Best Books

I will update this list from time to time. I will list my favorite books so far and some good things about it.

Transportation:
"Zoom, Zoom, Baby!" by Karen Katz- This book has flaps where you are trying to find the baby. It has a boat, a bus, a plane, a train, a truck and a car.

Colors:
"Blue Hat, Green Hat" by Sandra Boynton- cute animals that wear different items in different colors. The first page reads, "Blue hat [elephant wearing a blue hat], green hat [moose wearing a green hat], red hat [bear wearing a red hat], oops [a turkey standing in a yellow hat]." It's fun with my 7 month old but I saw another Mom reading it to an older boy and he understood what "oops" meant and he would laugh and laugh.

"Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" by Eric Carle. I have a normal board book for this one but I've also seen a cute version where there are little windows that you can slide open on each page to see the next animal. It's kind of like a flap but likely much more durable. Make animal noises- it adds to the book.

Animals:
"Moo, Baa, La La La!" by Sandra Boynton- This goes over just a few animal noises. (I think you'll see that I'm a fan of a lot of Sandra Boynton books. I feel all of them have a small twist- like the oops or pigs saying 'la la la' instead of 'oink'.)

"Are You My Mother?" by P.D. Eastman. I do animal sounds for each animal and my son loves it!

Eric Carle's "Animal Babies" with sound board. I love reading through this book. I read the page and then press the animal button and then try to mimic the sound. Once I got some plastic animals, I will usually also bring out a plastic animal that corresponds to the page (except we don't have animals for two of the pages).

Body Parts:
"Where is Baby's Belly Button?" by Karen Katz. A lift the flap book asking, where are baby's feet? Or hands? Or eyes? I make sure to point them out in the book and then on my child, and then sometimes I'll turn him around to face me and show him my eyes, or feet, or hands.

"Horns to Toes and In Between" by Sandra Boynton. Uses monsters to go over body parts with a cute rhyme. There are a few added body parts- like the monsters have horns and a tail, but mostly it's fun to go over the different body parts.

Bedtime:
First off, there's always fairy tales and a good favorite book is always good, but I'm going to mention a few of my favorites that are not only cute but also about going to bed.

"The Going to Bed Book" by Sandra Boynton- the animals are on a boat and go through a bedtime routine. This one, like her others, has a small twist as well.

"Twinkle, Twinkle, I Love You"- by Steve Metzger and Estelle Corke. This book is a compilation of short rhymes starting with "Twinkle, twinkle...." one page has "Twinkle twinkle precious dear" another "Twinkle, twinkle, little one" and has cute little pictures to go with it. At the end of the book there is a double page with just stars and I sing, "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" and my DS loves it.

ABC 's:
1. Mr. Doodle: C is for City- s pencil stock man takes you through the alphabet. Most of it is in black and white except for things that start with the featured letter. For A it is: A is for art. But the art is of an apple. On every page there is one thing mentioned and pictured in color and one thing not mentioned, but in color that also starts with that letter. They get points for their 'x' as well. It's not xylophone or x-ray or x-ray fish. The last page helps you recognize the other things on the page.

Other ABC books:
A Sandra Boynton one.
Zoo born Babies: I liked this one. There's a short sentence or two on each animal (and photo credits from various zoos at the end). I was only disappointed in 'z is for zooborns". Hello? Zebra is a zoo animal that starts with z. They do have a photo of a zebra on the last page though, so slightly better.

Counting:
Poptronic Old Macdonald Had a Farm. This one I love. I sing the song, we count the animals and is interactive in that you "pop" each animal when you count it (no counting anything twice). My son is 7 months old and starting to catch on. He can't pop the buttons on each animal without help yet though.