The Baby Book Nook

Out with the old , i n with the new ! To make room for 2013 review books , this year's stack must go . I need your help to find these wonderful new old books a home . Please nominate a group or agency in need of baby books in the comments section below--your child's day care center or a nursery school or a local literacy organization, for example . I'll choose a winner at random then po st two packages--one to you as a thank you , packed with the 5 books pictured in my December 22 blog post, and on e to your nominee , packe d with the books below : All Gone! , I Went Walking , Kiki's Blanket , No More Blanket for Lambkin! , What Can I Hear? , Giddy Up, Li'l Buckaroos! and  Ahoy, Li'l Buccaneers! , four Noodle books , Peek-a-boo! , Pat the Bunny , Peek-a Who? , Baby Play , I Kissed the Baby! , Kiss Good Night , Chicky Chicky Chook Chook , Chicka Chicka Boom Boom , Meeow and the Pots and Pans , Mother Goose , One Moose, Twenty Mice , Th e Apple Pie T...

Holiday bows. Rudolph's nose. Ho! Ho! Ho!   Babies like the color red. Perhaps because it is one o f the first colors they see. Babies are born with limite d c olor vision. Researchers Adams, Courage, and Mercer (1994) report in their article, "Systemic Measurement of Human Neonatal Color Vision," that 74% of newborns in their study sample were able to see a patch of red set against a neutral hue, 36% were ab le to see green, 25% yellow, and a scant 14% a patch of blue. "At 1 mont h, performance improve d s omewhat although infants still showed clear evidence of discriminating only the red patch." In the 2010 article, "Infants' Preferences for Toys, Colors, and Shapes: Sex Differences and Similarities," researchers Jadva, Hines  and Golombok found that 12-, 18-, and 24-month-olds "preferred reddish colors to blue." Similarly, researchers Anna Franklin, Laura Bevis, Yazhu Ling, and Anya Hurlbert found that 4- and 5-month-olds looked ...

Tur(key)- duck- (chick)en, too! Pass the dressing, PLEASE! Thank you! Turnips , Taters, by the bowl ,  Where's the green bean casserole? Apple pie and Pumpkin mousse , Quiet time with Mother Goose. Sleepy, sleepy, everyone. Too much turkey . Too much fun . WAKE up! (Cooks, go back to sleep.) Happy Thanksgiving!

This 16-page board book is FULL OF FUN. A kiss. A quack. A tickle. Mary Murphy's bold black on white and white on black pictures are eye catching: A fish, two birds, a squirrel, a frog, an ant, a mayfly (A mayfly?), a mouse, a mama duck, and a yellow duckling. An exuberant text introduces first words--nouns, verbs and adjectives--for learning.   A bird exclaims to a squirrel,   "I fed the baby! Did you feed the baby?" Yes! I fed the baby. What a hungry little one!" The mayfly, to a frog, "I sang to the baby! Did you sing to the baby?" "Yes! I sang to the baby, and the baby sang to me." Infants can tune into I Kissed the Baby 's animated conversational rhythms. Almost-ones might quack with a little coaching. Two-year olds can label pictures and join in on book talk. Babies of all ages get kissed! Ppfffwah!

Baby Play (2012) A camera catches baby at play (and as the day wears on, baby played out) in Baby Play , a wonderful debut board book by Canadian authors Carol McDougall and Shanda LaRamee-Jones. It is the first in a new series by Nimbus Publishing called Baby Steps.   Play is work for babies. It's their job and they are expert. Do they get paid? No, but think of the perks. Bathtub fishing trips. Backyard birding. Lots of doughnuts! Plastic and in need of stacking. All the better!!! Here's a peek. Baby, baby  strolling along  What's that you hear?  A chickadee song?  Chick-a-dee-dee all day long  We LOVE strolling along!   On the left page sits a plush toy, a stuffed chickadee. On the right, a happy baby with toy bird in hand on a carriage ride with his mom. All eyes look to to the sky. Baby Play stages off-the-page points, peeks, and peek-a-boos, smiles and cuddles, yawns and sweet sleep. Visit the publisher's website to re...

This is my favorite out-of-print board book. Hands down. If you act fast you can purchase a new (old) copy from Amazon.com for $2,095.01. That's right. A steal! Maybe I should put my copy in a safe, but then I'd have to buy the safe. Max's one word was BANG! No, Max, said his sister, Ruby. Say CUP. BANG, said Max. Ruby wants to expand Max's toddling vocabulary. She points to and labels a cup, a pot, a broom, a fish, an EGG EGG EGG EGG , a chair, and an apple. She eyes Max expectantly. BANG , says Max, to each word request, though he takes a bite from the apple. Ruby urges, YUM YUM, Max. Say YUM YUM. Delicious! says Max. It appears Max knows more than he's let on all along. Rosemary Wells captures the voice and attitude of very young children perfectly. In fact, Max and Ruby were drawn from her children in real time. Wonderful illustrations and book dialogue aside, I love how Max reminds us that every child operates on his or her own speech time table. Max...

WHO? You and your newborn WHAT? Your favorite picture book, nursery rhymes , black and white board books , board books with bling WHEN? Morning, noon, or night when baby is quiet and alert, not hungry, tired, or wet WHERE? A quiet place WHY? Read-aloud is fun and fosters a relationship between you and baby, and baby and books. HOW long? Likely you'll read in micro spurts. If baby fusses or starts hiccuping or shuts her eyes in a deliberate-not-sleepy-kind-of-way, close the book.

Peek-a-boo play he lps teach object permanence. Peek-a-boo books cue peek-a-boo play. They make great reading for babies. What is object permanence? It is the rabbit in the hat, out of sight, but still on stage. It is knowing that people and objects carry on after they leave your field of vision. Imagine a cement truck pouring a concrete foundation for thinking skills development. Object permanence is in the mix. Once set, babies think about people and things differently. Labels and attributes stick. A sense of security builds. Expectations and attachments form. According to developmental psychologist Jean Piaget, object permanence emerges at about nine months of age. My favorite peek-a-boo book for young babies is  Peek-a WHO? (2000) by Nina Laden. Six mitt-sized, peanut-shaped holes cue hands-on reading. Peek-a WHO? Turn the cover page and find an owl.  You can Peek a MOO! and Peek a CHOO-CHOO! A large mirror insert fills the last page: Peek a YOU! T...

I love pasta. French children's book writer Marion Billet serves up a plateful: Noodle Loves Bedtime (2011),  Noodle Loves to Cuddle (2011),  Noodle Loves to Eat (2012), and Noodle Loves the Beach (2012). The latter two come available mid-March. Two additional titles, Noodle Loves the Farm and Noodle Loves to Drive , are in the works. Each book has a cover with an insert and five 2-page spreads.   Each spread has a fun flap to peek under or a texture to touch. Every last page has a mirror insert and a line just for baby: And j ust like Noodle, you love t o sleep! or cuddle! or eat! or just like Noodle, you love the beach! Billet's illustrations are bright and cheery. She draws a wide-eyed panda who loves EVERYTHING.   Noodle loves bread. Noodle loves cheese. Noodle loves pasta, and Noodle loves peas. I love the flaps and inserts. Spongy white bread. Smooth cheese. (You can almost feel the fat!) A stick...

One of my favorite board books, Moo, Baa, LA LA LA! , was recently released as a book app. Taking on an app for a review means taking on the topic of ebooks for babies. eEek. But I must, if for no other reason than to get the sand out of my eyes.   First, My bias: Board book or bust. Babies are natural scientists who form attachments. You can't test gravity with an ebook without weighty consequences. You can't tease out its compression strength with a good bang or a bite. You can't hug an ebook. You can pat one, GENTLY. You can' t take an ebook to bed. I downloaded Sandra Boynton's app, tapped the screen, and fell in love. Her e-animals MOO ve, bleat, and multiply. QUACK! says the duck. A horse says NEIGH. Tap the duck. He quacks ! A second duck appears. Tap. QUACK! A third duck, and so on, until you're just shy of a dozen Peking dinners. Tap the eleventh and a baby duck shoots across two pages to the horse on right. Tap. A baby qu...

If I find myself grinning as I flip through thick board pages, I know a book has a chance with little ones. So it goes with GIDDY UP, Li'l Buckaroos! (2011) and AHOY, Li'l Buccaneers! (2011) , a pair of first books by Mark Iacolina. The two are very much alike. The story lines are simple, energetic, and sleepy-eyed at the end. Each reads with a playful swagger. Iacolina writes in rhyme. Babies love that. He's faithful to his meter. Parents love that. Each stanza (illustrated across several pages) starts with a 2-word labeling or noun-verb action phrase and ends with a longer complex sentence, mirroring children's spoken language development. One-, two-, and young three-year-olds can connect. GIDDY UP, Li'l Buckaroos! and AHOY, Li'l Buccaneer s! are toddling picture books. Both have the language and design elements of a point-and-label board book. Both carry a story - chapters in verse - about a busy day of pretend play. GIDDY UP, Li...

Jen Robinson writes at Jen Robinson's Book Page , a wonderful website about children's books and read-aloud. She kindly agreed to answer questions about her almost-two-year-old's experiences with reading. Thank you Jen!!! How old was your daughter when you first started reading to her?                              We started reading to her in the womb. I would read to her during the daytime, and my husband would read to her before we went to sleep. Because she was born 10 weeks early, we didn’t have any books with us when we went to the hospital. It took us a day or so to start reading to her there. Her first book out in the world was Judith Kerr’s One Night in the Zoo . Her first chapter book, which I started reading to her in the NICU, was The Secret Garden . During those first few months, how did your baby signal that reading time was over?   She ...

What Can I Hear? (2011) Author/Illustrator: Annie Kubler Publisher: Child's Play Length: 12 pages Size: 6.25 by 6.26 inches Format: Board Today's review led me to an article about noise called "Effect of background noise on listening effort in normal hearing 9-11 year olds" by Clare Howard, Chris Plack and Kevin Munro. I learned what SNR means: S ignal to N oise R atio. Regarding read-aloud and little ones, the signal is your voice and the noise is the sum of sounds around you--TVs, timers, telephones, talk, and so on. Quiet voice, quiet place? High SNR. Loud voice, quiet place? Higher SNR. Quiet voice, loud place? Low SNR. Howard and her team were interested in the effects of classroom noise on listening ability. Not surprisingly, the sample of 31 nine, ten, and eleven year olds had to work harder at listening in loud test conditions. They also made more listening mistakes. Do babies and toddlers find it harder to listen in a noisy r...

No More Blanket for Lambkin! (2010) Author: Bernette Ford Illustrator: Sam Williams Publisher: Sterling Publishing   Many popular board books were written and first published as hardcover picture books. A classic example is Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown, released as a picture book in 1947, then as a board title in 1991.  What are the advantages of a board book?  Thick, sturdy pages support interactive flaps and inserts. Durable surfaces wipe clean. Board pages are easier for babies and toddlers to turn. Curved edges, safer. Most are easy for 1- and 2-year-olds to carry. Nothing says BABY like a board book. Likewise, no one says MINE! like a two-year-old. Independent toting and page turning foster independent book handling and "pretend reading" skills. Board books are less expensive than their picture book counterparts.   What are the disadvantages? Despite everyone's best efforts, some picture books simply do not take ...

Author/Illustrator: Janie Bynum  Publisher: Sterling Publishing Length: 20 pages Size: 7 by 7 inches Format: Board book A board book edition of Kiki's Blankie (2009) is set for release this February, right around the corner! In praise of Kiki, not all hardcover picture books are a good fit for the smaller book format. Cinderella's step-sisters and the glass slipper come to mind. Kiki, however, succeeds. Maybe, it's the cape. Kiki is a spirited monkey with a blanket attachment, a blue and white polka-dotted lovey. She never goes anywhere without it . Kiki pretends her blanket is a bandana, then a cape, so she can be a pirate, a super hero. She pretends it is a tent, then a sail, so she can camp, sail, and soar! Sometimes Kiki's blanket is just a blanket, so Kiki can, well, be Kiki. A simple plot mirrors real life. Kiki loves her blanket. Kiki loses her blanket. MY BLANKIE IS GONE! Kiki finds her blanket. And yes, there is a crocodile. Part...

Author: Sue Williams Illustrator: Julie Vivas Publisher: Red Wagon Books Length: 30 pages Format: Board book Size: 5 x 5.25 x .6 inches I Went Walking (1996) has layers, like an onion. Peel it. I promise, no tears! The text is rhythmic, repetitive, and reminiscent of Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr and Eric Carle: I went walking. What did you see? I saw a black cat looking at me ...  After the cat, the main character spies a brown horse, a red cow, a green duck, a pink pig, and a yellow dog. Pretty pedestrian, except that it's not. I Went Walking is one of my favorite board books for toddlers. An aside--more often than not, a children's book author and illustrator never meet. The writer writes then sends the story to an agent who sends it to an editor who (if she loves the book) convinces her colleagues to publish it. Only then does the editor assign an artist who writes the book, this time with pictures instead of word...