The Baby Book Nook

Reading the same book over and over and over again at your child’s request can peel away your patience and make you want to cry. Think onion. But go with it. Each reread creates a new layer of book understanding: Peeling an onion in reverse. Consider the following excerpt from What Research Reveals: Foundations for Reading Instruction in Preschool and Primary Education (2002) by Susan B. Neuman: "Repeated readings appear to further reinforce the language of the text as well as to familiarize children with the way different genres are structured (Eller, Pappas, & Brown 1988; Morrow 1988). Understanding the forms of informational and narrative texts seems to distinguish those children who have been well read to from those who have not (Pappas 1991). In one study, for example, Pappas found that with multiple exposures to a story (three readings), children's retelling became increasingly rich, integrating what they knew about the world, the language of the book, and the mess...

As with most board books, In My Den 's plot is minimal: A bear cub settles down for a long winter’s nap. Six-month-olds do not need nuance. WHY I LOVE THIS BOOK The board pages are thick, making it nearly indestructible. The title page and pages that follow have circular cut-outs. Each gets progressively smaller– the last one is about three inches in diameter. It is a book a 5-month-old can sink his mitt into! A brown flannel cub, a finger puppet, pokes up at the reader, staying still till the last page. Movement is a perfect attention getter for very young babies. In My Den is a wonderful hands-on, eyes-on reading experience for babies 3 to 12 months of age. It is literally tailor-made for the youngest reader. Simple, action sentences include words that relate to baby's day- soft, warm, up, down, outside, look, roll, bed. New words are introduced: earth, leaves, pine cones, twigs. Nature baby! The pages are pattern rich, yet not so busy as to disorganize baby’s gaze. The il...

This year’s Caldecott medal was awarded to Beth Krommes for her artwork in The House in the Night (2008), a book written by Susan Marie Swanson. The story is built on the bones of an old English poem called “This is the Key,” reproduced below. The House in the Night is a sweet bedtime read: Here is the key to the house. In the house burns a light. In that light rests a bed. On that bed waits a book... Verse rhythm and word repetition highlight words for learning: key , house , light , bed , book , above . Black and white scratchboard illustrations catch and keep young eyes' attention. Key words are pictured in warm golden hues, popping from the two-tone pages. Watch your child’s eyes as you read to see where they settle - on a teddy bear ‘lovey,’ a setting sun, a yellow ball - all are conversation starters. The last pages show a home full of light . In a moonlit room, on a plumped-up chair, a golden book waits to be read. A child sleeps, tawny bear i...

Boston Globe-Horn Book Award - Bubble Trouble by Margaret Mahy, illustrated by Polly Dunbar; Indies' Choice Book Awards - Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey, Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus by Mo Willems ; Golden Kite Awards - A Visitor for Bear by Bonny Becker, illustrated by Kady MacDonald Denton, Last Night by Hyewon Yum; Pura Belpré Award - Just In Case by Yuyi Morales ; Giverny Award for "Best Children's Science Picture Book " - Forest Bright, Forest Night by Jennifer Ward, illustrated by Jamichael Henterly; Christopher Awards - Close to You: How Animals Bond by Kimiko Kajikawa, That Book Woman by Heather Henson, illustrated by David Small ; The Coretta Scott King Award - The Blacker the Berry by Joyce Carol Thomas, illustrated by Floyd Cooper; Randolph Caldecott Medal - The House in the Night by Susan Marie Swanson, illustrated by Beth Krommes ; Theodor Seuss Geisel Award - Are You Ready to...

My friend Jill asked for audio book recommendations for her granddaughter who is five. Knowing very little about children's audio books, I did a little research. Literacy expert Susan B. Neuman writes, Hearing a book read on tape helps (your child) see how the words on the page can come alive in a fluid, expressive way. It helps her focus on the sounds of words read without interruption and provides a model of fluent reading. Audio books also give an important introduction to listening — a skill that she must master in order to learn to read. Several audio formats are available. What you choose depends on how and where you plan to listen. Would you? Could you? In a car? Look for books on CD’s or MP3 downloads. In an OLD car? Cassettes. Do you have new kid technology, such as the Fisher Price Kid Tough FP3 Song & Story Player, or old? Downloads... cassettes. You get the idea. By the way, you can find gently-used Fisher Price tape players online. Some audio books are packaged wi...

October 5th marks the release of Return to the Hundred Acre Wood , the first authorized sequel to A. A. Milne's beloved Winnie-the-Pooh book series. It is written by David Benedictus and illustrated by Mark Burgess. To celebrate Pooh Bear's return, here is a Short List of My Favorite Bear Board Books For Tots : Bear and Kite and Bear and Ball by Cliff Wright; We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury; Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson and Jane Chapman; Orange Pear Apple Bear by Emily Gravett; The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry, and THE BIG HUNGRY BEAR by Don and Audrey Wood. Does your baby have a favorite?

Silly Sally , by Audrey Wood, is a cumulative story. Cumulative stories are a unique genre of children's books. Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss comes to mind. There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly , a board book by Pam Adams, and This Is the House That Jack Built , by Simms Taback, are two more examples. Story lines accumulate in an additive fashion resulting in a repetitive and predictable text. Repetition and predictability... A perfect twosome for two- and three-year-olds! With repeat readings, young children chime in, finish lines, and ultimately 'read' stories on their own by pairing pictures with memorized text. The Napping House , by Audrey Wood and Don Wood, is another cumulative tale, gentle, FUNNY, and not to be missed. There is a house, a napping house, where everyone is sleeping. But not for long.

Does your toddler like to read upside down? If so, he’s not alone. Researchers Judy DeLoache, Sophia Pierroutsakos, and David Uttal (2000) took a look at the picture book orientation preferences of 18-. 24-, and 30-month-olds. The 1½ year olds in their study showed little preference regarding right side up versus upside down book reading, the 2½ year olds showed an emerging right side up preference, and the middle age group fell, well, in the middle. Remarkably, an upside down view does not appear to impede learning: The youngest children interpreted book pictures accurately in right side up and upside down test conditions.   Silly Sally went to town, walking backwards, upside down . . .    Silly Sally , a cumulative rhyming tale by Audrey Wood, is a topsy-turvy read-aloud for babies, toddlers, and preschoolers. P.S. No need to turn the book around.

The short (or long or tall) of it: A concept book is a picture book that teaches a broad concept to young readers. Examples? Alphabet books, number books, books about c o l o r s , opposites, feelings and emotions.   A concept is an idea, an abstract notion. Here's the rub. Very young readers are concrete thinkers, very "here and now." Luckily concept books do not have to teach the alphabetic principle, or algebra, or color theory. They teach what toddlers and young preschoolers can see, hear, touch, and feel - the upper and lowercase, quiet and loud, and happy and sad face of things.   Three concept books by DENISE FLEMING: LUNCH (1998) from Henry Holt and Co. Concept: Colors. A toothsome mouse called Mouse eats his way through the primary and secondary colors and then some. The pictures are deliciously big. Bon appetit! The emergent literacy bent: The text is sparse and the letters large, fostering print awareness. Point out a few words as you read. Clever...

The Nursery Collection is a 91-page hardcover filled with traditional nursery rhymes, stor ies, and poems gathered by English author/illustrator Helen Oxenbury. "Hardcover books for babies?" you ask. Yes! They make great reading for very young babies who are too young to grab at sharp corners. They'll listen more than look, and look at you more than at the book.  L ook back. My favorite pages hold the "Verses from TINY TIM." The collected poems are rhythmic, rhyming and playful - perfect read-aloud for new babes in arms. Take for example ‘MICE,’ by Rose Amy Fyleman, below.   MICE I think mice Are rather nice. Their tails are long Their faces small. They haven’t any chins at all. Their ears are pink, Their teeth are white, They run about The house at night. They nibble things They shouldn’t touch And no one seems To like them much. But I think mice Are rather nice.

At about 15 months of age, babies start talking. By 20 months, they have a spoken vocabulary of about 50 words. By 24, about 200. Typical first words are object nouns such as ball, cup, mama, dada , and duck. My son's first word was truck. He was a commuter baby... Zoom, zoom, zoom. All along, babies understand more words than they say. All along, they're listening. Studies say that a child’s preschool vocabulary predicts early elementary school reading ability. Likewise, the number and variety of words that a child hears as a baby and toddler (or the quantity and diversity of ‘mom talk’) predicts vocabulary development. Lay a literacy foundation: start talking. Morning time. Wake up! Scoop up baby. Nursing? Start a one-sided conversation. Make eye contact and ask a question, any question. What are we going to do today ? Pause and answer. You are teaching conversational rhythm . Changing a diaper? Recite a rhyme. "This Little Piggy." Dressing your tike ? Snap, ...

Children’s book writer and illustrator Tana Hoban designed four wordless black and white books for very young babies: Black on White and White on Black in 1993 and Who Are They? and What is That? in 1994. Black & White (2007) combines the first two into one accordion-style read-aloud that is great for tummy time . Hoban's high contrast silhouettes teach babies about the shape of things. When baby starts reaching, pair Who Are They? with DK Publisher’s padded Baby Touch and Feel Farm or DK’s Touch and Feel Farm . Playful repeat readings help her connect animal shapes with animal names and names with animal sounds and textures. Get quacking!

Read-aloud Main Entry: read·a·loud / rēd­ -uh­-loud / Function: noun 1. a board book, picture book 2. the act of lending a voice to pictures and verse Synonyms: 1. rollicking ( Pajama Time by Sandra Boynton), c a l m i n g ( Time for Bed by Mem Fox), touch ( Pat the Bunny by Dorothy Kunhardt), touching ( Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney and Anita Jeram), NOISY! ( Barnyard Banter by Denise Fleming), Zen ( Black on White by Tana Hoban), repetitive repetitive ( More More More Said the Baby by Vera B. Williams), eye-opening ( Peek-a Who? by Nina Laden), mushy ( Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown), FUN! Antonyms: 1. hands-off, flat, monotonous, tiresome, drudging, humdrum.

I am an educational researcher with a passion for baby books. I read to my babies 20 years ago. Now I hand stacks of board books to my neighbor and beg her to share them with her 1 year old son and report back. Each time, I hope for a handful of 5-star (5-drool!) ratings. The purpose of this blog is to spotlight baby book titles and to summarize current research about read-aloud. I have a strong literacy bent, favoring books that tickle the ears, play with print, and spark book talk.