The Baby Book Nook

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...