The Best Children’s Books Ever

This summer, kids can distract themselves in any number of ways: they can frolic on the beach, play video games, or even take to Twitter. But when it comes to preserving the I.Q. points from the school year, Nicholas Kristof has the secret: good old-fashioned summer reading. From Charlotte’s Web to The Prince and the Pauper, Kristof surveys the best kid’s books of all time. Some of the books, such as Wind in the Willows, he listened to as a child, and others, like the Harry Potter series, he’s read aloud to his own children. He writes of J.K. Rowling's famous series: “Look, the chance to read these books aloud is by itself a great reason to have kids."