My toddler loves books. He can easily focus on reading for over an hour, contently sitting by himself flipping through pages, once in a while asking questions about the words and pictures. In honor of this constant, favorite hobby of his, I wanted to list several favorite books perfect for babies and toddlers:
- Mooncake by Frank Asch
- Ten, Nine, Eight by Molly Bang
- Big Book of the Berenstain Bears by Stan Berenstain and Jan Berenstain
- Pajama Time! by Sandra Boynton
- Daddy’s Lullaby by Tony Bradman
- Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown
- The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown
- The Golden Egg Book by Margaret Wise Brown
- Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell
- Woolly’s Walk by Stephen Cartwright
- The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
- ABC I Like Me! by Nancy L. Carlson
- Pancakes for Breakfast by Tomie dePaola
- The Alphabet Book by P.D. Eastman
- Go, Dog. Go! by P. D. Eastman
- Olivia Counts by Ian Falconer
- Whoever You Are by Mem Fox
- Corduroy by Don Freeman
- Are You Ticklish? by Sam McKendry
- My Friends by Taro Gomi
- A Good Day by Kevin Henkes
- Kiss Good Night by Amy Hest
- The Seals on the Bus by Lenny Hort
- In the Garden by IKids
- Daddy and Me by Karen Katz
- Where Is Baby’s Belly Button? by Karen Katz
- My First Signs by Annie Kubler
- My Truck is Stuck! by Kevin Lewis
- Tugga-Tugga Tugboat by Kevin Lewis
- Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr.
- Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney
- We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Helen Oxenbury
- Potty by Leslie Patricelli
- Little Hands Love by Piggy Toes Press
- First 100 Words by Roger Priddy
- My Mom Loves Me! by Marianne Richmond
- The Night Night Book by Marianne Richmond
- I Am a Bunny by Ole Risom
- My Friend Rabbit by Eric Rohmann
- What time is it? by Gladys Rosa-Mendoza
- What Makes a Rainbow? by Betty Ann Schwartz
- Dr. Seuss’s ABC: An Amazing Alphabet Book! by Dr. Seuss
- The Lorax by Dr. Seuss
- Sheep in a Jeep by Nancy E. Shaw
- There Is a Bird On Your Head! by Mo Willems
- Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale by Mo Willems
- Bear Stays Up for Christmas by Karma Wilson
- The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear by Audrey Wood
- The Wheels on the Bus by Paul O. Zelinsky
- Trashy Town by Andrea Zimmerman
How many of the 50 listed here have you read? I know a bunch of you are bookworms, so what are some of your favorite children’s books that I missed? Who are your favorite authors?
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Great list!! We love Brown Bear! In fact my daughter is reciting it right now in bed!! We also enjoy Doreen Cronin’s Diary of a Worm, any Graeme Base books esp Animalia, and Bill Martin Jr.’s Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. Happy Reading!
Thanks for the suggestions! I just placed holds at our library for Diary of a Worm and Animalia since we hadn’t read those yet.
Excellent compilation! Some of these were my favorite when I was little!
Great list, the links are super helpful! I had forgotten a bunch of these titles. A few of my faves I don’t see here are:
- “The Giving Tree” by Shel Silverstein
- “Down by the Bay” by Raffi
- “Mortimer” by Robert Munsch
- “Where’s Spot?” by Eric Hill
- Clifford the Big Red Dog series
- as mentioned by Erika above, Graeme Base as well, “The Eleventh Hour” is amazing!
Thanks for the suggestions! I just placed a hold on Mortimer and The Eleventh Hour at our library.
I hope you like them! Mortimer is a classic (you have to sing the song!) and The Eleventh Hour is the most aesthetically pleasing children’s mystery-solving book ever created!
This is a post for me! We read a lot of these, but there are a few I didn’t recognize and will have to check out at the library–like The Golden Egg Book…there’s more to Margaret Wise Brown than Goodnight Moon! Some of our other favorites:
-most anything by Sandra Boynton
-Byron Barton books (lots of trucks, trains, and dinosaurs–our favorites!)
-”real” train books: we go to the nonfiction section and pick out some of those for HOURS of looking pleasure!
-Fire Engine Man by Andrea Zimmerman (I need to look into Trashy Town–sounds like a good one!)
What a great thing for your little one to be able to “read” for so long. I love to hear my guy “reading” to himself!
Thanks for your suggestions—I just placed a hold on Fire Engine Man at our library
In regards to #30, we also love Polar Bear Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? By Bill Martin Jr. and one of my favourites to read is Sometimes I Like To Curl Up In A Ball by Vicki Churchill and Charles Fuge.
Thanks for the suggestion! I just placed a hold on Sometimes I Like to Curl Up In a Ball over at the library
I am lovin’ you guys’ suggestions! I’m actually on the lookout for more books to add to my “to borrow at the library” list so these are all coming in really handy. Keep em coming!
Wonderful list. I found several books we will look for at the library next time.
Some of our favorites:
- Good Night Little Bear by Richard Scarry
- The Fuzzy Duckling by Jane Werner Watson
- Any of the Little Quack books by Lauren Thompson
- Counting Kisses by Karen Katz
- Tubby by Leslie Patricelli
Sweet, thanks for the suggestions! I haven’t read Tubby yet so I put a hold on that at the library. We have her Potty book though.
Livi really loves the Tubby book. We also got the Potty one but haven’t tried it yet.
Oh, so many books! Definitely would add the Hairy Maclary series by Lynley Dodd, and T’Wit T’woo by Maddy McClellan. My favourites of the ones I’ve reviewed are here, too: http://theeagerlittlebookworm.wordpress.com/category/best-books/
Wonderful list!
The only kid classic I’ve never liked is Winnie the Pooh.
I know I’m terrible. What kind of gramma doesn’t like Pooh?
Teresa, you are not alone! I actually inherited a set of Winnie the Pooh books and after a while, handed them off to someone else too. Something about incorrect grammar just rubs me the wrong way (then again, Dr. Seuss has also used incorrect grammar and that doesn’t bother me as much, so who knows!). Maybe I’ll give Pooh another chance
My son is really loving the Llama Llama books right now. And also If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. Olivier Dunrea has a set of books out called Gossie & Friends that is another favorite at our house. We’ve enjoyed many from your list and will look for the ones we haven’t read yet at the library soon. Thanks for this post!
I was discussing favorite books with my “baby” boy of 21 this week. We spoke about the recent death of Maurice Sendak and how much I loved reading Where the Wild Things are to hIm. He agreed that it was a favorite along with Good Night Moon. So happy he remembered that long ago time. If you are dog lovers, find the Alexandra Day “Carl” series. Beautiful illustrations of her big brown dog reminded us of our chocolate labs.
Many of those are on our shelf or have come home from the library here. “I Am A Bunny” is one of our all-time favorites and I LOVE the illustrations. “Goodnight Moon” is another one that Simon asks for over and over again.
Currently we are reading a lot of “Where The Wild Things Are”, the “Harry and Horsie” books, and anything about monsters is a huge hit. We also love anything by Sandra Boynton.
Wonderful list. I’ll have to add some of these to Lane’s library. He adores “Brown Bear” and “Pajama Time!”, but I didn’t see “Pat the Bunny.” He never tires of that book. I’d also suggest, “Make Way for Ducklings,” which was my childhood favorite.
Yay! 14 out of your 50 we have! My all time favorite is Corduroy! Check out City Dog Country Frog by Mo Willems. Def. one of Diego’s favorites!
Awesome, I just borrowed City Dog Country Frog!
Wonderful book list! Oster LOVES . I haven’t read Sheep in a Jeep or Seals on the Bus. It looks like I’ll be making a trip to the library this week. We are definitely going to be busy.
I’ll be using this for Oster’s reading list. Thanks for compiling all of these
It really helps, as you know there are SO MANY children’s books out there and some of them aren’t very good.
Hi, I’ll try my lengthy response again, b/c it got erased.
I know we talk about toddlers eating and baby food – have you tried the Amy Wilson Sanger (world snacks) series? that sounds interesting and would love to hear how your LO likes them. My LO is six months and has not expressed a great interest in books, (unless you count his crinkle/squeaky “12345″ book). … oh, it is in three languages, and I add the Urdu: “ek, du, teen, chaar, panch,” after the English, spanish and French. OK, I just memorized the book since there were only numbers on the pages. (smile)).
yet. I have found some sites online, similar to “My Custom Story” which allows you to upload words and pics and they will make you u your own story book. That sounds wonderful, but some of the sites are not that accessible. I think that another site is called “Hullaballoo,” or something like that. Sorry, I can’t find the links quickly b/c they were on my work computer.
I wanted to make a few stories about our family: big brother is in the military, Big sister likes to bake and sing, Grandparents are in Pakistan, we (parents) are both blind, DH teaches blind people computers, sports basketball, cricket and beepbal, etc. : there are several stories that we could customize.
We could even put scratch and sniff stickers, I found sites for them also: for an extra sensory experience. I even found some voice modules online which might allow me to attach a sound to one of the book pages. (I don’t know the best module, though) It all sounds involved, but very fun. But, I have not done it yet..
I don’t buy many books because I would have to braille them. There are some “braille book” sites. But, they don’t have the books that I “think” LO would love.
The Leslie Patricelli books sound fun. I also want lots of books with diverse families in them. What I might do (after we move) if take my LO to the library and see if someone can read to him. If there is a book that he seems to like, then, it would be worth me buying and using clear sticky pages to overlay the braille. sometimes books on tape are OK, but you have to get the type that “tell” you when to turn the page. (smile)
Such a beautiful list – another one I would add would be “Ten little fingers and ten little toes” by Mem Fox which has a beautiful rhythm, good repetition and the most gorgeous illustrations!
We have started reading to our infants. More for us than for them
I like “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom” by Bill Martin Jr and John Archambault. It’s fun. “Chicka chicka boom boom! Will there be enough room? Here comes H up the coconut tree,” Thanks for the other suggestions. I like your blog.
[...] Mom @ Sleeping Should Be Easy recently posted a great list of books and there are even more recommendations in the comments to her [...]
Robert McCloskey’s Blueberries for Sal is a MUST! So is his Make Way for Ducklings!!! Strega Nona cracks me up! All of Mo Willems’ Knuffle Bunny books are great, especially the final one! The emotion of Knuffle Bunny Free ranks up there with The Giving Tree. Sandra Boynton is a master at creating quality toddler books that toddlers adore. The Napping House, A Rainbow of My Own, Llama Llama Red Pajamas, Tiki Tembo, oh I could go on forever! I have two young daughters and I teach Kindergarten- I love children’s lit!
Oooh, thanks for the suggestions, Kathryn! I’ve placed holds on a bunch of the titles you suggested at our library—we haven’t read about half of what you mentioned yet! I actually am compiling part 2 of this list for a future post, thanks to reader suggestions like yours. Stay tuned!