When Danish-born Else Holmelund Minarik was teaching first grade on Long Island in the 1950"s, she was frustrated by the fact that once her students learned to read, there weren"t any suitable books available to challenge them and make reading fun. So she wrote Little Bear and submitted it to Harper Collins (then Harper and Row.) It was immediately accepted and in fact launched the Harper "I Can Read" series of books. Since little ones love hearing Little Bear read aloud, I reviewed it in my first book-Beyond Good Night, Moon-75 Reviews of Classic Books for Young Children, but your beginning readers can easily read it independently. I also kept the anecdote of this book"s origin firmly in my mind as I chose the 75 titles for this book directed at emerging readers. In fact, eight of the titles are in the I Can Read series. Joan Louthain Ayer graduated from the University of Wisconsin at Platteville and taught second grade at the Frank Allis School in Madison,...