Click here to listen to the podcast episode, with a special hello and goodbye from Rosemary!
Rosemary, my 17 month old, has read A TON of books this month!
Well, I’ve read a ton with her, along with my husband.
Though I don’t keep track of every single time I read a book to her,
I am starting to keep track of each book that I read to her.
Here’s a list of more than 70, yes SEVENTY, books we read this month.
I’ll put them into categories for you!
Also, since most of these are board books, just assume I’m talking about a board book unless I mention that it’s a regular picture book!
First, valentine’s day books, so you can get on getting them if you like!
I LOVE YOU, TRUE LOVE, and BE MINE (Chunky Pack) are a trio of little board books and you can get all three for five dollars. Each book only has a few pages but the art is bright and they’re a super quick read. Rosemary loves them, maybe because they’re so small? We’ve probably read them at least 20 times each this month. And, good news, the same company has some in the same format for other holidays as well! 
Two other books we love for Valentine’s Day are HUG MACHINE, where the little boy narrator is a certified hug machine, hugging everyone in sight, even a porcupine, and LOVE MONSTER, where a monster who lives in a land of cuddly creatures sets out to find another monster to love.
We also read quite a few Christmas books too,
since Rosemary wasn’t ready to let those go.
Her favorite is FA LA LA featuring that baby in all of Leslie Patricelli’s board books. This one takes you through quite a few Christmas traditions, all the way up to opening presents. A CHRISTMAS CAROL, the Babylit board book edition, is so popular that we’re keeping it out year round. YOU ARE MY MERRY LITTLE CHRISTMAS is so sweet and adorable, perfect for a first, second or third christmas.
Now into flaps and feelies,
or books that have something unique about them.
Rosemary, and I suspect all kids, love these kinds of books. Yes we have had to tape a bunch of flaps, but that’s not going to stop us from reading them to her!
So first, for flaps,
Rosemary loves anything by Karen Katz.
This month we read ROAR, ROAR, BABY where the baby goes off to the zoo to find the tiger and other animals, and WHERE IS BABY’S BELLY BUTTON, which goes over parts of the body.
Little Blue Truck is back in LITTLE BLUE TRUCK’S SPRINGTIME, and you get to open flaps on each spread to see what’s new with his animal friends (spoiler alert, babies are new!) MONSTER MUNCH is a weird book where you get to guess what different shaped monsters eat off of a plate. They always pick the foods that are the same shape they are, and you get to lift the flap on them to see what they picked. The last flap reveals something different and is hilarious so I won’t give it away here. I’m counting WHAT AM I? OWL AND FRIENDS as a flap even though the last spread just opens up twice as big. It’s a mystery that’s really fun.
MY FIRST PEEK-A-BOO ANIMALS is by Eric Carle and has flaps that reveal animals and fun rhyming text. RED CAR, GREEN CAR has parts that you pull down for each color; as you read you change the color of the car and get to see different shades of colors. It’s a pretty unique one and we love it. BUSY AIRPORT is Rosemary’s favorite book in this category, with tabs to pull and things to spin and slide. We’ve read it a ton of times and it is still holding up.
Onto feely!
BABY BEAR FINGER PUPPET BOOK and LITTLE FOX FINGER PUPPET BOOK are, wait for it, finger puppet books. Rosemary loves them and it’s kind of fun to have the character peeking through each page.
I CAN DANCE is fun because you get to put your fingers in the story as dancers legs and arms! THAT’S NOT MY MONKEY and THAT’S NOT MY TRAIN are from the “That’s not my” usborne series of books that feature fun things to feel. These have been favorites since she was born.
REALLY FEELY FARM and REALLY FEELY BABY ANIMALS have texture to feel on each page as well and feature real life photos of animals, what the animal’s footprints look like, and prompts as to what to search for or touch on each page. TOUCH AND FEEL WILD ANIMALS is similar. HIGGLY HEN has a button that, when pressed, plays chicken noises! It sounds like it would be annoying, but since it sounds like actual chickens, it really isn’t. HERE COMES EASTER is a book about a small easter egg hunt, and on each page there’s some sort of texture to feel.
Okay, animals!
BARNYARD DANCE and MOO BAA LA LA LA are two Sandra Boynton classics that Rosemary loves. I adore the rhyming text and illustrations of WHERE IS THE GREEN SHEEP? as well. ONE MOLE DIGGING A HOLE rhymes too, and is a good counting book.
CREATURE NUMBERS and CREATURE COLORS are part of a series of books from Chronicle that have pictures of real life animals to illustrate the concepts in the titles. We got them a while back at a used bookstore and they’ve been in our rotation since.
I adore the real book GO DOG GO so I’m glad Rosemary loves the board book version. QUACK! is a great rhyming book about some little ducklings, and since Rosemary’s first animal noise so long ago was quack, she really loves this book.
DINOSAURS is a quick read with some adorably illustrated dinosaurs, although I’m not sure how to say the names of some of them! JESSE BEAR WHAT WILL YOU WEAR features a fun little bear and is a classic look at his day. Finally, PIGGY PAINTS is about, well, a pig that paints. We love this one since Rosemary has been doing art everyday with me and is frequently painting!
Let’s talk concept books!
I mentioned earlier that Rosemary loves the books by Leslie Patricelli, and we read a few more this month. TOOT!, TUBBY, And NIGHTY NIGHT are all about what they sound like they’re about, and we’ve read them A TON.
Since we live in California, we also read GOOD NIGHT CALIFORNIA, which is a story about a day in California, highlighting a lot of the things that make California California, and ALL ABOARD CALIFORNIA which follows a train that visits some places in California.
While we’re talking about transportation, we also love YELLOW COPTER, about a yellow helicopter who saves the day, TRAINS GO, all about the fun noises trains make (seriously that one is so fun to read because you get to make the awesome noises!), MACHINES AT WORK, which shows off some machines and workers working to destroy and build buildings,
and BABY LOVES AEROSPACE ENGINEERING, which talks about how a bird, plane, and rocket fly. We love that series and also read BABY LOVES QUANTUM PHYSICS a ton, which features a cat who is hiding in a box.
Peek a boo is a game that even the youngest kids can learn, and the books by Nina Laden are really fun for any age. We LOVE PEEK-A-WHO? and also read PEEK-A-BOO!, which is more Halloween themed, this month.
Have you seen ALPHABLOCK? It’s a thick sturdy book with gorgeous illustrations and fun page turns for each letter. MRS. PEANUCKLE’S FRUIT ALPHABET features a fruit for each letter of the alphabet with bright pictures and longer text that you can condense if you have a squirmy listener like I do!
Our go to color book is PANTONE COLORS, which features various shades of the same color. Finally, one of our all time favorites is GLOBAL BABIES, which shows pictures of babies from around the world. OLD HAT NEW HAT is a picture book, a beginning reader really, by Stan and Jan Berenstain about a bear who walks into a hat shop but is pretty picky about what sort of new hat to get. Rosemary loves the illustrations!
JANE EYRE is an adorable counting book, while MY FRIENDS features a girl learning how to do things from her animal and people friends. A search and find book that also includes counting is WHAT CAN YOU SPOT, COUNTING, one of Rosemary’s favorites, that has things to search for in lots of categories.
Okay, these don’t really have a nice neat category,
but I’ll sort them into two last groups.
We love ourselves some nursery rhymes, and love to read/sing MISS MARY MACK and a book that has both I’m a little teapot and Itsy Bitsy spider. Speaking of singing, we are ALWAYS singing FIVE LITTLE PUMPKINS and we actually have TWO versions of it!
ALLIE’S GARDEN is a fun story about going out to the garden to get veggies for a salad that is illustrated with vegetables! There are a few about buttons: ONE RED BUTTON is a wordless book where one red shows up in all sorts of illustrations as different things. The illustrations are collage and the texture seems so real that Rosemary frequently reaches out and tries to feel the different bits of paper, even though they are printed illustrations! And the BELLY BUTTON BOOK by Sandra Boynton is another fun one featuring everyone’s favorite button.
These last ones are all character books.
The first five come in a set by Kevin Henkes. They each feature a sweet treat and a character from another one of Kevin’s books. They are also available to get individually as board books, though the box set are small books that are picture books.
LILLY’S CHOCOLATE HEART is a Valentine’s Day book. OWEN’S MARSHMALLOW CHICK is for Easter. WEMBERLY’S ICE CREAM STAR is good for any time in summer, while JULIUS’S CANDY CORN is for Halloween. Finally there’s SHEILA RAE’S PEPPERMINT STICK for Christmas.
Another set we have is a Babar boxed set and Rosemary found them as a much younger child so some of the stories are ripped out of their bindings! They are: Babar’s Concert, Babar bakes a cake, Babar to the rescue and I can’t remember the other one.
Top ten of the month:
Rosemary can do all of the toot sounds in this, and can read the first three pages. Granted it’s just, Toot! Oh! I tooted! But it’s ADORABLE. She requests it by name and will hunt through her books to find it.
Rosemary loves the flaps and all the animal sounds, as well as saying no each time. The book asks, “Is that the little tiger up in the tree?” “No, it’s the baby gorilla.” The way she says no is super cute.
These are the three little valentine books that I KNOW she loves because they are so small.
She loves ducks and the illustrations in this book, and I love that it rhymes and is fun to read. Lots of onomatopoeias. This is a library book that is out of print but I think we are going to have to hunt it down.
This is such a favorite that we had to hide it. Yes, we hid a book our child loves because we were sick of reading it! It’s not a bad book, but it was the only one she was going for, so we tucked it away for a bit. She loves pointing out things in the pictures.
This could be a favorite because of the hand motions and singing involved, who knows. It’s a family favorite!
This is one of her favorites too, I think because there is a mouse hidden in each illustration. When I read a spread (example: Black Hat) she points out the object I read in the picture facing the text and then points out the mouse each time, without being prompted.
Another flap one she loves. And she loves babies. This is a library book but I think we’re going to have to buy it.
So there you have it.
Awesome books for an awesome kid.
Remember, each book is linked to indiebound, where you can easily click to find the book at an indie bookstore near you. They are not affiliate links: I work at an indie and love indie bookstores so I do all I can to support them. I hope you will too!
See you next month with some more great reads!
Happy reading,
Kathy Ellen
