Children’s books that forever changed my life.

Of course, you say, of course she’d like that book. She chose the name.

My daughter is named Georgia, but not for the artist O’Keeffe. My daughter is named for two great-grandfathers on both sides of her family. One an architect; one a farmer.

So this book, once again, is rather for me. Georgia O’Keeffe is my namesake, my mentor, as an artist and an independent being. As a heart and an eye and a hand that saw the big truth in small things.

My Name is Georgia
A Portrait by Jeanette Winter

Her entire life story is told in these 48 pages of spare text and evocative illustrations. Her own girl, with her own way and her own way of seeing. Drawn by the urge to meet the faraway up close, to render mysteries plain and true so people would see.

I went to the New Mexico desert.
So far away that no one ever comes.
I was satisfied to be all by myself.
I did things other people don’t do.
I painted my sky BIG, so people would see the sky the way I did.

Find the fearless footprint, hear the song of truth and echo it back over the mountains. Paint your life BIG so people will see.

My earlier favorites are shelved here, here and here.

Children’s books that forever changed my life.

It turns out I have an affinity for things French (besides fools and fries). Today I send you in the direction of a cat that travels, in the inscrutably self-actualized nature of a cat, across the entire country of France to find his original home.

This is the sweetest, shortest evocation of a spiritual sojourn that I have ever read.

The Cat Who Walked Across France
By Kate Banks
Pictures by Georg Hallensleben

Kitty lives in a stone house by the sea until the day he is shipped north, with all the other lifelong belongings of the old woman who once scratched his ears and stroked his back. Soon he is forgotten among the unclaimed and disused. Until one day he leaves.

Children playing ball would chase after him. And the cat would scurry up a tree. But when he nestled in its branches, he would remember the tangy smell of lemons ripening on a branch under a window at the stone house by the edge of the sea. And he would move on.

May we all move on through a life as lush as the French landscape until we reach a wide open front door, settle into a warm, familiar spot and come to rest, knowing we are home.

Earlier recommendations here and here.

Children’s books that forever changed my life.

I often tell people that every book they read to a child they read to themselves, and therefore not to miss the urgent message that is being delivered into their own hands, from none other than their own lips, and through their own eyes.

Of late, as I’ve recounted, the shelves of my daughter’s room have been cleared of those things that never had much to give or from which every use has already been wrung. A few children’s books remain, all of which my daughter has outgrown, none of which I have or ever will.

This week I’m going to recommend them to you. Some are rather obscure; others, not. Each of them arrived into my hands and heart when I needed them most. Every time I read them is precisely when I need them most. I entrust their magic to you.

Pierre’s Dream
By Jennifer Armstrong
Pictures by Susan Gaber

Pierre is a lazy, foolish man who has no job, no interests and no hobby besides sitting under the olive trees in the afternoon thinking of dinner. That alone recommends him as a hero to me, however in this telling he does far more. He falls asleep, and he begins to dream a dream of fantastic proportions and unbelievable feats.

“Very realistic,” he murmured. But as it was his dream, or so he thought, he had no fear. “For of course, I can wake up at any time,” he reminded himself.

Pierre taught me to stop distinguishing between those things I only dream of doing, and those I do. He teaches me still. The distinction, you see, is only fear.

Pierre’s dreams are very realistic, and so are yours. Wake up and surprise yourself beginning with this book!