wonderful when this happens that they want to revisit the book again and again. I have written many books for young children over more than 20 years, and I am always striving to help cast that magical spell.

I am pathologically allergic to “message” books. As the former host of The Gittle List contest for self-published authors, I’ve read hundreds of children’s books. Many were “tell, not show” books. Stories with phrases like “we all should respect each other’s differences” rather than showing characters respecting each other’s differences. My recommended books are, at least in part, about diversity. Like my own book series, they demonstrate diversity through unusual friendships. Showing how characters work out their differences by learning about each other and finding ways to get along. A good story can change hearts and minds when characters carry the message–not beat readers over the head with it.

I've always loved fiction, fantasy, and adventure stories. Growing up in the Star Wars generation, I was seven when A New Hope was released at the theaters. Living in the hollows of West Virginia there weren’t libraries close by, and movies were a great, though seldom, treat. Suggestive material and cursing was not something that we saw in books or movies growing up in a more simple period of time. I still thoroughly enjoy many well-written, clean, books or shows. As an active member of the body of Christ, I now serve with my writing, and hope that kids of all ages can enjoy epic fantasy and adventure books from a clean and wholesome perspective.