I come from a family of book lovers and storytellers. My parents were always reading, and looking back, I find myself incredibly lucky to have witnessed them not only enjoy reading to me, but reading for fun on their own too.
My mother had shelves and trunks filled with books on nearly every subject from Colonial Williamsburg to Japanese cooking. Even my father was known to have a book in the car to accompany him in waiting rooms or even to the movie theater right before they dim the lights for the previews.
Both of my grandmothers told folk lore and rhymes, and aunts and uncles on both sides shared their favorite tales with me and my cousins. It was only natural that I chose to go to school for writing; after all, my love for a good story is in my bones.
When Matt and I found out we were expecting our first child, one of the most important ways I could prepare for her was to dream up all the books we’d read together. I began to slowly build up a little library of children’s books, starting with some of my favorite baby books and adding a few new discoveries as well.
Fast forward to life with a two month old, and I’m proud to say my little newborn already has a firm top 5. We’ve noticed that she loves it when we read to her. She’ll widen her eyes, smile, coo, and kick her little legs at all the color illustrations. In fact, she loves books so much, we can’t use them as part of our wind down routine in the evening with her. She gets too worked up!
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Anna’s Favorite Baby Books
1. Spots and Dots – We bought this for Anna at Christmas time. Since babies can’t see too many colors at birth, high contrast images are easy for them to focus on. I thought this might be a bust as the images are highly boring, but she LOVED looking at these!
2. Pat the Bunny – no surprise here that our daughter loves this book. My mom said this was my first and absolute favorite too! We have the special edition which is much larger in size than the original. I think this works in our advantage as the pictures are big and easy to see for that newborn developing eyesight and of course, she can’t resist practicing at patting the bunny!
3. The Wonderful Habits of Rabbits – one of my husband’s co-workers gave this to Anna for Christmas, and I read it to her every day. She was hooked on page one! The story is a simple rhyme that makes it fun to read. Anna loves listening and looking at the beautiful illustrations.
4. What a Wonderful World – This was Matt’s Christmas gift to Anna. He loves music, so he got a kick out of this illustrated version of Louis Armstrong’s song. We love singing the song to Anna while we flip the pages. She coos and kicks her feet in excitement with each page turn as the illustrations are quite magical and colorful.
5. I am a Bunny – Richard Scary is one of my favorite illustrators. This book’s pages are filled with the vibrant colors of the season and narrated by Nicholas, the cutest little bunny. The artwork is so stunning it seemed like information overload for Anna at first. I ended up taking a break from it until she turned two months. Now that her eyesight is a bit more developed, this one is a definite page turner for her.
Does your baby have any favorite baby books? Let me know in the comments below – we love building Anna’s library, and we’re always looking for recommendations!
