Seven picture books we loved this summer

This summer Jilly and I took on Janssen's list of 100 Picture Books to Read.  I turned the list into a chart with boxes we could color as we read each book and it was a huge summer success.  And since there's nothing like a basket full of library books to make a new house feel like home we made sure to stock up on loads of other books all summer long.

Some of these are from Janssen's list and some are books we found on our own, but they are all new favorites of ours.  

Chalk by Bill Thomson - This is a fun wordless picture book about an adventurous afternoon when some kids find a bag of chalk.  My girls asked to read this over and over and over, especially when Bryan was reading because he did the best sound effects.

The Princess in Black by Shannon and Dean Hale - As one of her summer reading prizes Jilly could get a free book at Barnes and Noble and this is what she chose.  I hadn't heard anything about The Princess in Black but I've loved Shannon Hale's other books so I knew we were in good hands.  This book blew me away.  It's a cute little story about a princess who's pretty in pink but also not afraid to fight monsters.  It's clever and sweet and the perfect length for Jilly's age- it's technically a chapter book but the chapters are super short.  We read the whole book in one afternoon and have re-read it many times since.  Don't tell Jilly, but I've already pre-ordered the next in the series for her birthday.

Moo! by David La Rochelle and Mike Wohnoutka - This book had my girls in stitches, and I thought it was pretty funny too.

Tikki Tikki Tembo by Arlene Mosel - This is a classic that I don't remember at all from my childhood and I had never read to my girls, but it quickly became a favorite around here.  And I got pretty good at saying Tikki Tikki Tembo's long name.

Waddle! A Scanimation Picture Book by Rufus Butler Seder - The scanimation is cool, but that's not even my girls' favorite part.  They love to follow along and do each animal's action, and there is nothing cuter than little Mattie waddling all around the house.  This book also is the source of Mattie's recent obsession with "cocadiles."

Falling for Rapunzel by Leah Wilcox - I'm pretty sure I liked this one better than Jilly the first time we read it.  But she's a sucker for princesses and on the second read she really picked up on the funny rhymes and was giggling along with me.

Polar Bear's Underwear by Tupera Tupera - I was wary of a book about underwear but it turned out to be really, really cute.  This is one of the few of the maaaaany books we checked out this summer that we actually kept for the entire 9 weeks allowed by the library.