This week is devoted to books. Each day I’ll share my favorites in different categories and I’d love to hear some of yours in the comments. On friday, we’ll do a link party.
I’m really excited about this one. It will be a great way to hear about new books our internet-friends are crazy about. So start your blog posts {or start reading a book!} and we’ll share at the end of the week.
Today’s category is favorite books for baby.
{mama & No. 1}
Even though they are too little to fully understand, reading sweet board books is so good for babies. My No. 1 loved books from the very beginning. No. 2 couldn’t make it through an entire book until he was about three years old. Each kid is different, right?
This collection of books are our family’s very favorites:
These have made it through all four of our kids and some of my favorite things to gift to new babes.
Please share … what are some of your favorite books for babies?
My babies heard the classics- Winnie the Pooh, Little Engine that Could, Dr Seuss, but this one made my 1yr old son laugh out loud when we read: http://www.amazon.com/Blue-Hat-Green-Boynton-Board/dp/0671493205/ref=sr_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1358537730&sr=1-8&keywords=boynton+sandra+board+books
I also LOVE Napping House and anything else by Audrey Wood.
The ones I literally loved to death as a child are Babies and Baby Animals by Gyo Fujikawa: http://www.amazon.com/Babies-Gyo-Fujikawa/dp/B001BUGTH6/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1358537875&sr=1-1&keywords=babies I still love the illustrations!!
i love the little hoot, little oink, and little pea trio of books by amy krouse rosenthal. i have read those to my nephews over and over again and never tire of them!
Hi Emily! These are great recommendations. We’re actually building up my son’s library (he’s nine months now) and we are on the look out for great books that he can enjoy at this stage. Do share more. :)
Oh and please know that even from across continents, your posts never cease to inspire me. Keep it up and may God be glorified in what you do. :)
Blessings!
My son is 3 and still loves his Max & Millie books. I think they are great for toddlers!
Hey Emily! Maybe you could do us a HUGE favor and show us all the different way you store your books? :) they’re my daughter’s favorite “toy,” and i am always looking for different ways to finagle them.
My all-time favorite children’s book is A Week of Racoons. I would highly recommend this book if you can get your hands on it. It is out of print and fairly expensive, but it’s a great read. It’s about a farmer who catches a troublesome raccoon at his house every day for a week. He takes each of them to a forest and at the end of the week they decide to go back to the farm. On their way, each of the racoons finds a place he prefers and stays there. The illustrations are pretty and colorful, the story is nice, the moral of the story is worth thinking about, and the repetition in the story helps with memorization.
Perhaps its so poignant to me because my family lived in the suburbs and we had a problem with racoons. One summer, every day for a week my father caught a raccoon and he would take us with him when he released them in the wild. It helped teach us lessons about kindness to animals (even those that are troublesome!) and the importance of catch and release. It was wonderful to put in practice what we had read about.
My kids enjoyed the Polar Express (even if it wasnt Christmas time) and P is for Pelican alphabet book. Dr. Seuss always went over well too!
Lots of Dr. Seuss around here too!
Love all of your suggestions! Do you have a favorite store to buy your books?
We are big Amazon.com fans. As prime members you get free 2 day shipping and their prices are usually better than retail stores. If you have a local book store by all means, support it. But we don’t have one so my purchases go to Amazon.
Love this post, Emily! I’m going to check out Peepo–I love the Ahlbergs’ book Peek-a-Boo. Have you every heard of the Brambly Hedge series? Not board books, but amazing illustrations and precious stories of mice living in a forest in England. Think you might like :).
Peepo is the same as peek-a-boo – but my mom brought this one back from england and so it has cute english words like ‘peepo’ instead of peek a boo and pushchair instead of stroller.
We love books like “Llama, Llama Red Pajama” and anything by Eric Carle for when they are younger. When they are about 2 then my kids love anything by Robert Muncsh. His books are hilarious.
Oh we love Llama! So many good ones in that series.
I LOVE Sheep in a Jeep! One of my absoute favorites is a board book called “But Not the Hippopotamus”. Absolutely fabulous!
We LOVE books at our house. We go to the library and get big stacks that keep us pretty busy…great resourceful way to always have new reading material! I love that you are doing this series, Emily. Keep up the great work and can’t wait to read more!
Also, Olivier Dunrea’s books are a favorite in our house too.
Thank you for blogging so frequently, reading it is one of the highlights of my day!
Ah, thanks Estelle!
It’s Time for Bed by Mem Fox. Such great illustrations and easily remembered by the kidlets. Super cute to hear them recite it while I read.
“I Love You Through And Through” is still a favorite with our three, we also loved “Where is baby’s bellybutton?”
AHHHHH!!!!! So excited. So excited. So excited. This could possibly be my most favorite like up EVER. I love reading to my kids. They love it too. LOVE it. Our couch has a major crevice where I sit and they lean on me. Can. Not. Wait.
My top two favorites are by far “Love Is a Handful of Honey” by Giles Andreae and “Guess How Much I Love You” by Sam McBratney. If you have to get “stuck” reading the same thing over and over, and over, again, these are both lovely stories worth repeating. And acting out.
Oh, we loved Sandra Boynton, too! And both of my boys loved the touch and feel Animal Hide and Seek. And of course we’ve read so many Eric Carle books. Gossie, too, was always one of my favorites. I sold Barefoot Books for a little while when my youngest was a baby and there are some good baby titles like Alligator Alphabet and Counting Cockatoos. Thanks for this post-what a fun week!
Any Sandra Boynton book and of course, Goodnight Moon and Pat the Bunny!
Lastly my kids received the “if you give a” series for Christmas & so far the favorites are “if you give a mouse a cookie” and “if you give a moose a muffin”. I however feel like a broken record reading a book for the 10th time. My sister clearly wanted to annoy me!
How could I have forgotten where’s spot? (we have the dog too.. Plushed not real!) & guess how much I love you by Sam McBratney.
I can’t wait for my kids to be a bit older & understand the Velveteen rabbit as it was my favorite growing up. :)
My kids, soon to be 2 & 3 next month love Eric Carle’s very hungry caterpillar & brown bear, brown bear.
Julia Donaldson’s, the Gruffalo is another favorite. Target had this on DVD for $5 a while back so I bought it unfamiliar with the story, simply because the illustrations were adorable & the synopsis of the movie seem captivating. As soon as my kids fell in love with the movie off we went in search of the book. The illustrations are the exact same as the movie.
If I had to pick one favorite it would have to be Corduroy by Don Freeman. My husband reads it to them every night he’s home which seems appropriate since he was the one who bought it in key west when our son was only 4 months old. I still remember that phone call, him asking me about the book. I can only imagine what his buddies thought as he sat down at a bar with corduroy as their reason for being in key west was a Navy det.
Tell Me Something Happy Before I Go to Sleep is a favorite (it’s a sweet big brother, little sister book), as is Guess How Much I Love You!
Two books that both my children (now 34 and 37) both LOVED are The Ice Cream Cone Coot, by Arnold Lobel, and Pumpernickle, Tickle and Mean Green Cheese, by Nancy Patz. Absolute silliness!
“The very itchy bear” and “The very cranky bear” by Nick Bland. :)
I just bought Snuggle Puppy by Sandra Boynton for my sweet new granddaughter. We LOVE dogs so I suspect she will too.
I love the sweet Good Dog Carl books by Alexadra Day. My children loved Grover’s Bad Awful Day. =)
At our home we love The Napping House, Guess How Much I Love You, and The True Story of the Three Little Pigs. Actually, I think those are my favorites, but my kiddos love them too. :)
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
Dear Zoo
Where’s Spot?
Peepo!
These were some of my children’s favourites, and now I am buying them for their babies.
My sister is pregnant with her first child and we won’t find out the gender for another 6 weeks. Until I can start buying precious clothes, I’ve been stocking up on beloved baby books for our tiny blessing. Top two favorites are Guess How Much I Love You and Love You Forever. If she is having a girl, I will purchase This Little Piggy Went to Prada. Love this blog post… Perfect timing!
We loved “Is Your Mama a Llama?”, “Barnyard Dance”, and “Sometimes I Like to Curl Up in a Ball”. We have read them so many times that I can still recite all of those (plus “Goodnight, Moon”) by heart!
Big Red Barn and Goodnight Gorilla were two of our favorites. My little boy also enjoyed the Duck and Goose series.
I love to read “Bear Snores On” by Karma Wilson and Jane Chapman…..so good to read and it is a book that isn’t annoying to read time and time again. I believe there is a whole series about the bear because we also have the Christmas edition called “Bear Stays Up For Christmas”…..also really cute. My 6th month loves it and my three year old still wants me to read it to her.
The bear books are some of our favorites {and are included in tomorrow’s post!}
We love anything By Sandra Boynton! My kids also loved Guess How Much I Love You?
“It’s Time to Sleep My Love” is just gorgeous!
http://www.amazon.com/Its-Time-Sleep-My-Love/dp/0312673361/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1358192156&sr=8-8&keywords=eric+metaxas
I have favorites that I like to read to my daughter but her favorite is by Dr. Seuss “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish” She knows it by heart but still wants me to read it to her.
Jamberry, Goodnight Gorilla and Pajama Time. We couldn’t go to be without at least one of those being read.
We do goodnight gorilla often – always a classic!
Anything by Karen Katz! Ingrid’s favorites include: Mommy Hugs, Counting Kisses and Counting Christmas.
The Going to Bed Book by Sandra Boynton. We read it so much that I have it memorized.
We love anything by Sandra Boynton!
Who is Coming to Our House – Joseph Slate (We love it so much we read it year round not just at Christmas!)
The Carrot Seed – Ruth Krauss
A Good Day – Kevin Henkes
My Friends – Taro Gomi (wonderful author with other great titles too)
We love classic children’s books at our home. I just discovered The Tale of Jolly Robin. I had never heard of it but our 8 year-old can’t get enough. I read half the book one evening before bed. We believe the love of books translates into the love of art, design and everything in between.
You’re not gonna believe this, but “going on a bear hunt” was my favorite book when I was little. And I’m 56 yrs old!!
I read I’ll Love You Forever to both of my baby boys. I made up a tune and sang it to them. We read good night moon , too. When they were just a little older we read “dinosaur roar”. Great illustrations.
You’ve got a brilliant list. Here are a few more favourites. Funny how I know the text by heart for a number of these.
Whilst my daughter Lydia was a baby, we read HUSHERBYE by John Burningham, almost every night. The smoothing text is comforting for baby and adults.
Other favourite titles for baby Lydia was:
THIS LITTLE CHICK by John Lawrence
MONKEY AND ME by Emily Gravett
OWL BABIES by Martin Waddell
BIG RED BARN by Margaret Wise Brown.
BROWN BEAR, BROWN BEAR by Bill Martin Jr. and illustrated by Eric Carle
Did you make a post awhile back about another book you recently bought for your kids? Like a children’s devotional book or something? I thought it was you who did & it’s been on my mind to order it but for the life of me I cant’ remember the name of the book & I haven’t been able to find it in your archives!!?? Am I nuts? Thanks :)
Christian books are coming on Thursday :)
I am glad that you will be doing some Christian books later because I am looking for a good Children’s bible for toddlers/preschoolers.
Some of my boys’ favorite books were a series of Barefoot Bear books “Bear’s Busy Family”, “Bear in Sunshine”, “Bear about Town”. And they love Sandra Boyton’s books like “Blue hat, green hat”!
The best bible for little ones that we LOVE is The Jesus Storybook Bible. Accurate, beautiful pictures and more story like so little ones can understand.
Guess How Much I Love You. It ranks up there as the best at our house. We still quote from it…..and my kids are 10 & 13!
it’s a pretty artsy and grown-up-ish poetic book for babies or toddlers, but my absolute favorite board book is “On the Night Your Were Born”…it’s all about how heaven makes a big deal out of every single one of our birth days. it is beautiful to look at and to listen to.
Gossie is one of our favorite books too. My kids loved the other books with Gossie too. Now, that they are ages 3,5 and 6 they still like to hear Gossie. :)
“Dear Zoo” is a favorite of mine.
LOVE Goodnight Moon, but as a child one of my favorites books (still is!) was 3 Days on a River in a Red Canoe. It was a Reading Rainbow book when that show was on tv (one of my favorite shows as a child). I searched high and low for that book not too many years ago and ended up having my little local book store order it. Now I’m sure it’s available on Amazon. I found it, we love it, and I love reading it to my little boys :)
Bear Snores On. I could recite it by heart!
We enjoyed Karen Katz’s books such as Where is Baby’s Valentine? and Where is Baby’s Pumpkin? Goodnight Moon and We’re Going on a Bear Hunt were also well loved books! I’m looking forward to this week of book posts!
We love anything by Sandra Boynton. Costco had little sets of them during Christmas time and might still have some left over. They were a steal! So entertaining and fun. We also love Mr. Brown can Moo can You. My son’s favorite which we read over and over and over again was My Many Colored Days. I think it speaks so cleverly about the mood swings toddlers (ok, fine and mommies!) experience throughout the day. I love book week!
We love Sandra Boynton too- Barnyard Dance! and Oh My Oh My Oh Dinosaurs! were our faves! :)
On the Night You Were Born is beautiful!
We love Sandra Bounton: Moo, Baa, La La La and The Going To Bed Book are our favorites. Also Karen Katz: Counting Kisses and Where Is Baby’s Belly Button?
Some of our favorites were More More More said the Baby by Vera B. William, The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats, Eric Carle books, and so many more I wish I had time and space to name. I love books especially children’s books.
I always loved I Am a Bunny by Richard Scarry because of the beautiful illustrations. :)
“It’s Pajama Time”! by Sandra Boynton for it’s rythmic pattern. “It’s not easy being big” & “Curious George Opposites” are some of our favorites that you don’t have listed
My little one’s favorite book is Movable Mother Goose: A Classic Collectible Pop-Up by Robert Sabuda. She loves the interatction and I love the beautiful pages!
Anything P.K. Hallinan! :)
I honestly only recognize Brown Bear so Amazon will be getting an order today! =) Our Top 3 these days are Go Dog Go, Lama Lama, and Where’s My Truck? What a great idea for a week of Blogs.
My girls loved “Jamberry” when they were little, too :) I recognize all your picks…some of them are still in the rotation with my two year old!