The best baby and toddler books selected by experts. This is the ideal age to get a child interested in books. Engaging, fun books give babies and toddlers a lifelong love of books.
Do You Want a Hug?
by Olivia Cosneau & paper engineer: Bernard Duisit
A well produced board book with a different type of tab to pull or flap to lift on each two-page spread. Various animals are asked “do you want a hug?” They give different answers and show affection in their own ways, so this book can be an early introduction for little ones to the concept of consent, as well as being a fun, interactive read.
Ages 1-4 (a bit of attention needed to ensure younger readers don’t rip it apart)
This is My Daddy!
by Mies van Hout
The board book edition of this playful book which challenges young readers to match the daddy with the baby. Illustrated in Mies van Hout’s cheerful and distinctive style, in addition to being fun and interactive this book can help toddlers develop their observation skills. The less obvious pairs, such as tadpole and frog, are a helpful reminder about not making assumptions.
Ages 1-3
“There are about 14 books in the series and they’re all brilliant. All the grandchildren from age eight downwards still love them. The youngest one, who is 18 months, goes to nursery and I chose My Busy Day because it is set in a nursery. You’ve got the children arriving, and they’re having their breakfast in the nursery. Then you’ve got playtime outside, they go off to visit a farm and they do painting, water play, storytime, all those familiar activities. There are no words in it, it’s all illustrations. It’s a board book, but it’s a slightly larger format. There are lots of details in the pictures but I’ve found children from around 12 months upwards like looking at them.” Read more...
Barbara Band, Librarian
“It’s a story about diversity and being different. You need to introduce this to children from a young age, because the world that very small children interact with may not be very diverse. This book is simple to read with younger children and it’s got that nice rhyming text but also lots of detail in the pictures.” Read more...
Barbara Band, Librarian
“Emily Gravett is one of my favourite illustrators and authors. This book is different from the others that I have selected because it is a story. It’s a very simple and repetitive story and if you break down the language in it there are not a lot of words used. It’s about a little girl who has a toy monkey. She says “monkey and me, monkey and me we went to see…” and on the next page is the animal they go to see. Emily’s got a wonderful way of using the space on the page” Read more...
Barbara Band, Librarian
“I love using these books with little children because there’s no story. Parents have a tendency to read the story word for word, which doesn’t always work with a very small child because it’s too long for them. The baby wants go to the next page or back to the previous page where there was a more interesting picture, and that can be frustrating for the adult who may have a more rigid mindset to reading the story. You need to be flexible when you’re reading to children.” Read more...
Barbara Band, Librarian
“There are lots of books to choose from in this series. I tend to veer towards books that go against stereotypes, because I think it’s really important that we don’t put stereotypical images in front of young children all the time.” Read more...
Barbara Band, Librarian
“This one is very good to know the animals in their habitats – which animal lives under the roads, which animal lives on the trees or in the caves.” Read more...
The best books on Wild Animals for Kids
Margaret Darawanda, Environmentalist
“You have the very typical scenes of Baba – Grandmother – knitting the mittens for Nikolai. It’s winter outside, and snow. Many children have experienced snow. There’s nothing more magical than that day that you look out of the window or you’re coming home from school, and there’s snow everywhere. I think all children in that weather have had their mother, father or grandmother telling them to keep on their mittens or scarf, telling them to put on their hat. So children immediately relate to that, and to the resistance of a child who just wants to get out into the snow without thinking about the hat or the mittens.” Read more...
Janice Stewart-Yates, Teacher
“The reason why I picked this little book for very young babies is, again, for their sense of awareness. Often, when health staff assess a child’s development, they’ll say things like “can you point to your eyes?” and “where is your nose?” and they’ll make an assessment on how that child is developing based on their understanding of anatomy parts. That song ‘Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes’ is a good song to sing with children when they’re around two years old, because it gets them to learn about their body. Having a book and using that for story time helps children start on their journey with their body, to understand and explain it. I’ve had children who, when they’ve been ill, have pointed to the right body part and said that they’re not well and if I get the book then they’ll point to it in the book. It’s incredible. They might not have complex language yet, but they can use pointing and a book to help explain it to you.” Read more...
Best Human Body Books for Kids
Sonia Joseph, Medical Scientist
“This book would be for children who are turning one. It’s a lift the flap book, which little ones always love. It opens up so many opportunities. There’s that whole peekaboo to the animals that are behind the flaps and the physical interaction with the book.” Read more...
Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library – Inspiring a Lifelong Love of Reading
Marion Gillooly, Librarian
The Wolf and the Fly
by Antje Damm
This is a fun little book for toddlers about a greedy wolf. As items disappear from a shelf, young readers can figure out what the wolf has just eaten. They will relate to the wolf’s burping, napping and trip to the toilet. But is it a good idea to eat the fly?
Ages 0-3
“The reason that I picked Pirate Pete’s Potty – and there’s Pirate Polly’s Potty and Princess Polly’s Potty as well – is that 15% of referrals to our outpatient paediatric clinic are for constipation. So those are children that are bad enough to have needed referral from their local doctor to a hospital. A study in 2018 showed that 48% of consultations for children aged between two and five going to see their GP (general practitioner) was related to constipation, potty training or anxiety around that.” Read more...
Best Human Body Books for Kids
Sonia Joseph, Medical Scientist
“It’s a book about sharing the abundance of good in the world. It cleverly illustrates the idea that the more you give, the more you get back. It’s very sweet, and it has glitter in it!” Read more...
The Best Books on Gratitude for Kids
Dana Sheridan, Librarian
“Hairy Maclary, a scruffy little dog, trots about town. On the way he gathers up lots of dog friends. It’s a rhyming text with repetition that builds.” Read more...
The best books on Pets For Young Kids
Catherine Rayner, Children's Author
Blue Chameleon
by Emily Gravett
When the chameleon meets a pink cockatoo, he also tries to mirror its characteristics. Young children recognize the bird, but then when they’re a bit older they think it’s funny that the chameleon’s doing an impression.
“My son was asleep within two minutes of it finishing, which is a very pleasant bonus for a parent.” Read more...
The Best Picture Books of 2017
Zoe Greaves, Children's Author
“In each story Katie goes somewhere with her grandmother, generally to a museum, and her grandmother falls asleep, which is when Katie jumps into each painting. I think this is exactly how children’s minds work. Every child is capable of being interested in art, and this is the best way to get them interested. If they’re introduced to art in in a very positive way, then they can appreciate museums. “ Read more...
Janice Stewart-Yates, Teacher
“This is quite a recent book. Juana Martinez-Neal is Peruvian, and she has written about the Ashaninka indigenous people, who don’t have much exposure. As an educator, you always talk about the Amazon in Brazil. I really like how this book brings attention to the part of the Amazon which is in Peru. It’s really well done, how she chose to highlight and draw the people from that part of the Amazon. This is the kind of thing that I feel that children will pay attention to: she did all the paintings on banana bark and paper.” Read more...
Janice Stewart-Yates, Teacher
“Even without looking at the book, you have all the familiar characters in the rhymes that you’ve heard growing up, like Tom Thumb, Mother Hubbard in the cupboard, the three bears and all that. So you’re immediately drawn into the book just by listening to it. And then the art! For me, it really reminds me of the countryside in Scotland where I spent a lot of time on a farm.” Read more...
Janice Stewart-Yates, Teacher
“It’s just amazing. What I love about Katie Morag and the Two Grandmothers is that whether we have two grandmothers that are very different, or sisters, or aunties, it is something that children can relate to. I love how the story shows both the personalities, and how they struggle to get on with each other but in the end they make friends. “ Read more...
Janice Stewart-Yates, Teacher
“This is a terrific way of introducing children to the diverse families that exist and to that whole notion that there is no such thing as a typical family. It’s presented in the way that every page is a family photograph, a framed photograph.” Read more...
Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library – Inspiring a Lifelong Love of Reading
Marion Gillooly, Librarian
“This is a beautiful, kind of sensory experience, with a textured paper on the cover. It’s a great book about challenging people’s perceptions. It’s a story of acceptance, a story of respect and encouraging children to think for themselves and be themselves. That whole thing about how we make assumptions about what a lion is, and what a lion should do” Read more...
Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library – Inspiring a Lifelong Love of Reading
Marion Gillooly, Librarian
“This is just a great book, because it has themes around dreaming, being what you can, what you want to be, dreaming big, having ambition and being excited about what’s important to you. Rocket, the main character, is excited about space and she engages with her community to try to get them all to come along to the park to look at the meteor shower.” Read more...
Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library – Inspiring a Lifelong Love of Reading
Marion Gillooly, Librarian
“I love Just Imagine because it’s so full of colour. It allows the child to take what they want from each page. You can take one picture from any page in this book and create a whole new story. Or talk about your own experience, or talk about which one’s your favourite. Although this book is for children turning five, much younger children love this book as well because it’s so accessible. It’s funny, it’s quirky, it makes them think, it has variety and gives the child control over how they use this book, how they enjoy it. You can pick up this book every day and see something different in it.” Read more...
Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library – Inspiring a Lifelong Love of Reading
Marion Gillooly, Librarian
The Best Baby Books, recommended by Barbara Band
Barbara Band, librarian and former President of the UK’s Library and Information Association, explains why reading aloud for babies is not only a great bonding experience but also an important part of early childhood development. She shares some tips on reading with babies and introduces her top baby book recommendations.
Best Books for Preschool Kids, recommended by Janice Stewart-Yates
With travel restricted in much of the world due to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, it is more important than ever to open children’s minds through books. Janice Stewart-Yates, a passionate Montessori educator, shares her recommendations for books that bring the world to children. These are some of her favourite picks for preschool classroom story time, as well as for reading with her own daughter.
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1
Sleep Tight Very Hungry Caterpillar
by world of Eric Carle -
2
Families, Families, Families!
by Max Lang (illustrator) & Suzanne Lang -
3
How to Be a Lion
by Ed Vere -
4
Look Up!
by Dapo Adeola (illustrator) & Nathan Bryon -
5
You Choose Your Dreams: originally published as Just Imagine
by Nick Sharratt (illustrator) & Pippa Goodhart
Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library – Inspiring a Lifelong Love of Reading, recommended by Marion Gillooly
Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library – Inspiring a Lifelong Love of Reading, recommended by Marion Gillooly
Dolly Parton is an iconic singer and songwriter, but many children around the world know her as their librarian. Through the Imagination Library she nurtures a love of books in young children. Marion Gillooly, Executive Director, The Dollywood Foundation UK, talks us through the background of Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library and highlights five of her favourite books in the catalogue (which she admits was really hard: “all the books are my favourites”).
