In the middle of all the little pamphlets and one sheet reminders that we left the hospital with was the instruction to “read to your child 20 minutes a day.” This is, of course, wonderful advice. It’s the kind of public health initiative meant to convey that it’s never too early to expose your child to text, rich language, and the warmth of story and connection.
It also can add a nice load of mom-guilt, especially if you are concerned with raising a child to love books as much as you do, and then become worried you’ve already fallen behind before you’ve even begun.
Still, overall, with my first baby, I didn’t do too badly on this front. I think Jackson probably saw me reading a book most days, and we often read one to him starting pretty early.
(We never did get one of those amazing black and white high contrast books babies love. We did however have a navy blue wall with a 7 foot white swirly decal.)
As a baby, he was fairly content to sit in our laps and have us read. And he wasn’t too picky about the book.
At around eight months he started to be interested in the physicality of the book, opening and closing it, and he was not interested in having us read and turn pages. This aversion lasted a couple of months, which now 3+ years later I don’t really even think of as real “aversion” just that he was exploring them in his own way. (At the time I had to talk myself down a little, reminding myself that I’d rather have him have fun with a book as a toy than have him upset with me insisting that we read them.)
But by 12 months, he was content to have the stories read to him again, and on the whole it was pretty easy to find a book that he liked.
Lily, on the other hand, very rarely had a book read to her as a tiny baby. Second children: those just are the breaks! Now of course she saw me reading books while I nursed her all the time, and she was in the room while we read books to Jackson, but little sister got very few of those quiet baby board book moments.
And her insistence that books were simply for closing and taking off the shelves in great piles and thundering plops lasted a good deal longer than Jackson’s. She was in that stage for 9 months at least. Girlfriend was on the move, especially since there was so much to do with big brother.
She really didn’t have a reliable interest in us reading her a book until 17 months. Also, she was a bit more particular about the books that she did read, so I thought we’d share books that captured our busy girl’s heart. And now at nearly 21 months she is all about bringing us a book with her sweet little voice saying “read!”
12 to 15+ Months : Texture and Interactive Books
- Pat the Bunny by Dorothy Kunhardt. This classic touch and feel book is falling apart with all the love it’s received from Jackson and Lily. It’s a classic for a reason. 35 years later my dad still quotes “Can you feel Daddy’s scratchy face?” from his reading this book to me as a tiny baby. If you are only going to have one texture and interactive book, this is probably the one to get.
2. That’s Not My Dragon by Fiona Watt and Rachel Wells. This texture book has a lot of repetition, fun texture words (slimy, tuffty, knobbly) and of course great textures. I’ve seen a few other “That’s Not My…” books which are good too, but I think the dragon one is the best. We got this one on a flyer for the boy we nannied years ago, and it also is showing serious signs of the love it has received.
3. Where’s the Dog? by Nosy Crow and Ingela P Arrhenius. These books are felt flap books that we discovered at the library with Lily at the just the perfect time. She was crazy about this book. Around 15 months she really started to like “finding” the animals under the flap. The felt flaps are really durable and when you close the book they pretty much lay back down perfectly. Flap books are surprisingly hard to get right. We really liked the Usborne Animal Hide and Seek by Stephen Cartwright for its flaps and textures too, but the flaps, while they didn’t rip off (much loved library Spot books often have ripped-off flaps), did get funny folds in them from being shut in the book.
4. Baby’s First Bible (A Carry Along Treasure) by Colin and Moira MacLean. This Bible has lots of animals, babies, and cut out pages that let you peak animals from one story to another. Many of the stories rhyme. It has a little cute yellow handle for carrying around. There is a small and big version, and Jackson and Lily were so tickled to each have a copy to carry over for reading. For many months, Lily usually only lasted for a couple of pages, but she was very fond of this book despite not wanting to read all of it. Her favorite part of this book is the camels. And Jackson has heard us read it to him and Lily so often he’s made a couple into his own private songs.
15 to 18+ Months: Rhythm and Finding Books
5. Hand, Hand, Fingers Thumb by Al Perkins and Eric Gurney. This board book edition of the longer classic was the first non-texture book that Lily liked. It has a great rhythm to it, and most parents (us included) naturally use our fingers and hands to drum on the book. So it’s still really interactive even though it doesn’t have any special textures or flaps.
6. Curious George and the Bunny Illustrated by H.A. Rey. This board book has the basic story from an excerpt of one of the longer Curious George books: Curious George Flies A Kite which was the only Curious George book written especially for early readers. I think it improves upon the text (at least for a 15 month old!) cutting out “bad George” and simplifying some descriptions so George wants to play “hide and seek” with the bunny instead of “They could play a game. They could play “Get the Bunny.” Still, even with the simplified text, it was too long at first. So (pro tip!) we just talked about what was happening on the page asking Lily to find the bunny when it went missing. This approach has really worked with any picture book that has language that at first is too complex for a toddler. After the pictures and basic storyline capture their imagination and affections, we’d add in parts of the actual text until they love to listen to it as much as see the pictures.
7. Moo, Baa, Lalala! by Sandra Boynton. Sandra Boynton is a master, and this book has so many great elements packed into its pages: animal noises, rhymes, and humor. It also has very few words per page. A bonus for this age group, they want to keep turning pages (ideally all by themselves).
8. First 100 Words by Roger Priddy. This book is less something you read through and more something you point to and talk about. It has pictures of everyday objects that make up a one year old’s world, so he or she often likes to hear about the cat or the sippy cup or the ball. When they get a little bit older, they like to point to the objects they know. Then not too long after that, they can try out using some of their new words when you point to something and ask what it is: Banana! Apple! Baby! The other ones in the series ( like Numbers, Colors, Shapes) are great too.
18 to 24+ Months: Animals, Babies, Vehicles and Nursery Rhymes
9. Machines at Work by Byron Barton. Many Byron Barton books have a classic combination of bold, simple drawings paired with similarly bold and simple text that works really well for those a little over one year. I recently read this one to Lily six or seven times in a row. A long time ago I read that tiny kids like to re-read books because they are still figuring out if they are going to end the same way each time. This helps me have patience for the endless re-reads. (But also I don’t have any guilt about removing books from the rotation that I don’t personally like to read over and over like Green Eggs and Ham, A Fly Went By, Stop that Ball or The Little Engine that Could. Those are all fine books, but they are so repetitive that reading it once makes me feel like I’ve read it a dozen times already. Like how you like to watch Groundhog Day (PG) but not a bunch of times in a row, because that is already the feeling of that movie. And I suppose there are movies that I finished and wanted to watch again immediately like The Prestige (PG-13), so I can kind of get desire for toddlers to re-read over and over again.)
10. Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr. & Eric Carle. Little kids just love this book of beautiful collage animals that pairs colors, animals, questions, and repetition so well. Personally, I think the original is the best one, and the only one you need to own. But it’s fun to get the others from the library. Of course, The Very Hungry Caterpillar is also a staple of childhood, combining counting and the days of the week with fruit and caterpillar life-cycle (even if butterfly caterpillars technically make a chrysalis while moth caterpillars make cocoons. Edit it while you read it if that bothers you!)
11. Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown. It’s hard to beat this book for a bedtime book. It’s masterful with the hypnotic repeating and gradual getting darker on each page. (Plus, you as the adult can look for the mouse on each page after you’ve read it 100 times.) This article in The Smithsonian Magazine outlines some of the reasons behind this book’s popularity.
12. The Going to Bed Book by Sandra Boynton. This is a little bit more of a fun bedtime book, but manages to wind kids down by the end as well. For a long time our bedtime routine with Jackson was this and Goodnight Moon. Sandra Boynton has so many wonderful books (and a great Instagram feed) that work so well for this age. Some of our other favorites for this age are Pajama Time!/ But Not the Hippopotamus / Barnyard Dance / Blue Hat, Green Hat.
13. Little Blue Truck by Alice Schertle and Jill McElmurry. Kids love animals and cars and trucks, and this one has lovely pictures and a fun rhyming story. These have been Jackson’s favorites for years, and he especially loves to find new Little Blue Truck books.
14. Ten Tiny Toes by Caroline Jayne Church. Kids love body-part books and books about babies; this one combines both with rhymes and actions: “Touch your toes, bend down low!” Other books about babies that have been a big hit are the Happy Healthy Baby Series; “More More More,” Said the Baby by Vera B Williams, Everywhere Babies by Susan Meyers, Marla Frazee (Illustrator) and Global Babies. Body part books that Lily loves include The Foot Book by Dr. Seuss and Jesus Heals by Danielle Hitchen.
15. Go Dog Go by PD Eastman. This book is such a hit with little kids, and is one that I don’t mind reading over and over again. We started Lily out with the board book version (which has almost completely different text than the big version) and once enamored with the little version she was interested in the big classic one. At first she only wanted to read the first 10 pages, but she really liked those first pages! And she loves to yell “no!” when the girl dog asks the boy dog if he likes her hat. (Also she’s a big fan of Old Hat New Hat by Stan Berenstein and Jan Berenstein). Becoming attached to characters in a simpler version of a story often has led both Lily and Jackson to sit through a longer and more complicated story than they otherwise might be inclined to do. For example, a picture book version of Charlotte’s Web and Paddington Bear led to Jackson wanting to listen to the chapter book version, while Lily’s love of Curious George and the Bunny means that she’s more interested in listening to parts of Jackson’s larger collection of Curious George stories.
20 – 24+ Months: Selections of Longer Books Big Brother Loves
Cars and Trucks and Things that Go by Richard Scarry . Lily loves the board books we have by Richard Scarry. There are extra small ones like Boats and Planes that she just can’t get enough of, and extra big (but not long) ones like Richard Scarry’s First Word Book. Jackson loves the longer ones, and Lily is coming around to them too because of how much she likes the small ones, and how interactive the books are pointing to all the lovingly (and often very funny!) drawn details. Best Word Book Ever; Busy, Busy Town; and What Do People Do All Day are some of Jackson’s favorites that she will sit with for a bit. She’s done much sooner than Jackson is, but is often content to just play near us as we continue, coming back to check on us from time to time, but often letting me and Jackson read undisturbed far longer than if it were a bigger kid book she had no interest in.
Mary Engelbreit’s Mother Goose: One Hundred Best-Loved Verses. There are a bunch of Mother Gooses out there, but this one illustrated by Mary Engelbreit is my favorite for readability. This one we often read right after nap time as both kids wake up. They both like it, and it’s one of my favorite things to have them both on my lap. I think Lily likes it because it’s a bit like 100 separate stories, but without the transition of getting a new book from the stack. The kids also like that I know a handful of the sung versions of the nursery rhymes like Baa Baa Black Sheep, Hush-a-Bye Baby, and Row, Row, Row, Row Your Boat.(It turns out that many nursery rhymes can be sung! We just got Mother Goose Remembers from the library that has 45 sung nursery rhymes.) Also my kids like Sing Along Books like The Wheels on the Bus, The Ants Go Marching One by One, Raffi books, or Rosemary Wells’ Bunny Reads Back Books.
An Evening At Alfie’s by Shirley Hughes. We love ourselves some Shirley Hughes around here. We have a collected works of hers that has stories that are more at a one year old’s level from her book Rhymes for Annie Rose and The Shirley Hughes Nursery Collection. And she really likes to point out Annie Rose (a little girl with brown curls just about her age) in Jackson’s favorite Alfie story An Evening At Alfie’s. Hopefully soon she’ll take to the beautiful book of Shirley Hughes poems Out and About.
Other books that Jackson started to enjoy when he was just a bit older than Lily is now are Jamberry // Each Peach Pear Plum // Madeline // A Sick Day for Amos McGee // Peter Rabbit // DW All Wet // A Good Day // Dr. Seuss’s ABC // All the World // Freight Train.
Take Aways
1. Texture and Interactive books are some of the very best first books. Remember reading is supposed to be fun even if it’s not reading a book all the way through! Also you can make a book more interactive by pointing, tapping, or pretending to do the action, or adding sound effects or extra animal noises. This works especially well if you do the same motions/sounds every time you read that book.
2. Describe the pictures if there are too many words. Simplify the story the first few times through and then add bits of the full text in later.
3. For very busy children, find one word per page, so the pace of them turning the pages can be very quick. Put your finger behind the right page so it’s easy for them to turn it.
4. Board books really are the best for one year olds, so no one is very worried about pages ripping or having to be overly gentle with the book. Take out any optional anxiety. (Indestructible books are another great option for letting kids play around with the physicality of a book without having to watch very carefully if they gnaw on it to the point of taking a chunk out of it. These are especially great if you are reading to a bigger sibling and the younger (less than 15 month) one wants to have a book too.)
5. Pick to own books that you yourself enjoy reading over and over again! (And don’t be afraid to put away, give away, or return early books that you don’t like!)
6. Falling in love with characters in a simplified version of a story can often lead to longer attention spans for the longer version.
Other great lists of first books are the ones from the Read Aloud Revival, NY Mag, Book Riot, Good House Keeping, Mama Natural, Very Well Family, , What Do We Do All Day, Lindsey Kubly, Mother.ly, Andrea Dekker and Gentle Nursery (this one has a nice set of thoughts about how to slow down and go at a tiny baby’s pace for reading to the smallest ones).
What are your favorite go-to book for one year olds?
Maybe you should be a children’s librarian. You have such well-thought-out ideas about children’s books and how to read to children. I recognize some of the classics you write about. And after reading the book about Dr. Seuss I have a better understanding of how difficult it is to write a really good book for children. As ever, I enjoyed your words about what makes a good children’s book and how to read to children of different ages, but especially the great photos of Jackson and Lily.
Love, Grandma Anne
Thanks Grandma Anne! I think I would enjoy being a children’s librarian! I sometimes have to hold myself back at the library from giving unsolicited advice to other parents about what books they should take home for their kids!