We received a lot of good baby and children’s books from friends who are educators. But it is always interesting to find out later which ones our child actually like. His first book was a cloth book called Taggies. He played with these briefly, but I guess the pastel colors were not attractive enough for him. When he was only 3-5 months old he enjoyed the ones with pictures of baby faces. The more colorful, the better — like photos of toddler with bright solid colored shirts and background.
When he turned 6-9 months he was well capable of turning the pages of a board book himself. This time he enjoyed looking at pictures of familiar animals and objects, like puppies and rubber ducks. He didn’t seem to care for texture books, you know, cloth books or those with fake fur. He looked at these because the pictures were attractive, but did not play with the texture.
As he turned one we got more books. The best ones were the play-a-song ones given by our superintendent. There were only 4 pages, but each had the words to a nursery rhyme which also plays when you press the button. It’s musical, interactive, and teaches colors and shapes, because the buttons correspond with the symbol on the pages. We like these so much we bought more for friends and a Christmas book. James loves these so much he keeps playing and dropping these, and the plastic portion that plays the music has to be glued back on so often we ran out of glue. The “Farm Songs” is what I call his good morning book. We play it as soon as he wakes up, starting with “Good Morning To You” to the tune of “Happy Birthday.” These books are published by Peter Haddock Publishing.
His good night book is the biggest surprise. I bought it at a used books shop, and as a last minute purchase for 50 cents. It’s a flap book and a counting book. When we get ready to tuck him in I would get this book, and Jack — the character — would start counting the things he needs to go to bed, such as 2 fluffy slippers. My son would lift the flap with the number 2 to see an illustration and the words underneath. He would get so excited that I would have to read fast. Sometime he would insist that I read it in the morning, because he enjoys the participatory nature of the book. Unfortunately I don’t know where to buy the other books in the series, because even Amazon does not have new ones in stock.
We also bought small flap books, the kind he can carry and hold himself. When we traveled to Thailand and the US I made sure one or two were in his diaper bag. These little flap books entertained him in the plane, restaurants, and while we’re changing his diaper. We have two, and the one on the scrapbook is a Chunky Flap Book. It’s not as good as the other one, because the flaps seemed stuck and hard for his little hands to open. But I’m looking to buy more, and will make sure the flaps are user-friendly.
