As a librarian, I am often asked what are the best books for baby and young children’s development. I believe cultivating a love of reading starts from birth so it is important to find books that keep baby interested and engaged! One suggestion to help cultivate a love of reading is to be repetitive as they grow into toddlers at story time. Read the same book every night for a week so it becomes familiar to the child and they start to notice the patterns and details in the story.
Here are some of our top 10 favorite books that baby can enjoy now and grow with in the future as they become little readers:
75 Years of Little Golden Books: 1942-2017: A Commemorative Set of 12 Best-Loved Books
I love Little Golden Books- it was even the theme of my baby shower (that is my cake in the title picture!) This little keepsake library will start baby off with the most popular stories. Once baby becomes a toddler, I would keep these on a higher shelf for read aloud so the pages don’t get ripped.
Not a book, but these black and white flashcards are perfect for young babies development as they don’t see colors in the first few months.
Good Night New York City (Good Night Our World)
We have lots of books in the Good Night series. We love the Good Night NYC/Central Park/Brooklyn for our City Babe!
Another cute book for NYC babes, as they will recognize some of the sites as they get older!
The Very Hungry Caterpillar Board Book and Plush (Book&Toy)
Very Hungry Caterpillar is a classic book that helps with counting and shape identification. The repetitiveness of the book makes it easy for baby to read along. I love the matching plush for baby to hold while reading.
Baby Signs: A Baby-Sized Introduction to Speaking with Sign Language
We like to practice baby sign language with this book. We are hoping baby will pick up some of the signs for communication.
Melissa & Doug Soft Activity Baby Book – The Wonderful World of Peekaboo!
We love this series of soft books that make crinkly sounds and have lots of fun things to touch and move. Baby can play with these of his own and they are great for car rides.
Mickey and Minnie’s Storybook Collection
We are big Disney fans around here and plan to take The City Babe to Disney World for his 2nd Birthday, so we are starting to read these stories so he recognizes Mickey and all his friends when he meets them in person!
Baby’s First Bible Boxed Set: The Story of Jesus, Noah’s Ark, The Story of Moses, Adam and Eve
We love this collection of bible stories because it reminds him of what he learned in his Sunday school class.
First 100 Board Book Box Set (3 books)
These first 100 collections are great to help baby identify animal shapes and words when he is little, and serves as a great sight word practice when they get older.
These are just our top ten list, but you also can’t go wrong with anything in the DK Kids collections, classics like Velveteen Rabbit and Pat the Bunny or anything by Dr. Suess!
The City Babe 