Richard Scarry's Best First Book Ever

by Richard Scarry

Illus. in full color. Favorite Scarry animal characters introduce simple learning concepts and over 700 words.

Genres: Childrens, Picture Books, Classics, Animals, Kids, Number

48 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

RICHARD SCARRY is one of the world's best-loved children's authors EVER! In his extraordinary career, Scarry illustrated over 150 books, many of which have never been out of print. His books have sold over 100 million copies around the world, and are currently published in over twenty languages. No other illustrator has shown such a lively interest in the words and concepts of early childhood. Richard Scarry was posthumously awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of Illustrators in 2012.

Reviews

[Sean Gibson]

This is an excellent book for reading with the kiddos and has all sorts of fun things for them to learn...

That said, I will warn you that, in my experience, it's best not to discuss the characters Huckle and Mr. Frumple at the same time, because then your 2.5-year-old son will conflate them into a new character named "Fuckle." This will make your wife laugh uncontrollably, and you will spend the next 5 minutes doing damage control and trying to convince your son that his mommy is laughing at the fact that Lowly Worm is trying to eat a banana (silly worm! worms don't eat bananas!) rather than at the word "Fuckle."

Consider yourself warned.

[Brittany]

Fantastic book for practicing reading

[Sarita]

I enjoy reading this to the kids.

[Amelia]

Very cute book! Only gave it a 4 because there was a different book of Richard Scarry that is similar that was the kiddos favorite over this one!

[Grada (BoekenTrol)]

Frankly speaking, When I first read this book I was way to old for it. My brother got it for his 3rd (?) birthday and fell in love with it immediately. He refused to let go of it, took it everywhere he went. Curious as I was (and still am), I took the book in a moment that he was not there and liked it very much too. The humor, drawings, words that were explained, fantastic!
So, when I got the chance, I let my son read it too. And the story repeated itself :)

[Natalie Hoage]

My 22 month old son LOVES this book! It is full of words and pictures of things that he sees everyday, and he surprises me now when he can point to the pictures and name the things that he sees without me telling him what they are!

[Jessica]

This book makes me crazy because I feel like I should read every word in it, but my two year old son loves it and wants it at bedtime. We compromise by following Mr. Frumble and his hat.

[Kami Li]

Simply the best

[Amy]

I’ve always loved these books as a kid, and as a teacher and librarian, I’ve really grown to loving and appreciating them even more. Not only do these books teach crucial skills, such as the alphabet, counting, months, shapes, etc., but they also do so in such a concrete way, especially using the illustrations to help young readers and learners make connections!

[Nic]

I'm putting this on our baby (and toddler) book shelf both because it is excellent and as a stand-in for Richard Scarry in general. His books are classics for a reason! Our toddler loves looking at the busy illustrations (and pointing out Lowly Worm wherever he sees him).

[Sara Hollar]

We love Richard Scarry!

[Quinn]

Enqi said I like the story the cat got shot and didn’t cry, and so is she.

[Annalise Kraines]

I had this book when I was small! Tbh this is pretty dated in a lot of ways. The illustrations are extremely cluttered, but I remember that part being super fun when I was little.

[Armana]

Love so much that read it 30 times!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Nathan Heeb]

As good as it was when I was a kid

[Chelsea]

Love finding Mr. Frumble's hat.

[Annia Costa]

A great way for the small children to learn the basic vocabulary. My students find the stories appealing.

[Rachel]

Gave to Abel for birthday.

[Charlotte Igelkott]

Den här lärde jag mig läsa ur <3

[Dee Miller]

One of the few hard back books we owned in the early 1970's. I had two toddlers a year apart and we loved looking through the wonderfully cute pictures and guessing words.

[Sarah Sammis]

While there are some oddities in the book (like the parents sleeping in separate beds and Mommy Cat always wearing a dress), it's still a good and solid introduction for vocabulary building. Every page has every item labeled in a variety of situations and places: home, the kitchen, the living room, the laundry room, school, the grocery store, an ice cream parlor, and so forth. It also introduces the basic parts of the body, color theory and counting.

Richard Scarry's books often times contain a running gag of some sort. In Cars and Trucks and Things That Go, readers are asked to find Gold Bug on every page. In this book, readers can follow Mr. Fumble as he tries to catch his windblown hat.The question of where's Mr. Fumble's hat and the often times surreal things depicted and labeled are what make these books so much fun to read.

[Mark]

Packed with Richard Scarry's detailed and signature illustrations, Best First Book Ever would make a wonderful introduction for a small child to the author's world of Busytown. In the company of Huckle the Cat, Lowly the Worm, Mr. Frumble, Miss Honey and many others small children can learn so much from this book. With over seven hundred words to discover and all sorts of funny accidents to laugh about, small children and new readers will be kept very busy looking through the pages.

I read this for the first time around 1986 and finding it reprinted for present kids at aksara bookstore brought back those happy memory as a happy little boy.

If you want to teach your children English, this book is very useful. Go buy one.

[Michael]

Read it again this year, but made a game of finding the different objects mentioned in the book, from tools, fruits, vegetables, ships, boats, farm equipment, chores, among the many objects and actions found in daily life.


Aug 1, 2013 A1 and A2 had fun learning about colors, the alphabet, counting, good manners, shapes and sizes, the months of the year, and more than 700 words. Yes, I slightly modified the description of the book to suit my review. I have always been a fan of Richard Scarry's books ever since I started buying them for my boys. Due to travels, I was able to pick up a couple in Dutch and Italian Seen on the internet they are also published in Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, Finnish, German, Afrikaans, Lithuanian, among several other languages.

[Liesl]

Wonderful book! Covers a ton of basic topics with fun, colorful illustrations featuring Richard Scarry's classic characters that I loved as a child. There was so much to read on each page that I read a little to my 8-month-old son at a time. He was so fascinated by the busy pictures that he kept leaning forward and batting at the pages! We are sure to revisit this book many times in the future.

[Ms. Biesecker]

Category: Concept and informational books
Author: Richard Scarry
Illustrator: Richard Scarry
Title: Richard Scarry’s Best First Book Ever!
Publication date: 1979
Brief annotation: Richard Scarry’s illustrated book introduces over 700 learning concepts and words.
Themes: beginning learners, new concepts, new words
Ways to use the book with children: Beginner’s introduction to encyclopedias and new concepts/words

[Hope L. Justice]

Richard Scarry books have so much to offer. I really considered this a five star book for a lap book. Picture books have just moved so far away from these classic styles that I find it hard to apply five stars, only because of practicality . This is a lap and point book, this is not a read aloud book. I think the illustrations are beautiful; I love the labeling in this book, and all Scarry's classics, but this is just so busy, again, I find his works distracting.

[R.]

If you do not smile at Scarry's kitten family then you are a bottomless void of despair.

Also, Scarry's influence is obvious in the set design of The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.

[Yvette Benner]

This was my favorite book as a preschooler. So when I had my son, I naturally picked a copy of this book up. He LOVES it as well. The illustrations of day to day activities plus the word association is fantiastic.

[Brooke]

I remember these from my childhood. Grabbed one at Powell's the greatest bookstore on earth. I love the rotary phones and lack of technology vocabulary options. And searching for lowly the worm is super fun.

[Vanessa Lee]

I remember this book from when I was a kid so perhaps it gets stars for nostalgic value. My children now love it. It is pretty timeless... Well, except for the outdated box television set, radio and landline telephone! Oh we'll, it now has historic value too.