Books for Toddlers

Cafe Society
1

The Firebug, now 2.5 years old, is starting to get bored of the same old books. We’ve got a lot of age-appropriate books; we’ve just read them all a great deal. He definitely needs some new surprises.

I figure I’m not the only Doper parent who encounters this same problem at intervals, so I thought I’d put out my list of books that have gone over well, and other parents of present and past two or three year old kids, give or take, could list the books they and their kids have enjoyed at that age range.

What I’m looking for are books that

a) the kid enjoys, and
b) don’t drive the parent nuts with repeated readings.

Here’s some books that have held up well in our house:

Margaret Wise Brown, The Runaway Bunny and Goodnight Moon
Jeremy Tankard, Me Hungry!, Boo Hoo Bird, and Grumpy Bird
Jackie Urbanovic, Duck at the Door
Mo Willems, Are You Ready To Play Outside? and There Is A Bird on Your Head
Dr. Seuss, Hop on Pop and One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish
Martin/Carle, Baby Bear, Baby Bear, What Do You See? and others in that series
Elizabeth Sayles, The Goldfish Yawned
Al Perkins, Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb
Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are
Mwenye Hadithi, Baby Baboon and Crafty Chameleon (African Animal Tales)
Jan Brett, The Mitten
Numeroff/Bond, If You Give A Mouse A Cookie
Cronin/Lewin, Click, Clack, Quackety-Quack
Anna Hines, Daddy Makes the Best Spaghetti

So, what books do you and your toddler love?

2

Julia Donaldson, The Gruffalo and The Gruffalo’s Child
Martin Waddell, Snow Bears,Owl Babies and Can’t you sleep, little bear? (although the last one more caused sleep problems rather than solved them)
Mem Fox Where is the Green Sheep?
Pamela Allen,A Lion in the Night,My Cat Maisie and pretty much anything else…
The Scholastic version of The Wheels on the Bus
Lynley Dodd Hairy MacLary books.

We got Oliver Jeffers Lost and Found for Christmas, which means it hasn’t had time yet to displace any current favourites but I think it’s an awsome book. And How to catch a Star even more so.

3

All the books of Beatrix Potter, which are available in a boxed set:

You have a kid? I realize that it’s been a while since I last saw you at a Dopefest, but I assumed then that you were old enough and had been married long enough that you had reached the point that you couldn’t or wouldn’t be having children. A lot I know, I guess.

4

Dogger is one of the best stories ever. Trust me on this.

If you ever find them, pick up Brambley Hedge Stories by Jill Barklem.

Make Chinaberry a regular stop. Sign up to get a catalog. You won’t be disappointed.

Rosie Hippo is another excellent resource for that magical age that your little firefly is at.

5

give a mouse a cookie, take a mouse to school, give a moose a muffin, give buffy a stake (just kidding on the last one).

6

Lots of seconding/thirding from me…

Julia Donaldson has done a lot of stuff, either alone or with other authors/illustrators and they’re all popular in our house. The favourite is ‘Sharing a Shell’ at the moment, but ‘Room on the Broom’ and ‘The Smartest Giant in Town’ are great too.

Oliver Jeffers is on book 4 or 5 now and we have all of those too. They have a couple of recurring characters who appear in the background illustrations, and my daughter loves to point those out.

The Hairy MacLary series is good and not too dull - lots of opportunities for amusing accents in some of them too.

If you can get hold of her stuff, Emily Gravett has written a handful of books for littlies as well as a couple for older children. They’re simply written but the illustrations are just beautiful, particularly recommend ‘Monkey and Me’.
You’ve got ‘The Hungry Caterpillar’ already, right?

The ‘Thomas the Tank Engine’ series seem to be popular, though I’d say as a parent if you can avoid them, so much the better - I think they’re dreadful, but sadly children seem to love them. (Not sure if that’s a bit UK-centric, is Thomas a global thing?)

7

Oh yes, Chinaberry.

Look for pop up books and lift the flap books, toddlers love these (to death).
How Many Bugs in a Box (David A. Carter, he has lots of pop ups out there) was my kids all time fave, we went through two copies!

Richard Scarry has lots of cute characters in his stories.

8

Since you already have Mo Willems, why don’t you try some of the “Don’t let the Pigeon…” books. They’re funny and interactive.

9

They adopted a really cute little boy from Russia about a year ago.

10

We adored all the Sandra Boynton books when the kids were wee, especially Barnyard Dance and The Goodnight Book and Hey! Wake Up! and actually, everything. They are among the few books that I’ve put by for the next generation.

11

I was going to suggest Richard Scarry - any of them, but especially the big ones, like The Funniest Story Book Ever or The Great Big Schoolhouse. My boys both love Cars, Trucks and Things That Go. The illustrations are hilarious and there are tons of amusing details to look at. Also, in at least a few of the books, you’re supposed to find a gold bug (ha!) in each picture, which is something my kids have fun with.

Some other favorites in our house:
Dr. Seuss, of course
Sandra Boynton’s books, especially Hippos Go Berserk! (I can recite this one from memory)
The Little Bear stories. - they were some of my childhood favorites, so it’s nice that my boys like them, too.

12

My littlest is 2.5 as well, only he hasn’t ever had enough patience to sit through a story-reading. He loves books, but he likes to be in charge. He looks at pictures, turns pages, names illustrations, lifts flaps–but gets very impatient when I try and read the text to him.

That being said–our favorites right now are anything with flaps for lifting, the “Touch and Feel” series of animal books, Richard Scarry’s “Book of Words”, and pretty much anything with bright colors and pictures of things he can name or learn to name. This is great for his vocabulary and has really helped with early recognition of colors and numbers.

When my 8-year-old was a toddler, I took a black-and-white marbled composition book and pasted pictures from magazines and old books or photographs into it, then added a simple one-word label to each.
Book
Foot
Cow
Elmo
Eye
Grandma
etc.

This book has now gone through all three kids, and is still one of my toddler’s favorites. I left some blank pages at the end and periodically add a new picture when he develops a new facination with something. Just a thought.

13

You guys are great!! I’ve been spending the past half hour on my library’s website, placing holds on books; I’ll probably have a stack of books waiting to be picked up after work on Wednesday. I’ll be letting y’all know how he likes them!

A reasonable assumption, given the factors you mention.

But as twickster said, we adopted the Firebug from Russia nearly a year ago. Backstory is, we’d been trying to have a kid for quite some time, but that didn’t work out. So a few years back, after our last miscarriage, we decided to look into adoption. And now we’ve got this really great kid - smart, capable, practically fearless, outgoing, and as twickster said, really cute.

14

Seconded.

My other recommendations are:

A Big Spooky House, by Donna Washington. This is lots of fun to read aloud, you get to do some different voices. Also, the pictures are beautiful and if you look closely, full of hidden cats…

A Dark Dark Tale, by Ruth Brown. This is shorter than Big Spooky House, and coincidentally, also has extremely lovely illustrations of a scary house and a cat in each picture (not hidden).

15

Last Halloween, I got my then-20-month-old niece Where is Baby’s Pumpkin, a lift-the-flap book. She seemed to enjoy it. I got her Where is Baby’s Birthday Cake for her upcoming second birthday.

Her older sister (now 3.5) was into Danny and the Dinosaur at that age. I got her Happy Birthday Danny and the Dinosaur and Danny and the Dinosaur Go To Camp. Her father said he got sick of reading Danny and the Dinosaur Go To Camp, though. I’ve heard those sequels are not as good as the original.

My 3.5-year-old niece likes Clever Katya, a Russian fairy tale (I got it for her because my cat is named Katya).

16

My two year old loves the Llama Llama books by Anna Dewdney. Grumpy Gloria is also becoming a favorite.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar
Most Dr. Seuss books, especially Fox in Socks
No, David! (I read it with their names instead)

17

My daughter just turned two, and she ADORES the Llama Llama books by Anna Dewdney. Well, I’ve avoided Llama Llama Red Pajama, since it seems to outline ways to delay bedtime, but Misses Mama and especially Mad at Mama are great, with a nice rhythm and fun pictures.

Second Mo Willems’ Pigeon books (even The Pigeon Stays Up Late, regardless of the bed-delay theme - it is so funny). And his book Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale. Even my six year old loves when I say Trixie’s lines: “Aggle flabble klaggle!” and especially when I act out Trixie going boneless. Needless to say, I enjoy it a lot too.

Suess is great - Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You? is wonderful for this age.

Seconding Sandra Boynton as well. I just cracked myself up reading Blue Hat Green Hat for the first time.

18

At that age, our son loved the book Tumble Bumble. I read it so many times I still have most of it memorized, which has already come in handy for kid #2, even though she just turned 3 months.

I strongly recommend The Funny Little Woman and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.

Other favorites:
Alladin (we got a few books from India while we were there; Alladin is probably one of those books you’re most like to find in the US)
Night in the Country (this book was really relaxing to all of us)
The Little Engine that Could
The Saggy, Baggy Elephant
Brer Rabbit stories
But Not the Hippopotamus
Amelia Bedelia stories
Curious George stories

My mom also bought a huge bag of books from the library when they were cleaning out their stock. We’ve had some great finds there - our son loved Willie Bear and the Wish Fish and My Cat Ginger.

19

I loudly second Knuffle Bunny, and I triple Boynton - particularly Dinosaur’s Binket.

Also highly recommended:
“Officer Buckle and Gloria”, won the Caldecott medal, should also have won an award for the story: totally hilarious, sweet, and educational. If you can, also see the video version narrated by John Lithgow.
“Rapunzel” by Paul Zelinsky, another well-deserved winner of the Caldecott medal
“The Wheels on the Bus” also by Paul Zelinsky, brilliantly illustrated in a completely different style from Rapunzel - Zelinsky is amazing. There’s a video version of this too, sung by Kevin Bacon.
“Blueberries for Sal” by Robert McCloskey

Others not so well known but deserve to be:
“Peek!: A Thai hide-and-Seek” (http://www.amazon.com/Peek-Hide-Seek-Minfong-Ho/dp/0763620416/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1266256536&sr=1-3) awesome illustrations that give kids lots to talk about besides the story itself

“The Icky-Sticky Frog” (http://www.amazon.com/Icky-Sticky-Frog-Dawn-Bentley/dp/1581172192/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1266256674&sr=1-1) Short and simple. I love everything about this book and my kid did too. We made up little hand motions for each of the critters that we would do as we read it.

“Night Tree” (http://www.amazon.com/Night-Tree-Eve-Bunting/dp/0152001212/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1266256737&sr=1-1) This one is actually recommended for ages 4-8, but had my kid hooked earlier than that.

20

Another vote for Llama Llama Mad at Mama. Just the picture of him int he cart will knock me out of whatever mood I’m in. I gett hte gigles just thinking about it.

“How I became a Pirate” is a great one, especially if you do the voices. Pirates don’t change diapers: not so much.

All the “How do Dinosaurs” books, especially “Go to Bed,” “Eat their Food,” and “Go to School”. Dinosaur_Books The artwork is just amazing, and she has a great time pointing out the pictures in the flaps and asking what their names are.

If you cna find it: “The Brave Little Monster.”

And specifically at this age: Maisy’s Big_Book_of_Words