The Baby Book Nook

I am going to ramble a bit. If you have no time for a little leaf crunching and fresh air, scroll down to the last paragraph. If I had one "do-over" as a parent, it would be to have shared more books with my three children. Not for the sake of them knowing books, but for the sake of me knowing them. I occasionally stray from my diet of board books and read about writing. Recently, I learned authors often make the mistake of writing to their reader's needs rather than their wants. The former is a bit presumptuous. At the very least, it assumes a knowledge of a readership that a writer likely does not have. How can we know what others need without a dialogue in place? I believe I know what your baby needs, board book wise, based on his or her developmental age. You are lucky. You know what your baby wants . Long books, short books? Quiet books, loud books? Ducks, trucks, goose? Pair your child's needs with their wants and you'll create A LOT of page interest. ...

Build a better world, one board (book) at a time! Present a copy of a favorite read-aloud to your local library, a neighborhood child care center, a church nursery program. Giving a party? Invite guests to bring children's books as hostess gifts. Pass them on.  Many charities focus on early literacy and book access. Here's a handful. At least one encourages donations of gently-used children's books. Read a book. Pass it on. Reach Out and Read First Book Books for Africa Pajama Program Page Ahead Children's Literacy Program

In Lane Smith's It's a Little Book (2011), a curious Donkey in diapers points and asks, What is that? It's a book. He grabs it from Monkey and bites down. Is it for chewing? Monkey replies, No . Donkey tries it on as a hat. Is it for wearing? No. He opens the book like a laptop. Is it for e-mailing? No. Questions keep coming till Monkey tells his persistent friend, It's for reading. It's a book, silly. This is a pint-size version of Smith's controversial It's a Book (2010) picture book, with younger characters, new text, and a gentle ending. It's every bit as funny.   Smith examples an infant's point of view perfectly.  Young babies regard board books as THINGS--hard, smooth, bendy, weighty, and full of flight potential--and play with them as such. They associate reading with YOU--attentive, playful, and full of book talk. Read on!

A guest post by Danielle Schulman, a mom in real time, who writes at A-Lit-erations :   Favorite Baby Books (Birth-12 months) Life with a young child means never having the time to do all the projects one would wish. When I get a free moment to blog, it is going to be for my family to hear about my child, and this project takes a seat in the waaaay back of the bus. Today's post will serve as a two-fer, as we discuss great baby books. I was inspired a few months back by a post entitled, 10 Books To Capture Your Baby's Attention. It is a Mom-tested, Baby-approved list, with some thoughts about what her baby seemed to like about the book, and around when. Today, I would like to attempt the same, using my daughter's favorites from birth to 1 year.                  Fire Truck  by Peter Sis  (board) This was the first book I ever read with my daughter, when she was about 1-...

Can your baby moo like a cow? Bleat like a sheep?  Arguably, first moos count as first words. According to the Hawaii Early Learning Profile , babies repeat playful sounds and gestures starting at about 12 months of age; they imitate environmental sounds between 18 and 21 months of age.  Vrooom!  Bam! BOOM . Is your baby almost one? Get quacking. 

The fall 2011 edition of The Horn Book Guide arrived! One month ago. It sat, perched on top of one of many piles of books, till now. Below are starred preschool picks published between January and June of this year. Click titles for book information. My favorite? Little Chicken's Big Day. It's very funny. We need funny. No Sleep for Sheep! by Karen Beaumont, illustrated by Jacke Urbanovic Tweak Tweak by Eve Bunting, illustrated by Sergio Ruzzier Little Chicken's Big Day by Katie Davis and Jerry Davis, illustrated by Katie Davis Worms for Lunch? by Leonid Gore Where's Walrus? by Stephen Savage Cars Galore by Peter Stein, illustrated by Bob Staake Press Here by Herve Tullet Hooray for Amanda & Her Alligator! by Mo Willems

The Lucy Cousins' Nursery Rhymes Collection (2011) is a boxed set of four 3 1/2 inch by 3 1/2 inch board books titled Little Miss Muffet ,  Humpty Dumpty , Wee Willie Winkie , and Jack and Jill . Each book holds about ten poems. From what I gather, the books are down-sized versions of stand-alones published between 1996 and 1997. The new collection is just right for toddlers. Pictures carry animal chatter for 1-year-olds and line-ups of countable items for 2- and 3-year-olds . . . two dicky birds, three fiddlers, five fish. How many blackbirds are baked in a pie? If you've forgotten, check out Humpty Who? by Jennifer Griffin.  Mother Goose matters. Sing-song rhythms accent words for learning. The mouse ran up the clock . Action rhymes produce off-the-page play: "This Little Piggy" and "Patty Cake." Rhyming words prime young ears for language sounds awareness, a correlate of reading skills development. HONK if your baby likes Mother Goo...

Toddlers love to read about themselves, which is one of the reasons why books such as Baby's Day by Michel Blake and I Can by Helen Oxenbury work.  Imagine handing your tike a board book starring — drum roll, please — them! Pint Size Productions  makes this possible. Click the company name to find out how. What might your baby's board book look like? How about one that pictures family members doing whacky, unexpected things? Does Mom do the cooking? Take a close-up of Dad stirring at the stove. Does Dad read the paper? Take a peek-a-boo view of mom peering over newsprint. Picture Grandpa pushing the stroller, Grandma with a fishing pole. If you play with family stereotypes, you'll likely tickle your toddler's funny bone.  A directorial tip: Dress cast members in bright, colorful clothing for maximum color contrast on the page.  How about a book about your baby's day? Picture and label her waking, eating, playing, reading, laughing, hugging. Time for bed...

Very young babies can not see stars. In her 1997 article "First Glances: The Vision of Infants," researcher Davida Y. Teller simulates what babies can see with a series of hazy snapshots. The photos drive home one point and raise another. First, if we want babies, 6 months and younger, to look at a book, we have to offer one that has strong visual elements such as Twinkle, twinkle! by amazing baby™ or Hello, Bugs! by Smriti Prasadam and Emily Bolam. Second, very young infants rely heartily on hearing and touch to get a sense of their world. Very early on, a loving look likely says a little. A soothing voice and gentle touch likely say a lot.

Several of Eric Carle's board books are available in Spanish, including La oruga muy hambrienta (2002), the Spanish edition of The Very Hungry Caterpillar , and La oruga muy hambrienta/The Very Hungry Caterpillar (2011), a bilingual edition released in May of this year. The latter is available at the publisher's website . Are you raising a bilingual baby? In her recent post "Bilingual Babies: The Sooner, The Better," Ana Flores,  co-creater of the online resource SpanglishBaby , writes, "... the earlier we start exposing babies to a second language, the more flexible their bilingual brains will be and the more they can identify and separate the sounds of the different languages they are exposed to." La oruga muy hambrienta/The Very Hungry Caterpillar puts two languages on baby's plate. Yum!

A perfect pairing for 9- to 15-month-olds: The Very Hungry Caterpillar's Favorite Words (2007) and The Very Hungry Caterpillar (1994) 5 by 7 inch board edition. Both are written, designed, and illustrated by Eric Carle. The first is a small fistful of words, a 2 1/4 by 2 1/4 by 2 1/4 inch cube book. Ten words fill 20 THICK board pages. Pictures and verse are pulled from Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar : The small chunky serves as an appetizer for the famous main.  The plot of The Very Hungry Caterpillar is a bit beyond a 9-month-old's cognitive grasp, but the book as a w(hole) is not. Round cut-outs cue poking. A poke leads to a point. A point leads to a label. Labels lead to word learning.  Apples , pears , plums . ICE CREAM ! Center page widths vary, facilitating independent page turning. Read and reread Favorite Words before sharing the longer story. Your baby will build a picture and word bank to draw on, making the second book more digestible a...

1, 2, 3 Si ! (August, 2011) is an 18-page bilingual board book for toddlers, twos, and preschoolers that introduces the numbers 1 through 10 in English and Spanish. Each spread teaches number shapes and words and includes an array of countable items. The latter are BEAUTIFULLY photographed objects of art from the San Antonio Museum of Art. Each page asks a question, sparking book talk. Read-aloud play with a toddler might go something like this (Portions of text are in bold italics .): 1 una guitarra one guitar   Trace the large, colorful numeral 1 that sits in the upper left hand corner. Your toddler might imitate the downward stroke. "This is one. I see one guitar." Hold up your tracing finger. "One!" 2 two eyes Can you play peek-a-boo? You might say, "Mira!" "I see two eyes!" Cover the face collage on the page with your hand or a colorful napkin. "Donde estan?" "Where are they?" Your toddler will likely peek. Take ...

Parents of under-fives often find more than one child on their lap at read-aloud time. Children's age differences can add up to huge developmental differences and finding a book that reads at a variety of levels can be hard. This is why I love RRRalph . It has something for everyone. Ralph is a likable, black and white paper collage mutt with a zippered snout and a flip-top nose for adventure. The book's inside cover asks, Would you like to meet a talking dog? Well, yah!!!  What's in it for baby? Bright, eye-popping pictures and animal sounds to parrot. For preschool siblings? A dog, plus large print to point out and a simple lively text that sparks book talk. Slightly older children can read and create off the page, crafting torn-paper collages to illustrate stories about their pets, or building a kid-sized doghouse from a cardboard box for inside play. What's in it for Mom and Dad? A chance to bark, woof, and howl (with laughter, of course)!

Few board books meet the developmental needs of very young babies like Hello, Bugs! (2010) by Smriti Prasadam and Emily Bolam. Ten sturdy pages feature ten noisy insects pictured in bold black and white with colored foil accents. The text is simple and repetitive. Hello, Bee! Hello, Worm! Hello, Spider!  The bugs buzz, buzz , wiggle, wiggle and creep, crawl . At one month of age, babies look briefly at bright objects placed within reach. At two months, visual tracking skills emerge. Horizontal tracking develops first, then vertical--side to side, then up and down, down and up. As you read, bee the bug. Turn your hand into a tickling spider alerting baby to book play. Turn your two pointers into talking worms, "Hello, Worm!" "Hello!" Stage the action 8 to 12 inches from baby's eyes and allow her time to focus on one wiggling finger before wiggling the next. Make the bee fly. Let baby's eyes settle on the black and yellow cover image, then slowly move ...

Between 12 and 18 months of age babies begin to show a sense of funny . What tickles their olecranon process? The unexpected. According to The Hawaii Developmental Charts (1993), at this age babies begin to laugh at incongruities . Imagine you and your toddler in the kitchen. The telephone rings. Instead of answering your cell, you pick up a banana, "Hello?" Toddlers will laugh at that. Truck Duck (2004), a 26-page board book by Michael Rex, delivers loads of laughs and belly quacks. It is ideal for 18-month-old boys because of their love of trucks and all things that go vrooom in the night. Each two-page spread pictures an animal (or fish or bug) in a vehicle. Each scene is labeled with a rhyming, two-word phrase- cab crab , plow cow , tug bug . Rex's illustrations make you smile. His pairings are zany. These creatures love their ride! Point and label as you read and you'll bolster baby's word learning. Related books for your read-aloud stack include My Truck...