However, you probably don’t know the background as to how Barney and I began our work together. If you follow my work, you may be thinking, “A bit biased, Cyndi?” and it’s true that Barney and I do a lot of work together, including the YouTube channel we’ve built. The first book I recommend is Beautiful Oops by Barney Saltzberg. However, in this post, I wanted to share the books whose messages I believe will nurture and foster a creative mindset in you and your child and whose message has stuck with us over time. Along the lines of my post on books to help you live a more creative life, I could recommend hundreds of children’s books that fit this category.

Reading these children’s books, we laughed uncontrollably together through Shark versus Train, debated the tone of the various “ruffs” in Sandra Boynton’s Doggie book, and practiced empathy together when we reached a point in Charlotte’s Web when I began crying over the death of the spider, and my son put his hand on my hand and said, “Mom, I think you need to take a little break.”Īs a creativity and education expert, I have always been on the look-out for “creative” children’s books. I hold this memorable time close to my heart. At one point, I had nearly 1500 children’s books in my house. My kids cheered each time I came home with a large box of books, and we would sit and explore them all together.

I would sneak off to garage sales on the weekends, where I could easily find used children’s books for 25 cents each. In just five minutes, I could have a cuddle with my little one as we journeyed through a delightful story full of fun and visually captivating characters.

When my children were young, I became enamored with children’s books.

The beautiful oops book