The Baby Book Nook

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...

Aaron Mead, from Children's Books and Reviews , has published a wonderful free eBook titled How To Choose Children's Books Practical Tips and Philosophical Reflections on Picking Books for Kids . It covers all age ranges and is chock full of resources. I especially like Chapter 2. In it, Mead alludes to what reading researchers Scarborough and Dobrich term The Broccoli Effect . Vegetables are good and good for you, but few among us want all vegetables all the time. Well-meaning parents (like me) push nutrition: EAT YOUR PEAS! (I like peas.) The problem is, if you force feed anything, including read-aloud, it can become distasteful. (Canned peas. I even like these!) There may be moments, days, perhaps even weeks, when your baby shows little interest in books. Not to worry! Try taking the text off the page: "Peas Porridge Hot" at meals or "Rub-a-dub-dub" at tub time. Take a walk. (I'll talk more about that next week.) Or simply take a break. ...

Illustrator: Elliot Kreloff Publisher: Begin Smart Length: 10 pages Format: Cardstock and foam board Size: 4.75 x 5.2 x 1.25 inches Begin Smart's All Gone! speaks perfectly to the talents of an almost-one year old. By 11 months, babies are able to rotate their forearms so that palms face upwards, as in, All gone! At the same age, they begin imitating and learning simple gestures. All gone! The sparse book text introduces four object words: Cereal, juice, cookie, and ice cream. In addition, Kreloff draws a cup, a spoon, a bowl, a baby, and a straw for word learning. He illustrates eating, sipping, munching, licking, full and empty, happy and sad. Book talk easily translates to table talk: Breakfast, lunch, and dinner, All gone!   Ages and Stages : 6-12 months (baby supinates forearm, imitates new gestures, may sip from a cup held by mom or dad); 12-24 months (Baby says, All gone! , uses spoon, drinks from cup)