When choosing books for your baby’s first 18 months, look for simple, repetitive, familiar text, and clear pictures. Books that seem to draw their interest most have a rhyming, rhythmic pattern to them and often incorporate songs or nursery rhymes. As your child begins to show interest in looking at the books, it’s great to choose simple drawings with solid or simple backgrounds. In my opinion, author Sandra Boynton is great at this. One of my favorites is “Snuggle Puppy.” In the book a mommy dog is trying to tell her little puppy how much she loves him/her. She relates her love to the joy found in song, and ends it with a loving kiss. The fun part is, you can sing the song to your child without the book – anytime, anywhere and they love it!
As your child begins to discover his/her body, there are great books for that too, like Sandra Boynton’s “Horns to Toes.”
During the second half of their first year, children are tuning in to their emotions, testing their boundaries and beginning to hear; “no-no”quite frequently. A great book by author Caroline Jayne Church; “I Love You Through & Through,” helps reinforce that parental love is unconditional. The illustrations are delightful and the book has a clear and concise rhythm to it. I’ve yet to find a child who did not enjoy it.
Once your baby begins, eating finger foods, picking up and choosing their favorite toys, stories about daily routines are not only appropriate but relevant. To your child it’s a ‘relatable’ story. It suddenly clicks for them; they can relate what’s happening in their life to that of the story line and they want to know more! What else can I do?
I strongly recommend sturdy books. There are many wonderful board books, bathtime vinyl and cloth books, sing-along plastic books. From about seven months and up your child will want to grab, hold, chew, toss, tear and otherwise destroy standard paper back and hard cover books. The goal here is to build a love of reading. A baby needs something tangible, something he/she can touch and taste, even chew. It’s how they learn about the world around them. Books with mirrors, pop ups and textures are great too.
When you get to the point that your baby has a basket or bin that he/she goes to get their own toys, make sure there are some board books mixed in. As I mentioned in my last blog, at this stage it’s quite alright if books are read and touched just as often as toys are touched and played with.