Favorite Books for Babies

What are your favorite books for babies? I’ve made a list of the ones my family has loved. These are books that we own and read again and again. Affiliate links are included in this post. Clicking on the book cover pictures or book titles will take you to Amazon.

Favorite Books for Babies

Sandra Boynton

Books by Sandra Boynton top our list of favorite books for babies.

Moo Baa La La La was my favorite book to read to my son. 5 years later, I still have it memorized and love reading it to my daughter. When we are traveling and I don’t have a book nearby, I’ll recite Moo Baa La La La from memory for a quick storytime.

Doggies is a fun read. Count the barks of the dogs. Each dog has its own bark. “One dog. Woof! Two dogs. Woof! Yap Yap!” On the story goes until you reach one cat at the end. The meowing cat always makes my daughter giggle.

Barnyard Dance! is a sing-song book that will get you up stopping your feet and clapping your hands. It has great rhythm. You’re surely want to dance along. We love doing the motions of the animals in the book. Slide with sheep. Stand with the donkey. Twirl with the pig.

The Bunny Rabbit Show! is Boynton’s newest board book. The bunny rabbits are putting on a show dancing and singing for you. Don’t worry if you’re not a bunny. Put on some bunny ears and join in! We love wearing bunny ears while reading this book. I even made bunny ears perfect for babies. (They fit better and don’t fall off.)

Blue Hat, Green Hat was one of my son’s favorites as a baby. At 5, he still loves it. My daughter (just turned 1) loves to watch her brother laugh at the story. When we read the book, we always add “silly turkey” after reading “Oops!” Then, we talk about what the silly turkey did and what he was supposed to do. That silly turkey sure does like to put things on in the wrong places.

When my son was a toddler and struggling with wanting to get dressed, we would use the silly turkey to help us. We would put something on the wrong way. Socks on the hands. Aiden would say “socks don’t go on my hands.” In learning to get dressed, Aiden would play the same game and put things on the wrong place. We would say, “Oops! Silly turkey, socks go on your feet.”

We love reading lots more books by Sandra Boynton, too. We enjoy checking out different ones from the library.

Books by Other Authors

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. I think most children like this book for two reasons – the holes in the book and the butterfly at the end. It’s a great interactive book that allows children to become a part of the story.

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin, Jr. My daughter loves animal sounds. While reading this book, I add them in. The bear roars, the bird tweets, and so on. This book is wonderful for its repetition and predictability not to mention the beautiful illustrations by Eric Carle.

Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown is a book my husband read to my son every night when he was a baby. He would rotate through different books, but Goodnight Moon was a nightly read. I like to point to the different objects mentioned as we read the book. Can you find the cow? Where’s the mouse? Use this Goodnight Moon storytelling basket to help interact with the story even more.

Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney is a classic story about how much a little hare loves his daddy. We love reading all of the Nutbrown Hare stories, but this one is our favorite. We act out the actions as we read this book, too. Guess How Much I Love You is on my list of Father’s Day gift ideas.

Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You : Dr. Seuss’s Book of Wonderful Noises is a book my son loved as a baby and toddler. We had so much fun making all of the sounds in the book. Dibble dibble dop, crash, shhh, clang… After reading the book, be inspired to go on an outdoor sound hunt.

 

My daughter loves any books with singing or animal sounds. Check out our list of 12 great animal sound books next.

What Would You Add?

What are your favorite books for babies? I asked this question on Facebook. Join the conversation there or comment below.

 

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This post was first published on April 24, 2015.