Charlie Cook's Favorite Book

Charlie Cook's Favorite Book by Julia Donaldson
Illustrated by Axel Scheffler
2005

     Today is my 150th consecutive day blogging about picture books.  So the decision to pick a book for such a special day wasn't an easy one.  I picked Charlie Cook's Favorite Book by Julia Donaldson because it's the kind of book you read and you say to yourself:  "This is genius, why didn't I think of it first?"  I've always like the idea of meta fiction, fiction within fiction and when you read this book, you see it done to perfection.
    By the way, I wanted to add that the number of you readers out there keeps growing and I would love to hear from you. So reply to this post and share a book you think I should include on my blog, OK? Now back to our scheduled programming...
     Charlie's curled up in a cozy chair, reading his favorite book, a book about pirates.  The pirates are looking for a treasure and when they find it it's a book. And this book is about a girl called Goldilocks who's found laying on little bear's bed reading her favorite book.  And her favorite book is about a knight who entertains a dragon by reading him his favorite book.  And the knight's favorite book is about a frog that hops all the way into a library and jumps on a book.  That book is about birds and one of them has made his nest out of pages of his favorite book.  And the bird's favorite book is about a girl that saw aliens and when she went to tell her mom, her mom ignored her because she was reading her favorite magazine.  Her magazine was about a thief that got caught and while he laid inside his cell, he read his favorite book.  Which was about and alligator that went into a bookshop and started to read an encyclopedia.  And the encyclopedia entry was about a giant cake that was so tasty that an astronaut took a slice of it to space.  The astronaut also brought his favorite book with him which was a horror tale about a ghost who put her head back on her shoulders to read her favorite book.  And her favorite book was "about a cozy armchair, and a boy called Charlie Cook."
     See what I mean? Charlie Cook's Favorite Book is a riot.  The illustrations are fantastic and at every page you'll find yourself transported to a "new" book.  This is a great read aloud for home and the classroom as well as a great sample to use for text innovation (where kids follow the format of a story and write their own tale following that framework).  Go to the library and check out every book they have by Donaldson. You won't regret it.