1) Geisel, Theodor S. One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish. USA: Random House, 1960.

     One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, as well as Love You Forever, is a huge seller among children’s books.  It was written by Theodor Geisel, otherwise known as Dr.Suess, and was published 1960.  It was one of the first extremely popular children’s books ever created for several reasons.  First of all, the way it was written is very appealing to children.  This is because of the fun rhyming used throughout the book, just as the title does.  The book just sounds good to hear out loud, which is the way it is read to children.  Because this book is meant to be read out loud to children, it is really almost an interactive piece of literature.

     Along with the words, the pictures in the book are vibrant and fun to look at.  For example, the cover is bright yellow with red, green, white, and blue colored fish jumping around.  These bright colors appeal to children just as the fun sounding rhyme’s do.  Every page of the book has enough to look at to keep you entertained while the words are being read.  This results in a book that can still be enjoyed by people with really short attention spans, such as children.  Along with the aesthetics of the book, it is also meant to educate children.  The book familiarizes children with colors and numbers that they will need to learn at some point in their life.  By seeing blue and hearing blue, and seeing red and hearing red, connections are started to be made whether the kids know it or not.

     Color, good wording, and education seem to be three key aspects that led to this books popularity. One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish produced a great equation for future children’s books to follow.  A book called One Dad, Two Dads, Brown Dad, Blue Dads is an example of one of these books that has the same concept but a more advanced message in it.

2) McGraw, Sheila. “Sheila McGraw Fine Art”. 2009. Sheila McGraw. 10 February 2009. http://sheilamcgrawfineart.com/

     Sheila McGraw is the illustrator of the book Love You Forever, and has created an online art gallery to sell her work.  The site has many different kind of paintings, however, her most expensive paintings are her work from the children’s books she illustrated.  One of her paintings for sale is page 12 of a book called My Mothers Hands, which is a colorful picture of a mother and a baby in a high chair, is selling at a price of $1,400.  There are also several paintings from the book Love You Forever on the site which are at a hefty price.

     The illustrations that Sheila does are all in bright colors, and depict family life relationships.  Most are illustrations of mothers and babies and family life predicaments.  Besides children’s books illustrations, she also has portraits for sale.  Being a member of The Portrait Society of America, she really specializes in drawing people.  This could explain why the majority of the pages of illustrations in both My Mothers Hands and Love You Forever are pictures of people such as mothers, fathers, and children.  Along with the bright colors, she also has a positive spin on every illustration.  Most people have smiles on their face, and the children always have a playful look.

3) Munisch, Robert. “The Official Robert Munsch Website”.17 November 2008. Robert Munsch. 10     February 2009. http://www.robertmunsch.com/bio.cfm

     The Robert Munisch is the author of Love You Forever, and has created an official website that is fun and kids based.  Just as his books have, the site is colorful and fun.  The front page has links to, among other things, kids art, photos, a biography, and a story time section.  The biography really provides cool information about Robert starting with the day he was born.  Through reading a little bit about Robert you can really see how much he cares and puts into the children’s books he writes.  The reason he writes a certain book is not because he just had a random idea.  He has a life experience that affects him emotionally and then he takes his emotions and expresses them in his literature.  For example, Love You Forever originally started as a song he sang when his wife gave birth to two born dead babies.  He later took this song and emotional situation, and then created a piece of literature out of it.

     A large part of his biography is solely about his book Love You Forever.  He explains how successful it is beating out a previous number one children’s book Goodnight Moon, which Robert says, “has been #1 forever”.  Selling over 30,000 when it was published in 1986, and to date over 18,000,000 it is hard to say that any children’s book has done better than Love You Forever.  Clearly, a piece of literature being this popular is worth taking a closer look.

4) Munisch, Robert and Sheila McGraw. Love You Forever. USA: Firefly, 1986

     Love You Forever is a children’s book written by Robert Munisch and illustrated by Sheila McGraw.  The book is arguably the number one written children’s book ever.  The cover shows a young boy in a bathroom creating chaos and holding a watch in the air.  Throughout the book a song is repeated that goes, “I’ll love you forever, I’ll like you for always, As long as I’m living My baby you’ll be.”  The song explains the relationship between a mother and child throughout the growing up stages of life, which is the central theme of the book.

     Unlike most children’s books, Love You Forever has a rather sad message, but without a depressing tone.  As you turn every page, everyone gets older in the book.  Soon enough the young boy is a father and his mother is too old to sing the lullaby.  This represents the idea death in family life.  Most children’s books do not address death in any way, however this book does it.  And, it does it in a way that helps children understand the concept of losing someone without creating a depressing tone.  The tone is kept happy through all the bright and fun pictures illustrated by Sheila McGraw.  The facial expressions drawn are very fun and happy in the majority of the pictures, and are surrounded with bright colors.  Having such an important message, and the way the message is conveyed, in a children’s book such as this really results in an awesome reading experience.

5) YouTube-Love You Forever.  YouTube LLC. 10 February 2009. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyZaOQu9chQ

     This video on You Tube is an awesome interpretation of the book Love You Forever.  The video shows every picture page of the book, and then has a ghost image of the maker of the videos family.  So, as you watch the video, the book goes page to page, and you see his family in the faintly in the background.  This really makes the book a very personal experience for the creator of the video.  The book is part of his family and his family part of the book.  As the child in the book grows up, so does his own child.

     The creator of the video also narrates the words all the way through the story in his own voice.  This even personalizes the story more, which creates an even more emotional experience than the book on its own.  The idea that someone would put the time to create something like this shows how important this children’s book is to adults, just as children