Children's Author Highlight: Helen Lester

Helen Lester *

Helen Lester writes fascinating stories with animals as the characters.  Lynn Musinger has done the artwork in most of Lester's books. The combination of beautiful illustrations and creative stories found in Helen Lester's books will delight your children over and over.

For more information on this author, you can click here to listen to an interview with Helen Lester, view a few photos of the author, and see a complete book list.

We were introduced to Tacky the Penguin several years ago when we checked out an audio version from the library.  The audio was so well done, that we all fell in love with Tacky, an odd bird.  We have read Tacky the Penguin so often that we can mostly quote this fun book.  There are several other books about Tacky and his other adventures (like Three Cheers for Tacky, Tackylocks, and Tacky in Trouble) but the original Tacky the Penguin remains our favorite.

We have recently discovered another character of Helen Lester's that my children adore, Wodney Wat, (AKA: Rodney Rat, but he cannot pronounce his r's). In Hooway for Wodney Wat the timid rat becomes the hero because of his poor speech and gains confidence and popularity.  There are currently two books about Wodney Wat, Hooway for Wodney Wat and Wodney Wat's Wobot, both of which we have enjoyed several times in the last few weeks.

Our recommended reads by Helen Lester this week include:

• Tacky the Penguin 
• Hooway for Wodney Wat
• Wodney Wat's Wobot
• It Wasn't My Fault
• A Porcupine Named Fluffy

Disclaimer: Our recommendation of the books mentioned in this post is not a complete endorsement of the author, illustrator, or their other works.  Please use discernment in selecting books by any given author.

* Photo found here.