I would like to take this opportunity to thank Mallory for having bought my kids this book two years ago. It is literally the greatest book for babies ever, and there are only a few left in stock so GET ON A WAITING LIST OR SOMETHING.
I will now explain why it is so perfect. Then you can tell me what YOU buy for babies.
First of all, it is full of vibrant, lovely colors.
Secondly, each page has a different pet’s tail that your baby can grab and chew on.
Thirdly, it’s so SWEET: “I love my bunny, with his wobbly bobbly tail.” “I love my fish, his tail goes swish-swish.”
Fourthly, your friend’s baby already has nine copies of Goodnight Moon.
Fifthly, the book CRINKLES, it is a CRINKLY book and it’s so great.
*
Okay, tell me what books for babies (or other baby presents!) you love most.
Tags: books, family, gifts, kids
oooh, very cool!
I love the “indestructables” line of books made out of tyvek. They are great for chewing and gumming and slobbering and tearing, but they do not tear and can simply be washed off. Also, they are beautiful, and made by women (at least the original ones) http://www.amazon.com/Indestructible-Wordless-Pic…
The “Mama and Baby” one is my favorite http://www.amazon.com/Mama-Baby-Indestructibles-K…
They’re also pretty mold resistant, which is important in tropical climates!
I have a 2 year old niece coming to visit in August, please give me your recs for 2 year olds!
I love “Press Here” by Herve Tullet. It’s adorable! http://www.amazon.com/Press-Here-Herve-Tullet/dp/…
Mo Willems’ Pigeon series, starting with _Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus_.
_Peekabo Morning_.
One of the _That’s Not My . . . _ series. (That’s not my dragon, its scales are too slippery.)
The first pigeon book we tried was Don’t Let The Pigeon Stay Up Late and now I think we own all of them.
We got this from the library today! I love it, working on my special pigeon voice
Right now, I wish I knew a toddler that I could present with Over the Hills and Far Away. Some familiar English nursery rhymes, some from around the world, and the art is lovely.
I suppose it’s a “read-to” book, it’s far from indestructible, but some of my fondest memories are reading some of these rhymes to my own kid.
While we’re on the subject, for slightly older children there’s Sing a Song of Popcorn. Another great marriage of poetry and illustration.
I am suuuper in love with The Bear Ate Your Sandwich right now. My 2-year-old loves it, the illustrations are beautiful but not beautiful in that adults-like-it-but-kids-think-it’s-boring way, and it’s fun to read as the parent. I legit laughed when I got to the end, and that rarely happens at storytime.
These two will be good, but also work when they are older. This is not my hat by Jon Klassen. Shhh! We have a Plan by Chris Haughton.
These are great now: Tiptoe Joe by Ginger Gibson. Look! by Jeff Mack and I Got the Rhythm by Connie Schofield-Morrison,
Skippyjon Jones, but you have to do the voices.
it’s never too early to break out the george and martha or frog and toad series.
i also really like fortunately by remy charlip for read-alouds. 2 year olds shouldn’t have any trouble grasping the pattern of fortunately/unfortunately.
My almost two year old goddaughter is super into Click Clack Moo (and Click Clack Quack and Click Clack Peep). They are also very entertaining for adults! She also love the Chu books (Chu’s Day out, etc…) by Neil Gaiman
As an aside, I don’t love that term godchild (it’s not really a religious thing), but “child for whom I’m the designated legal guardian” is a bit of a mouthful… any suggestions?
I was recently introduced to a class of four year olds as “Miss Ella, my own fairy godmother!”, which satisfies both my need to feel a bit magic, and due respect for said fairy goddaughter’s Hinduism. I have also heard “odd-mother” and my own were all honorary aunts.
Fairy godmother is wonderful! She calls me Auntie which I love, but I’m I’m still trying to figure out how to refer to her in conversation (fairy goddaughter is also a wonderful one!)
I have a coworker who has what normally I would call a goddaughter/godchild. She lovingly refers to her as her ‘heart-daughter’. I think it’s absolutely beautiful, and will likely do the same if I am ever in a similar situation.
My kid is really into the ‘If you give a…’ books. (If you give a mouse a cookie, If you give a pig a party, etc)
Have You Seen My Dragon and Have You Seen My Monster by Steve Light are both EXCELLENT 2-year-old books. My twin 2-year-old nephews have demanded these every single day since I gave them the books for their birthday, and that was back in April.
Our Animal Friends at Maple Hill Farm http://www.amazon.ca/Animal-Friends-Maple-Hill-Fa…
I couldn’t get enough of it when I was two, and the subtle humour makes it enjoyable for adults even after they’ve had to read it aloud dozens of times.
Not a book but give that 2-year-old a plain old WALLET (with no chokey bits that could break off) with a few old gift cards/expired library cards/whatever in there. Seriously trust me I work with kids and I know so many toddlers and their very most favorite thing is GROWNUP STUFF so this is the ideal gift.
BRB gathering up old gift cards for my two year-old’s wallet.
I love The Little Worm Book. A lot of the jokes are funnier to grownups than to children, but it’s still got a picture of a worm lifting weights, which is awesome.
Note: some of the illustrations are…dated, in their depiction of non-Caucasian worms.
But look at this picture of some common worm maladies!
My animal-loving two-year-old daughter is currently obsessed with Hush, Little Horsie: http://www.amazon.com/Hush-Little-Horsie-Jane-Yol…. I am not a big fan of horses and never have been, but she *adores* this book. She gets two books at bedtime and last night she just told me to read HLH twice. I think in part it’s because the little girl at the end kind of looks like her?
Also, Where’s Spot.
I really like ‘Shh’ by Sally Grindley, I worked in a nursery and we used to read it in the pre-school room, but it’s a great one to grow into for 2 years +, and gets children involved in the story.
My go-to baby shower present has been, and will continue to be for as long as I give baby shower gifts, Graeme Base’s Animalia, the best picture book in existence: http://www.powells.com/biblio/17-9780810918689-31
Oh, my daughter spent hours with that book!
She was also very fond of The Sign of the Seahorse.
The Eleventh Hour is my favorite Graeme Base book. I always scout used books stores and sales for any Grame Base books to give as baby shower gifts.
I love The Eleventh Hour, even if (or perhaps because) I got impatient and cheated by unsealing the solution pages at the very end, instead of solving the mystery on my own.
I’ve loved that ever since I found the Dalek on the D page. 😀
i found that just a year or so ago! the doctor is there too 😀
My favorite go-to new baby gift is a bright, boldly colored baby name print from a fine Canadian Etsy seller I happened upon years and years ago. But I also enjoy buying board books for babies, because they are great for entertainment AND for teething, and books that crinkle and books that have lift-the-flap components and any book with a mirror in it because babies love staring at themselves.
I love the moment when babies realize the other baby in the mirror is actually THEM. It’s like discovering their toes all over again.
I can attest to the awesomeness of this print – I have one from Nikki framed in my baby’s room!
Book-wise my baby likes feeling the textures in those “That’s Not My…” books mentioned above.
Please to be linking to this Canadian Etsy store!
It’s this one!
BOOTIES! So help me God, when I see baby booties my mind goes “duuuuuuh, cuuuuuuuuuute, must buuuuuuuy”. Why I don’t know: is it the size, the adorable-ness of them? I’m childless, I don’t own dolls and I hate seeing small dogs running around in boots with matching tutus, so I’m puzzled over my gigglely love for baby booties.
They are adorable, but I’ve found that actual babies prefer to spend their time pulling them off.
HEE, I know! Perhaps that’s part of the appeal, booties inspire a form of early autonomy, ie. “there’s no effing way you are putting THAT on MY foot”.
Sent from my iPad
My go-to baby gift is a Miracle Blanket or the Manhattan Toy winkel.
Book-wise, I love the Sandra Boynton board books. My MIL has a crinkle book copy of “The Wheels on the Bus” that’s great, but she bought it about 16 years ago and I’ve never been able to find a copy.
we read ALL the Boynton books when the kids were little, and they have them sort of memorized (as do I, apparently) and one part or another of them is applicable to EVERYTHING.
“Hippos Go Berserk” is my particularly favorite (and one that I found strangely poignant as a child).
I buy Elephant and Piggie books (by Mo Willems) for my friends like they’re candy, as they’re so much fun and especially fun to read out loud. I’ve even put one of them in my maternity bag so husband and I can read it to our newborn baby in the hospital. (It’s “We Are In A Book”, because baby needs to learn about metafiction asap, obvs.)
I’ve never tried his Elephant and Piggie books but I love love LOVE the Pigeon books! Knuffle Bunny is also adorable.
Elephant and Piggie books are fantastic and I especially relate to Gerald’s special brand of bespectacled neurosis. “WE MUST BE READY” gets announced in my house >3/wk.
also great are Mo Willem’s ‘Cat the Cat’ series, they are for the very littlest Mo Willem fans. My daughter’s favorite is ‘what’s your sound, hound the hound?’
It’s not buyable, but my mom made me a fabric book when I was little. She wrote me a story about a little girl named Unreadaethel, who found a snake named Lowell trapped in a pipe, and she freed him and they became friends. She used iron-transfer crayons to make a book out of it, and then made me a big blue snake (with a yellow stripe and newsboy cap!) to go with it.
I mean, other books are also good, but I had my very own book in which I rescued a snake and we became friends.
Gee it sure is dusty in here….
He also had button eyes and a pink felt tongue!
The best toy for babies I found is Sophie Le Girafe. We had our first kid before they were mass imported but a friends wife from France brought one back for us. best toy ever… I went over seas and bought a dozen to bring back. Each of our kids got their own, then we doled out the rest to close friends kids. They love the texture, the legs and head to play with and the squeaking. They didn’t want anything else when they started teething. And they are durable, my oldest is 10 and his is still kicking around the basement somewhere.
I got one of those giraffes for a good friend’s baby, and my friend reported back that it’s her favorite thing in the world.
It was also fun because when we were in France when my oldest was only 1.5 yrs old, he would carry it around. And all these cute French grandmothers would point and yell “Sophie!!” all excited.
Why are these the best things? My kids are too old, but suddenly one day the cousin’s kids ALL had Sophies, and not one of them would ever let them go. I’ve always wondered about it. Is the texture so different from other plastic toy things? Do they use the same material to make other non-giraffe toys?
I’m a quilter so my go to baby present is a wee quilt. But I always give books for subsequent birthdays. My favorite thing to do is to find a kid book that somehow incorporates an aspect of my relationship with the parents. Like it’s about something we love, or our inside joke, or something we’ve done together. Maybe they’re not always stunningly great books and maybe they’re not always the kid’s favorite but the parents always, always love that I took the time to look for a book that’s personal.
I do quilts too, usually 36″ square. It’s a good size for tummy time or draping over a carseat without dragging on the ground. I usually do a minky back and no batting for spring/summer babies (or nieces born in Hawaii) and add batting for cooler month babies
I immediately bought this book for our own baby-in-progress! I know you told us to get it for a friend’s baby, but I disobeyed, sorry.
Our go-to baby purchase these days is whale-related bathtime goods. This whale spout cover, for example: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001WAJVZM
But really anything whale-shaped that makes bathtime easier, that’s our signature baby present. Maybe some books too, because too many books is a difficult problem to fathom, but someone else is already getting clothes, and no one’s getting whale-shaped bath items, so we can usually lock that corner of the registry down. (We also have a nautical-themed surname, so it all ties together.)
OMG we have friends with a surname that is shark-related, and I secretly hope that maybe one day you all can meet and become natucal-name friends.
Wait – do I remember correctly that you were providing #BaltimoreUprising coverage? Because if so, it’s not completely impossible that we are in fact your friends.
Bwuhhh? I was the one providing #BaltimoreUprising coverage! Okay, Hieu is my actual name and I’m 95% certain I’m one of maybe 2 Hieus in Baltimore City, so…
o_O
The friends I’m thinking of just had their littlest shark though..
That is an awesome whale-related bathtime accessory.
I SO SO concur on this post. My two girls loved this book (and a related title: Kitty tails): chewed on the tails, laughed at the crinkling, learned the names and animal sounds via this book. It has gone through the washing machine multiple times. A + five star rating.
Anything Sandra Boynton but especially “The Belly Button Book” and “But Not the Hippopotamus”. Also, was baby-shopping for a friend the other day and saw a bib that said “These FOOLS put my cape on backwards!” which is just great.
Bee bo!
My kid just started filling in the ‘bee bos’ when we read that book, and it is the cutest thing ever.
Belly Button Book is my go to, especially since I read it too much and memorized it by accident. Not so awesome party trick.
Also HIPPOS GO BERSERK! and Moo, Baa, La la la.
We have this book! This book is great. There is also a horse-only version, for those trying to raise tiny Horse People. Another best baby toy that will make you look like a total baby whisperer to your new-parent friends is the O ball rattle. My 2-year-old still likes to throw it around, and her little sister (4 months) has a serious frenemy relationship with it because it’s so grabbable but refuses to be entirely engulfed by her mouth, much to her chagrin.
My sister has requested these for her impending spawn:
http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/das-monst…
OMG. Yes. Yes, I will make those for your tiny monster-butted child.
Can you make these in adult sizes? Asking for a friend.
Your friend could probably adapt something like Elizabeth Zimmerman’s Nether Garments <a href=”http://(http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/nether-garments—adult-september)” target=”_blank”>(http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/nether-garments—adult-september) for the purpose. Really, the only things that make them Monster Butt Pants are doing some short rows for a good fit over the rear end in a nice gaping maw color, plus a little bit of embellishment for eyes and fangs.
If I have a spawn of my own, I need someone to make this for it:
If I get pregnant, I totally plan to use that nesting phase to learn how to knit! Or maybe I should learn how to knit now so that I can use the nesting phase to actually make things… decisions…
but that’s adorable and now I want a Katamari baby
Yes! I also have these queued up and need to cast on. They look amazing
Two of my kids’ favorite books are This Is Not My Hat and I Want My Hat Back. They are meant for older kids, I think (we got the books when my kids were four and six) and, fair warning, they are dark (it is implied that the thieves are eaten), but my kids LOVE these books.
I WAS LITERALLY ON MY WAY DOWN HERE TO SAY THESE EXACT BOOKS. The punishment for theft is death! A healthy lesson for everyone.
We have these books! We read them to a 3-yr-old and he was…alarmed. Definitely for slightly older children, or gloss over the murdery parts.
Those are the BEST.
I gave this to a nibling when he was 2 and he ADORED IT FROM THAT VERY MOMENT.
Everywhere Babies (the lap board book version here – http://www.amazon.com/Everywhere-Babies-lap-board… is my go-to read-aloud baby book gift. The rhymes are super sweet, it’s an incredible overview of first year with a baby, EVERYONE’S family is represented but not in a weird/creepy way, just in a ‘this is what the world looks like way’. Particularly great for LGBTQ families who may not get many other books with families that look like their family.
For books to hand to baby – Global Babies (http://www.amazon.com/Global-Babies-Fund-Children/dp/1580891748) and Global Baby Girls (http://www.amazon.com/Global-Baby-Girls-Fund-Children/dp/1580894399) board books are amazing – enabled tummy time w my little one when nothing else would because she loved to stare at other baby’s faces.
Seconding and thirding the votes for Mama and Baby! (Indestructibles) and anything by Sandra Boynton.
Yes! Global Baby Girls is a huge favorite in our household.
I think there is also a global babies one of babies being carried. love them alllll
I knit wee hats for newborns. The most recent wee hat has come out a bit small, and now I am concerned it is TOO small, even for a newborn, but I do not have personal experience with newborns, so I’m torn– do I make a whole new hat? Do I just give this person the hat and if it doesn’t fit SCREW IT she’s just a coworker I’m not particularly close to??? And the moment where I need to provide the hat is coming up shortly. HEEEEELLLLLP.
I, too, knit hats. They are quick and easy and usually appreciated. Here’s my design, which is what I usually make: http://suzynjgonzalez.com/2010/09/20/top-down-no-…
If you like the person, donate the hat to a preemie unit, and make a new hat. Preemie hats should fit a lemon – an image that just makes me gasp, because my full-term kids had gigantic heads and I just can barely grasp the concept of a baby with a head the size of a lemon.
If you don’t like the person, why are you knitting for her? Donate the hat to a preemie unit and buy a pack of cloth diapers because they’re insanely useful.
I like her enough to knit one hat for her, I’m not sure I like her enough to knit TWO hats for her.
This hat would probably fit a mid sized grapefruit, but not a very large grapefruit. It’s just big enough to be a plausible newborn hat, but not if she has a very big baby.
Haha – point taken. I’d give it. I have beautiful things that people made for my babies that they wore maybe once or twice before they outgrew – and I still appreciate the love that went into them. But that’s also the reason why I usually aim for 2 year old sizes when I knit for babies!
I’ve made some baby hats I’m not sure actually fit the kid, or for very long, but people definitely appreciate the gesture of the handmade gift, and I figure worst-case scenario the hat can go on a teddy bear or something.
Just give her the hat, newborns are always even smaller than you imagine! 🙂
Donate the hat to a NICU, I’m sure a preemie can wear it!
We have the version of that book with dinosaurs, and there’s also one with sea creatures that I want despite having a child who is too old for them.
But but but it has a spelling mistake right in the title. In the TITLE!
I ordered this for my niece and now I’m haunted by that apostrophe. I’m legitimately considering returning it.
Maybe there’s just one strange chimaera pet and it has multiple tails resembling different species?
My signature baby shower gift is a copy of _The Space Child’s Mother Goose_ (by Frederick Winsor, illustrated by Marian Perry). It is scientifically guaranteed to make any child at least several times more awesome. Amazon link: http://tinyurl.com/q5vqpb5 because I don’t know how to embed them. 🙁
My standard baby gift used to be the board book My First Book of Sushi along with a gift certificate for an afternoon or night of babysitting for the parents (and, when I was feeling flush, a gift certificate to a local sushi place), so they could go out for a date whenever they were ready.
These days, most of the babies I get to know live too far away to babysit on short notice, so I usually just send a book (and another book or small toy for any older siblings). I love the board book of The Snowy Day. I still remember being a kid and hearing a grown-up read that crunch, crunch, crunch, and the visceral satisfaction of finding a stick that’s just right for smacking a snow-covered tree.
Yay! I was looking for the Global Babies books but couldn't find the name. My baby LOVES staring at other babies' faces. I will get these.
Ever since I heard a pheminist deconstruction of an all time favorite classic children’s book, I’m very wary of my birth gift books. Nah, who am I kidding, I just struck that one book off the list and just really hope all the others have positive female role models in them…
Also- all books all the time. Except now that most of my friends are on to child #2 or even #3, it’s not as novel anymore. Meh.
OWL BABIES for everyone, and Once There Were Giants for parents you want to make weep, and The Big Big Sea for mums-and-daughters especially (it’s about an adventure under the moon). These are not precisely for babies, but you should own them if you have a child or know a child or were a child.
DEAR ZOO!
FARMER DUCK! (It is still fully standard in my family to quack if one feels unfairly burdened by work.)
Don’t Forget The Bacon by Pat Hutchins is joyful, too.
OWL BABIES
SARAH AND PERCY AND BILL
The baby owls thought. (All owls think a lot.) <3
My family quote this book at each other ENDLESSLY. Also, Bébés chouettes.
Apparently I’m the only person who can’t stand the Owl Babies.
Oh, and the best, best, best book of all of them, if you can get hold of it, and don’t mind some dubious morals: The Elephant And The Bad Baby, by Elfrida Vipont and pictures by Raymond Briggs. It’s a totally perfect book, and there are pictures in there I think of every day, twenty years later.
OH, OH, DROP EVERYTHING: EACH PEACH PEAR PLUM by Janet and Allan Ahlberg. http://www.amazon.com/Each-Peach-Pear-Picture-Puf…
I also think you should purchase The Baby’s Catalogue for babies, because we were obsessed by it. All the babies! Like us but not like us! http://www.amazon.com/Babys-Catalogue-Janet-Ahlbe…
And, of course, Peepo! Beautiful, charming, fun (kind of heartbreaking, if you’re a grown-up, but I didn’t realise until I was quite old.)
Each Peach Pear Plum is so wonderful!
As someone who hasn’t quite fully given up on the idea that I was created in a lab, and therefore doesn’t really “get” babies, I either get babies something off the parents’ Amazon wish lists, or I give them the gift of the best magic trick ever: making my face disappear by draping a bandanna across it, then making it magically reappear. They get tired of it a lot more slowly than I do.
Tell Me a Dragon. Beautiful illustrations, simple premise: everyone has a different kind of dragon, here are many gorgeous examples, yours is probably awesome, tell me about it.
Plus many different cultures/colors of people with their dragons.
Oh, that is wonderful.
We loved Click Clack Moo and all its sequels when my kids were the right age, but these days I tend to give Terry Pratchett’s Where’s My Cow?. I also crochet amigurumi for older siblings, so they don’t feel left out.
The “That’s Not My…” boardbook series by Fiona Watt, who came up with this concept and will continue to churn them out until the end of time. I hope she has a Scrooge McDuck swimming pool of gold, because they capture babies’ attention SO well. I recommend “That’s Not My Robot” and “That’s Not My Monster” especially.
I love this whole series and seek them out to give them to all babies.
Buying books for my partner’s niece and nephew (currently five and almost three) is one of my favourite things. I have been doing my best to get them all the Janet and Allan Ahlberg books I can, mixed in with Judith Kerr (The Tiger Who Came to Tea! He drank all the water in the taps!).
My childhood contained the important lesson that worms with two ends, a middle, and no beginning get bored.
I still think about Burglar Bill pretty frequently (“I’ll ‘ave that!”), and I LOVED The Tiger Who Came to Tea when I was a child. LOVED. I have no idea about books for babies, but when they reach the early reading stage I’ve got that shit covered.
Graeme Base books, Paperbag Princess, and Pirate Pearl are my go-to baby shower gifts.
I used to make quilts for babies, but now that I have one of my own, I have approximately 90 seconds to construct gifts, so instead I make a little taggie blanket / lovie thing. Blood relatives and the very closest of friends do still get quilts, so long as I get a couple years’ notice on their intent to procreate (facing a possibly double booking next year, I don’t know what will happen!)
That tail book looks awesome though. My toddler is obsessed with lift-the-flap books at the moment. She will look for Spot six or seven times in a row, straight through! I wonder if there are any novel-length lift-the-flap books…
The Drama of the Gifted Child is perfect for babies. I mean, the parent(s) will be reading it, but it’s teaching the parents to not be dumb idiots when it comes to baby raising, so it’s really FOR the baby.
OH! And Swimmy the Black F(LAG)ish and anything else by Leo Lionni. I mean, he has one where he turns the ant and the grasshopper fable ON ITS CAPITALIST HEAD! And Swimmy is an ararcho-communist. And the watercolors are gorgeous. It’s really great to grow up and not have -everything- you memorized before you could even read words to be pro-capitalist and pro-establishment.
Paris Hide and Seek by Masumi Kamiyama is so loved by my three year old twins. They have to find a boy, his dog and a yellow balloon on every page. And Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes always chokes me up; it’s so beautiful… For a baby gift it’s nothing short of Precious.
I usually like Good Night, Gorilla for the very tiny kids, but two is old enough for Bread and Jam for Frances, and for the Sendak rhymes (Pierre! Alligators All Around!), and of course Little Bear which he illustrated.
I like to give some board books (Barnyard Dance, by sandra boynton) and a squish toy (like this: http://www.manhattantoy.com/p/skwish-classic) also nice but still machine washable clothes in larger sizes (like cardigans or hoodies 18 months size) since parents tend to get a lot of tiny clothes and babies grow out of them so quickly
Oh that is beautiful!
Bwuhhh? I was the one providing #BaltimoreUprising coverage! Okay, Hieu is my actual name and I'm 95% certain I'm one of maybe 2 Hieus in Baltimore City, so…
o_O
The friends I'm thinking of just had their littlest shark though..
Then we are not your friends! But I am delighted to hear that there are more shark-persons in Mobtown. Perhaps we can found a selachinymy support group. (Our name, I should mention, has only been aquatic since we got married and hyphenated, and only if you spoonerize it, so I’m sure our experiences will be different from someone named, say, Ray Megalodon or something.)
My go-to gift for new babies is one of those stuffed animals that makes heartbeat noises. It sends babies to sleep like a shot, like magic. We first discovered this when we were shopping for a baby shower with my little brother, who was about 6; he came back over from the toy section with a teddy bear that he wanted us to get, switched on the switch to show us how cool it was, and about 15 seconds later he was asleep on the floor.
I’m a children’s library assistant and some of my top recommendations are:
– For books that focus on dialogue and irony, try Mo Willems! (Especially Elephant and Piggie books and Pigeon books)
– For visually appealing books that ask a young reader to draw conclusions, try Jon Klassen’s hat books!
– For history that’s interestingly told and colorful, try Maira Kalman’s books about Washington and Lincoln!
– For simplistic and colorful books that are effortlessly inclusive, try Todd Parr! (Favorites are “It’s Okay to Be Different”, “Do’s and Don’ts Book,” and “The Family Book”
– For adorable board books, try Leslie Patricelli! (although be warned that the family is white, hetero, and nuclear)
Edit: A new-ish series I almost forgot: BabyLit books! They’re primer-style board books that call back to literary classics. We’re talking Moby Dick ocean-themed primer, Alice in Wonderland for colors, Pride & Prejudice for counting, etc. Amazing!
I'm a children's library assistant and some of my top recommendations are:
– For books that focus on dialogue and irony, try Mo Willems! (Especially Elephant and Piggie books and Pigeon books)
– For visually appealing books that ask a young reader to draw conclusions, try Jon Klassen's hat books!
– For history that's interestingly told and colorful, try Maira Kalman's books about Washington and Lincoln!
– For simplistic and colorful books that are effortlessly inclusive, try Todd Parr! (Favorites are "It's Okay to Be Different", "Do's and Don'ts Book," and "The Family Book"
– For adorable board books, try Leslie Patricelli! (although be warned that the family is white, hetero, and nuclear)
Edit: A new-ish series I almost forgot: BabyLit books! They're primer-style board books that call back to literary classics. We're talking Moby Dick ocean-themed primer, Alice in Wonderland for colors, Pride & Prejudice for counting, etc. Amazing!
When relatives, my kid’s friends, and random girls I meet in the street hit about three, every one of them gets a copy of Rosie Revere, Engineer.
You, Toastie, might love it like I do because the rest of this thread sure hit my favorites. This one has ornate and colorful illustrations, rhyming verse, believably bizzare grownups, a loveable star, an engineer of the non-train operating type, and of course a beautiful central message.