Best Books for Babies and Toddlers

Books and babies make a natural combination. Creating the best books for the youngest readers, however, can be difficult. The text (if there is one) must be short and snappy, and the illustrations should be straightforward enough for pre-readers to enjoy, and also detailed enough to keep their attention. In other words, creating what appear to be simple books for babies and toddlers actually is anything but simple.

One of the 2014 Best Books for Babies

 It can be just as challenging for parents and other grown-ups to find the best books to read to their babies and toddlers. There is, unfortunately, a lot of schlock out there in the marketplace, such as books that have way too much text for the youngest readers, books with illustrations that don't match the text, etc. In the dizzying array of possibilities, how can parents identify the best books for the youngest readers?

Fortunately, there's an expertly-curated "go-to" resource for parents: the Best Books for Babies list published each year. The list began in 1999 when a group of Pittsburgh-area librarians and children's literacy experts, including the late, great Fred Rogers, decided that there should be a resource for identifying excellent books for the very youngest readers. It's true that the Caldecott Medal (given to the best-illustrated book of the year) and the Newbery Medal (given to the best-written children's book of the year) are aimed at books appropriate for ages birth-14. But those awards rarely, if ever, actually focus on books for babies and toddlers, and in fact, generally skew towards preschoolers on up.

So Rogers and his crew decided to establish their own resource for parents of babies and toddlers. Each year, a group of experts year sift through hundreds of books to choose the 10 best for the youngest readers, and then publish that list as the Best Books for Babies. The project was originally sponsored by a nonprofit Pittsburgh literacy group called Beginning With Books, which closed its doors in 2008 due to budget cuts. But the effort has continued under the auspices of a trio of Pittsburgh groups: the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh; the Fred Rogers Company; and the Pittsburgh Association for the Education of Young Children.

The three groups have created a dedicated website for their work; besides a list of the current winners, you'll find an archive of previous winners plus information about what makes a good book for babies and toddlers, and also tips for reading aloud to little readers.

Another great resource for choosing books for babies and toddlers is the Born to Read booklist created by the Association for Library Service to Children. And don't forget to talk to your local public librarian -- I'm often asked for book advice by new parents and am more than happy to share what I know. After all, I'm helping to create the next generation of readers!



Meanwhile: I've been looking at some of the latest crop of board books, and have pulled out just a small selection of favorites. (I'll be reviewing more board books in upcoming weeks). Here's a closer look:

Genius children's book creator Mo Willems has created board book versions of two books in his popular Cat the Cat, Who Is That? early reader series: Who Is That, Cat the Cat? and Who Flies, Cat the Cat? (Balzer+ Bray/HarperCollins, $6.99 each, ages infant-3). To accommodate younger readers, the original text has been abbreviated, but the board book versions retain the zany humor of the early reader books. Babies and toddlers will be captivated by Willems' expressive illustrations.

Author Mary Brigid Barrett riffs on traditional nursery rhymes with delightful results in Pat-a-Cake and All Fall Down (Candlewick Press, $6.99 each, ages birth-3). Take her opening lines of Pat-a-Cake, for example: "Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake/CLAP, CLAP, CLAP/ Pat a pudding, Wibble Wobble/ Pat a puddle, SPLAT!" The merriment inherent in Barrett's text is matched by the gouache-and-watercolor ink illustrations by LeUyen Pham, who depicts a multicultural cast of kids and adults.

 
 Olivia, that irrepressibly bossy picture book piggy, relishes her new job as teacher in Olivia's A. B. C (Atheneum, $7.99, ages 1-3). For each letter of the alphabet, author/illustrator Ian Falconer offers one or more examples; of course Olivia plays a starring role in each one. And it will come as no surprise to Olivia's many young fans that the one example for "Q" is "queen" -- "Queen Olivia" that is. As always, Falconer's illustrations, many of them drawn from previous Olivia books, will elicit chuckles from both young readers and their parents.


Brightly-colored illustrations combine with a "lift-the-flap" format to make Honk, Honk! Baa, Baa! (Candlewick Press, $7.99, ages birth-2) a winner for the youngest readers. Babies and toddlers will enjoy mastering their animal sounds with this book, which was written and illustrated by Petr Horacek.

A group of toddlers spends a busy day together in Baby Animal Farm (Candlewick Press, $6.99, ages birth-2), written and illustrated by Karen Blair. The big attraction on the farm for the young humans are the baby animals, including a kitten, piglet and calf. And it's a helpful puppy who saves the day by finding a teddy bear dropped by one of the toddlers. The pastel-hued illustrations, done in lithographic crayon and watercolor, are charmingly simple, yet never cutesy.


 

Reviews: Eric Carle and Friends, a Dog Named Fred, and More

There are lots of great picture books out there already this season. Here’s a look at a few good ones:

Author/illustrator Jane Cabrera has made a career out of taking familiar children’s songs, tweaking them, and then presenting them in picture books bursting with color. Among her previous books are “Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush,” “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,” and “The Wheels on the Bus.” 

Now Cabrera tackles another favorite song in “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” (Holiday House, $16.95, ages 3-6). As always, Cabrera’s art is eye-catching, but it’s her new lyrics that are memorable, including such verses as “Row, row, row your boat/ Splish! And Splash! And Splatter!/ If you see the monkeys swing/Don’t forget to chatter/ OO, OO, Ah, Ah!”

            

 I’ve already used this book in our library’s popular Circle Time programs and it was a big hit. Kids loved the way a song they knew could be transformed just by adding different animals and sounds. The adults also were amused to see how a song they thought they had sung, ad nauseum, could be reworked into something totally different.

Another familiar children’s song gets a geographical make-over in “Old Mikamba Had a Farm” (Penguin, $17.99, ages 3-6). As she did in “The Night Before Christmas” and “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” author/illustrator Rachel Isadora sets her book in Africa, and features a farm with animals like a baboon (“With a ooh-ha-ha here”),  a zebra (“With a whinny-whinny here”) and a hippo (“With a grunt-grunt here”).

It’s both a fun conceit and a way to introduce young readers in America to a different part of the world (unless they come from a part of Africa, as do many of our library’s patrons from French-speaking African countries). Isadora, who was a ballerina before she turned to children’s books – uses mixed media (oil paints, printed paper, palette paper, ink and pencil) to create her collage-style illustrations.

It’s time for bed, but where’s Fred? Well, for one thing, he’s out in the flower bed, running in puddles, climbing a tree (?!!), and getting filthy. As author/illustrator Yasmeen Ismail shows in the hilarious “Time for Bed, Fred!” (Bloomsbury, $14.99, ages 2-5), Fred may be a dog, but his antics mirror that of young children when bedtime looms. Even a bath doesn’t slow Fred down.

A bedtime story (“Woof!” by R. Hound) finally helps calm Fred, but even then it takes a bit of time to sort out which bed he should be sleeping in. Ismail tells a tale that will bring nods of recognition to both little ones and their weary parents, and her loosel-lined illustrations underline Fred’s incredible pre-bedtime energy.

The illustrations in "Time For Bed, Fred!" also are reminiscent of the Caldecott Medal-winning “A Ball for Daisy” by Chris Raschka, which would be wonderful book to pair with this one. Just for fun, check out this brief video of Ismail painting Fred (the video features the original British cover).

Author/illustrator Eric Carle asked 13 of his children’s picture book artist friends to illustrate and write about their favorite animals. The result is the delightful “What’s Your Favorite Animal?” (Henry Holt, $17.99, ages 3-7).

Young readers will enjoy thinking about what their answer would be to the book title’s question as they enjoy such responses as the one by Caldecott Medalist Jon Klassen (“This Is Not My Hat”). Klassen has chosen a duck as his favorite animal, noting: “Most times when you see a duck in a story, it’s not very smart… But I like ducks. I like watching them walk around.” But -- showing his typical dark humor -- has provided an illustration of a duck that is flat on its back, feet in the air.

Another Caldecott Medalist, Erin Stead (“A Sick Day for Amos McGee”), says penguins are her favorite animal because “I like how penguins seem confidently awkward on land but then glide so swiftly and expertly underwater. I think I relate to that a little.”) Then there’s the answer given by Mo Willems (of “Knuffle Bunny,” “Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus” and “Elephant and Piggy” fame). Willems says his favorite animal is the apocryphal-sounding “Amazonian Neotropical Lower River Tink-Tink.” Willems' illustration shows snake with a hump in the middle, and Willems mischievously adds that his favorite animal “is also this snake’s favorite animal.”).

Carle himself has showcase the cat as his favorite animal, writing about a feline named Fiffi who lived with him in New York City. Overall, kids will love poring over this colorful volume, which also features short biographies of each of the contributors. Sales of the book will benefit the Eric Carle Museum of PictureBook Art in Amherst, Mass., a true treasure of a museum.

(Note: the books included in this blog post were review copies provided by the publishers).