• Baby Health /

Best Parenting Books

Have questions sometimes you need a whole book to answer them. here are our fave parenting books., by babylist team.

Pinterest logo.

Now that baby’s here, you may have a lot more questions than you did when you were expecting. And if you’re still in the expecting phase, it’s not a bad idea to gather some essential knowledge ahead of time.

There are parenting books out there for every topic, from basic newborn care to all the different parenting styles to working through your own childhood trauma so you can parent more effectively. As you browse parenting books, keep in mind that no book is a 100% perfect fit for every parent. You may find some you almost completely agree with except for one section or idea; you may find some in which only a small part is helpful to you and you disregard the rest. Just remember that you’re in charge of your own unique parenting journey, so take whatever advice feels the most right and helpful for you and your family.

Here are our favorite books to help you out on your big parenting adventure.

 American Academy of Pediatrics: Caring for Your Baby and Young Child - $18.99.

From the experts at the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) comes this incredibly thorough, encyclopedia-like book on everything about raising a child from birth up through five years old. Breastfeeding? Covered. Potty training? Covered. Milestones, environmental hazards and childcare options? All covered, and all from a trusted source.

American Academy of Pediatrics: Caring for Your Baby and Young Child

Baby 411 - Paperback - $14.39.

This book is a deep reference guide for whatever quick question you might have about your baby. It covers pretty much all the important topics in your baby’s first year, and people say it’s a nice alternative to calling your pediatrician all the time (there’s even a glossary at the back!).

Baby 411 - Paperback

 Cribsheet - $15.70.

Can’t decide which parenting style would work best for you and your family? From economist Emily Oster, author of Expecting Better , this research-based, data-driven book analyzes all the options and debunks myths so you can confidently make your own parenting decisions.

 Raising Good Humans: A Mindful Guide to Breaking the Cycle of Reactive Parenting and Raising Kind, Confident Kids - $12.89.

If you’re not already practicing mindfulness exercises, becoming a new parent is a great time to start. Even if you’re in the middle of your parenting journey, learning mindfulness can help reduce the daily stresses of parenting by training yourself to react calmly and compassionately to your child’s most frustrating moments.

Raising Good Humans: A Mindful Guide to Breaking the Cycle of Reactive Parenting and Raising Kind, Confident Kids

Secrets of the Baby Whisperer - Paperback - $7.63.

If you’re struggling to understand your baby’s various cues, this book aims to teach you “baby language.” It covers a variety of parenting topics, with a focus on deciphering what your baby is attempting to communicate to you. As for parenting techniques, the author advocates for a middle-of-the-road approach between strict (parent-led) and flexible (baby-led).

Secrets of the Baby Whisperer - Paperback

Bringing Up Bébé - Paperback - $15.89.

The author of this book is an American mother who, while living in France, noticed that French children seemed better behaved than American children. Blending her personal story with studies and research, she explains how French parents are more comfortable with setting limits for their kids, teaching them to be patient and knowing “how to be involved without being obsessed.”

Bringing Up Bébé - Paperback

The Happiest Baby on the Block - Paperback - $14.99.

From the creator of the Snoo bassinet , this book focuses on how to tune into your baby’s natural calming reflex to soothe fussiness and promote better sleep. Broken down into five simple steps, Dr. Karp’s method helps calm even the most colicky babies.

The Happiest Baby on the Block - Paperback

 The Montessori Baby - $12.99.

Montessori has long been a beloved childrearing technique for parents of preschoolers and beyond, focusing on learning through self-guided play, natural materials and limited intervention from adults. Montessori has also been shown to benefit children even before they enter a classroom; this book teaches caregivers how to incorporate the Montessori method from the earliest days with baby.

The Montessori Baby

On Becoming Baby Wise - Paperback - $10.99.

If you are looking to put your baby on a schedule, this is the book for you. It includes sample sleep and feeding schedules with guidance on how to implement a routine early on. Keep in mind: Many parents consider this book to be helpful, but consult with your pediatrician before following these schedules too rigidly. We found this article helpful in understanding why some parents love Babywise and other parents hate it.

On Becoming Baby Wise - Paperback

 The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read (and Your Children Will Be Glad That You Did) - $17.29.

We’ll give you fair warning now: this book might make you cry. Ever heard yourself talk to your child and think you sounded just like your parents?If you find yourself feeling negatively about that, then this book is for you. It gently guides parents to examine their own upbringings to understand how it can inform the way they respond as adults to their own children. In order to be the parent we truly want to be, sometimes we have to care for our inner child, too.

The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read (and Your Children Will Be Glad That You Did)

The Sh!t No One Tells You - Paperback - $14.88.

The book walks you through the more difficult parts of parenting a new baby in a hilarious way, helping new parents realize they’re not alone in finding parenting to be a less-than-idyllic task. One of the chapters is called, “No One Is Loving This as Much as Their Facebook Posts Would Have You Believe.” Parenting is so hard, and you’re not alone in your frustrations. All parents suffer through this stuff, but at least with this book, you can laugh about it!

The Sh!t No One Tells You - Paperback

 How to Talk so Little Kids Will Listen - $11.49.

Once your little one has reached the toddler stage and their independent, defiant side starts to show a little more (or a lot more), you might quickly realize that some forms of communications just won’t work on them. This book addresses common struggles between young kids and parents and the most effective ways to communicate to reach understanding. There’s even a chapter dedicated to the special communication circumstances of children with autism and sensory processing disorder.

How to Talk so Little Kids Will Listen

 Toddlers Are A**holes: It's Not Your Fault - $9.95.

We promise your toddler doesn’t actually have it out for you, but it can often feel that way. If you’re struggling through the infamous Terrible Twos or trying to parent a “three-nager,” this book offers commiseration and a chance to laugh a little through all the tears of frustration.

Toddlers Are A**holes: It's Not Your Fault

 Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be - $18.79.

If you’re constantly dealing with daily tantrums, defiance and all the other struggles of parenting a toddler, it can be hard to remember that your child really doesn’t mean it personally. This book serves to instill that reminder with the philosophy that, no matter what they say or do, your child is inherently good inside. And so are you, even in your darkest parenting moments. Rather than focusing on “correcting” behaviors, this book encourages parents to focus on emotional connection and nurturing the “goodness” in their child and in themselves.

Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

 The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child's Developing Mind - $12.89.

Co-authored by a neuropsychiatrist and a parenting expert, this book teaches strategies for responding to your child’s emotions in ways that promote healthy brain development. This book is a good choice for parents looking to understand the biological reasoning behind tantrums, outbursts and all the other high-energy moments that occur daily when parenting a toddler (hint: it has to do with how toddler brains are wired).

The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child's Developing Mind

 Brain-Body Parenting: How to Stop Managing Behavior and Start Raising Joyful, Resilient Kids - $19.19.

It’s not just toddlers’ brains that are developing; it’s their bodies, too. And in the same way that a toddler’s brain can be the root cause of frustrating behaviors, so can their body. Using groundbreaking new research, this book helps parents understand how a child’s physiological developments can present as certain “negative” behaviors. Instead of trying to correct those behaviors, parents should address the physiological development and provide the right resources and support for self-regulation.

Brain-Body Parenting: How to Stop Managing Behavior and Start Raising Joyful, Resilient Kids

 The Wonder Weeks: A Stress-Free Guide to Your Baby's Behavior - $14.29.

Have you encountered a time when your typically calm, happy, mild-mannered baby was suddenly irritable and un-soothe-able for a few days without explanation (no illness, no change in routine), then went back to normal just as quickly? That might have been a developmental leap, a point in which they’re about to hit a major milestone in brain development. Dozens of developmental leaps happen over the first two years of a child’s life, and you may be able to understand their behavior as a signal. The Wonder Weeks maps out each developmental leap, when you might expect it and what behaviors you might see.

The Wonder Weeks: A Stress-Free Guide to Your Baby's Behavior

 Anger Management for Parents - $16.79.

Parenting can be immensely frustrating, no matter how old your child is, and it’s okay to admit it if you get truly angry sometimes. The important part is that you take steps to reduce your anger, frustration and stress in order to be a more effective parent. It won’t happen overnight, but this book aims to help. By guiding parents to understand their emotional triggers, Anger Management for Parents helps foster a calmer and more emotionally controlled family environment.

Anger Management for Parents

How to Care for Your Baby’s Umbilical Cord.

Best Children’s Books for Your Baby or Toddler

Best baby books

When you're a new parent, reading books to your baby might be one of the best ways to bond with your little one. And the benefits keep multiplying as your baby grows into a toddler and beyond: Reading to and with your little one helps foster her development in many ways, including teaching language skills, forming word associations, and encouraging interaction.

Based on a survey of thousands of Pampers Parents, we’ve put together a list of some of the best baby books in four categories: classic books, bedtime books, development books, and interactive books. Some of the books that made the list are ideal for toddlers and preschoolers, too. We also explain how to choose the right type of book for your little one. Happy reading!

Choosing the Right Type of Book for Your Little One

Which type of book is best sometimes depends on how old your little one is. Many of the best books for babies offer simple stories with repetitive text and bright colors. As your baby passes through the newborn stage and gets closer to turning 1, stories that help reinforce daily routines, like a bedtime routine , can be a good choice.

Keep in mind, a book that’s great for older children can also work for your baby or toddler. She will love the sound of your voice as you act out certain characters, and you can highlight images by saying, “Look, there’s a big, green caterpillar.” One example is the Dr. Seuss book on our list. This story might grab the attention of a 5-year-old who is learning to read, while its illustrations might appeal to a much younger baby.

Once your little one is a toddler, you may want to choose books that help build her vocabulary and engage her imagination with enchanting tales and interesting characters.

As you’ll see, many of the books on our list can do double or even triple duty and work well for babies, toddlers, and even older children.

Deciding on the Best Book Format

When purchasing books, it’s worth considering the format, too. Board books might be the best for babies and toddlers because they can stand up to even the most precocious fingers, and the pages are easier to turn for toddlers. You might want to wait with hardcovers with paper pages, as your baby may be more inclined to rip the pages and put the corners in his mouth. Some board books come with soft covers, which are great—your baby will love the touch and feel of them!

E-books, which you can download to an e-book reader or a tablet, might be a good option if you’re riding in the car or traveling with your little one and don’t want to bring several books with you. Audio CDs and audiobooks are also available if you want to have your baby listen from a CD player, a smartphone, or an MP3 player. Keep in mind that nothing is better than reading to your baby directly. Your voice is his favorite sound!

How to Read to Your Baby or Toddler

It’s never too early to start reading to your baby; in fact, in fact, many parents-to-be enjoy reading to their baby bump! Whether you take on an entire book or just a few pages, the act of reading aloud can make all the difference in your child's development. Your newborn won’t be able to understand the story just yet, but he will enjoy listening to your voice. At the 4- to 6-month stage, your baby will start to show more interest in books. Then, between 6 and 12 months , he’ll begin to understand the pictures, and he may even babble along with you.

As your baby grows, try to set aside some time each day for reading. You might like to establish a special time for it, such as by making it part of your baby’s bedtime routine . Books can also come in handy as a way to pass the time when you’re stuck at the doctor’s office. As your baby grows into a toddler, encourage him to hold the book and turn the pages. Read when your toddler is in the mood, and let him choose which book he wants to hear. Encourage him to name certain objects or characters in the illustrations, repeat phrases or rhymes from the book, or help finish sentences. Ask him questions about the story. Reading to your baby or toddler sets the stage for literacy, of course, but it also fosters his social and emotional development.

Classic Books for Your Baby or Toddler

These best-selling baby books have been around for more than 50 years. They’ve remained popular for generations, and their themes and illustrations are beloved. Pampers Parents chose the following as their favorite books for babies, toddlers, and older children, too.

1. The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Why pick this one?  Bold and colorful collage-like illustrations help tell the story of a caterpillar’s birth on a Sunday and his successive day-to-day adventures, mostly focused on eating. Nearing the end of the story, he makes himself a cocoon, goes to sleep, and wakes up transformed into a butterfly.

Highlights:  Available in hardcover, paperback, board book, audio CD, Kindle, and audiobook formats (free with your Audible trial). There’s also a loose-leaf version of the story with postcards that can be colored in.

Price*:  about $5.76 on  Amazon.com

Pampers Parents tip:   You’ll appreciate the story of the caterpillar’s development in this book as it symbolizes the growth of your baby.

2. Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown

Goodnight Moon

Why pick this one?   Goodnight Moon ’s lulling poetry and whimsical illustrations have struck a chord with many generations since the book was released in 1947. The classic bedtime story by prolific children’s book author Margaret Wise Brown is about a little bunny trying to go to sleep, or trying to delay going to sleep, by saying goodnight to everything in his bedroom, including the pictures hung on the walls.

Highlights:  Available in hardcover, paperback, board book, audio CD, and Kindle formats.

Price*:  about $7.69 on  Amazon.com

Pampers Parents review:  This book is great for little ones of different ages, from newborn to even a 6-year-old.

3. Dr. Seuss’s Sleep Book by Dr. Seuss

Dr. Seuss’s Sleep Book

Why pick this one? You can’t go wrong with a popular baby book by Dr. Seuss. This charming tale is about a sleepy bug who gives off a yawn that’s so contagious that it sets off a chain reaction, making everyone sleepy. We’re sure that after reading this book to your little one, he’ll nod right off, too! Highlights: Available in hardcover, paperback, board book, and Kindle formats. Price*: about $10.39 on Amazon.com

Pampers Parents tip: You’ll love Dr. Seuss’s riddles, colorful graphics, and inspirational lessons.

4. Go, Dog. Go! by P.D. Eastman

Go, Dog. Go!

Why pick this one?  Written by P.D. Eastman and edited by Dr. Seuss, Go, Dog. Go! offers a tale that illustrates the variety and diversity in life. There are dogs of all sizes and colors, doing all kinds of unusual activities, like skiing. Two dogs even strike up a romance! This book is fun to read and fun to look at, and you and your child are sure to be entertained.

Highlights:  Available in hardcover, paperback, board book, and Kindle formats.

Price*:  about $6.99 on  Amazon.com

Pampers Parents tip: This book will not only be fun for your child, it will also boost her development as she starts to identify the pictures, and correlate them to words.

5. The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown

The Runaway Bunny

Why pick this one?   The Runaway Bunny recounts the tale of a little bunny who tries to run away from his mother. No matter where the little bunny tries to go, his mother promises to find him. It’s a comforting story and a touching way for your baby to learn that she can always count on her mom and dad’s protection.

Highlights:  Available in hardcover, paperback, board book, audio CD, and audiobook formats.

Price*:  about $5.69 on  Amazon.com

Pampers Parents review:  The timeless value of this book will be appreciated for many generations to come.

Bedtime Books for Your Baby or Toddler

A bedtime story is a terrific way to signal that it's time to settle down and go to sleep. These books offer some of the best bedtime stories around, and with any luck they'll help your baby nod off without a fuss. According to Pampers Parents, the aforementioned Goodnight Moon and Dr. Seuss’s Sleep Book would also be on this list.

1. The Going-To-Bed Book by Sandra Boynton

The Going-To-Bed Book

Why pick this one?  This book, with its cute rhymes and silly animals, might just be the one that becomes a cherished part of your child's nightly routine. The story centers on an ark full of animals, who, before going to bed, watch the sunset, take a bath, put on pajamas, and even do some exercise.

Highlights:  Available in hardcover, board book, and Kindle formats.

Price*:  about $5.90 on  Amazon.com

Pampers Parents review: This book is great for babies, toddlers, and even older children because it reinforces a bedtime routine.

2. Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site by Sherri Duskey

Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site

Why pick this one? It’s the end of the day at a construction site and, as the sun begins to set, all the equipment, from the cement mixer to the bulldozer, get ready to rest ahead of another busy day tomorrow. The book features soothing rhymes and adorable illustrations.

Highlights: Available in hardcover, paperback, board book, and Kindle formats.

Price*:  about $7.99 on  Amazon.com

Pampers Parents review:  This book has great rhyming, and your child will have fun recognizing the construction equipment when he’s out in the real world.

3. Good Night, Gorilla by Peggy Rathmann

Good Night, Gorilla

Why pick this one? As a zookeeper tucks in all the animals for the night, a mischievous gorilla steals his keys, and goes about freeing all the other animals from their cages. This story follows that wily gorilla as he sneaks around behind the zookeeper’s back. It’s a funny baby book that is sure to entertain your little one at bedtime. Highlights: Available in hardcover, paperback, board book, Kindle, and audiobook formats. Price*: about $6.79 on Amazon.com

Pampers Parents review: The book is simple to read, and perfect for preparing your little one for bedtime.

Development Books for Your Baby or Toddler

Reading to your little one is always about more than just entertaining or soothing your baby. It also helps introduce your child to the alphabet, new words, sounds, and more. These books have a strong focus on helping to develop your little one’s literacy skills.

1. First 100 Words by Roger Priddy

First 100 Words

Why pick this one? This book features 100 simple words, such as "boat," "duck," and "towel." The words are split into categories to help your baby learn. Each word is paired with a memorable image. With this book, your little one will have lots of fun while developing his vocabulary. Highlights: Available in hardcover, Kindle, and board book format. The board book comes with a padded cover that offers the best soft touch and feel for your baby.

Price*: about $5.99 on Amazon.com

Pampers Parents review: It’s handy that every word has a corresponding picture, and that the book is divided into categories.

2. Numbers Colors Shapes (First 100) by Roger Priddy

Numbers Colors Shapes

Why pick this one? Another book by author Roger Priddy in the First 100 series, this one focuses on—you guessed it—numbers, colors, and shapes. It offers a really fun way for your child to learn how to count beyond the 10 fingers and toes. Highlights: Available in hardcover, Kindle, and board book formats. Price*: about $5.79 on Amazon.com

Pampers Parents review: Bright colors and shapes serve as visual stimulation for your little one.

3. Eyes, Nose, Fingers, and Toes: A First Book All About You by Judy Hindley

Eyes, Nose, Fingers, and Toes: A First Book All About You

Why pick this one? Who knew that learning could be this much fun? This book turns learning the names of parts of the body into a playful game of discovery for your little one. For example, arms can go up, they can hug, they can hold, and more. The illustrations present toddlers of different cultural backgrounds doing all kinds of activities, showing in an inclusive way what our physical selves can do. Highlights: Available in library binding, paperback, and board book formats. Price*: about $6.99 on Amazon.com

Pampers Parents review: This book offers a way for your little one to learn how her body works.

4. Eating the Alphabet by Lois Ehlert

Eating the Alphabet

Why pick this one? Beautiful watercolor collages that jump off the page will help your child learn the alphabet while encouraging an interest in fruits and veggies. The design also features bold capital and lowercase letters for easy reading. The book’s glossary has a pronunciation guide, botanical and historical information on each item, and illustrations of the plants, all of which might become even more interesting for your little one as he gets older. Highlights: Available in hardcover, paperback, board book, and Kindle formats. Price*: about $7.99 on Amazon.com Pampers Parents review: It’s a fun way to teach your baby the alphabet and about healthy eating.

Interactive Books for Your Baby or Toddler

These books invite your little one to be an active participant in story time, whether it’s by pointing out objects, pressing a button, or shaking the book.

1. Where Is Baby’s Belly Button? A Lift-the-Flap Book by Karen Katz

Where Is Baby’s Belly Button? A Lift-the-Flap Book

Why pick this one? This is a great book for teaching your baby about her body, because there is an extra interactive component. There are flaps that you or your baby can lift to reveal the answers to questions like "Where are baby’s eyes?" Your baby will surely be entertained by this funny book and love that she can get involved in finding the answers. Highlights: Available in hardcover and board book formats. Price*: about $4.24 on Amazon.com Pampers Parents review: This book offers an exciting and interactive way to get your baby to learn about her body.

2. Press Here by Herve Tullet

Press Here

Why pick this one? This book takes your baby on an adventure with instructions that begin with pressing a yellow dot. A number of hilarious commands follow, such as to tilt or shake the book. You'll enjoy watching your baby react to what’s occurring on the page. Highlights: Available in hardcover and board book formats. Price*: about $7.64 on Amazon.com Pampers Parents review: Your baby and toddler will love how interactive this book is.

We hope you’ve found the perfect book to add to your little one’s library, or to offer as a baby shower or birthday gift for another lucky child. Any one of these books would do wonders for your baby’s development and imagination, and will help ensure your baby grows to love reading .

All links sources

  • Kids Health: Reading babies
  • Kids Health: Reading Toddler

Review this article:

Read more about best baby products.

  • Health and Safety
  • Travel Gear
  • Feeding & Nursing products
  • Nursery Gear
  • Infant activity
  • Pregnancy Gear
  • Baby Activities & Play

Join a World of Support

through Pregnancy and Parenthood.

toy

TRACK WITH TOOLS

baby

LEARN WITH EXPERTS

Gift

GET REWARDED

pampers club logo

Where You Already Belong

  • NAEYC Login
  • Member Profile
  • Hello Community
  • Accreditation Portal
  • Online Learning
  • Online Store

Popular Searches:   DAP ;  Coping with COVID-19 ;  E-books ;  Anti-Bias Education ;  Online Store

Great Books to Read to Infants and Toddlers

Father reading to baby

You are here

Many families are familiar with classic books like  Goodnight Moon  and read them over and over with their very youngest children. Here are some more recent titles and reissues you and your baby will both love.

(Note: Many of these books are available in Spanish, and can be purchased as a hardcover, paperback, or board book.)

Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes

A phenomenal book to read with your baby! Mem Fox uses rhyme and repetition to create a multicultural book about something all different babies have in common: ten little fingers and ten little toes. After each baby is introduced, the same reassuring refrain follows, like this first pair that opens the book: "There was one little baby / who was born far away. / And another who was born / on the very next day. / And both of these babies, / as everyone knows, / had ten little fingers / and ten little toes.” Mem includes interesting phrases like  sneezes and chills , and  truly divine . Together, she and illustrator Helen Oxenbury capture the feeling that there is something particularly captivating about those fingers and toes and something particularly lovable about all babies everywhere. “Do you have ten little fingers and ten little toes? Let’s count them.” 

Baby Bear, Baby Bear, What Do You See?

Baby Bear  is the fourth book in a series that began 40 years ago, when Martin and Carle introduced the now-ubiquitous  Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? . The second in the series,  Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?  focuses on the sounds that animals make. The third book,  Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What Do You See?  presents a collection of endangered animals.  Baby Bear  portrays North American animals and a baby bear’s bond with its mother. Your children will love Carle’s large double-page animals and Martin’s text, replete with interesting vocabulary (striped skunk, screech owl, gliding, hooting). Very young readers enjoy books with repetition, and  Baby Bear  contains the familiar word patterns found in other books in the series.  Try using the word pattern to say something to your own child. “My baby, my baby, what do you see? Do you see your mommy reading to you? I think you do.”

Global Babies

You have probably noticed how babies and toddlers are drawn to photographs of other babies. In this beautiful multicultural board book, babies from all over the world are captured in exquisite local clothing—decorative but not fancy. And even more intriguing than their outfits are their faces. These babies—from Mali to Malawi, from Peru to Afghanistan—seem to be “communicating” with the camera, and therefore with the reader. An excellent browsing book for your very young child.

I am a Bunny

Richard Scarry’s vivid illustrations come to life in these tall, slender, reissued board books. Scarry’s art is warm, expressive, and precise.  I Am a Bunny  depicts the small animal’s changing habits as one season turns into the next and the yearly cycle starts again. In  The Rooster Struts simple sentences describe how each animal moves: “The duck waddles. The goose waggles.” Word repetition, rhyme, and consistent pacing lend both books an element of poetry. The illustrations convey detail and suggest a sense of balance and order in the natural world. This is nonfiction-for- the-very-young at its best. Add your own action line to describe how your baby moves: “The baby stretches.”

Mommies Say Shhh!

Life on a farm can be noisy! Polacco uses lilting, repetitive language and rich watercolor illustrations to show various animal families and the sounds they make. “Dogs say buff, buff, buff. Sheep say baa, baa, baa. Geese say honk, honk, honk. Bunnies say nothing at all.” And what happens when all the animals speak up all at once, causing quite a ruckus when a baby is sleeping nearby? “Mommies say shhh, shhh, shhh.” A great read-aloud where you can invite your little one to chime in.  

Bears

Bears , written by Ruth Krauss and illustrated by Phyllis Rowand, was first published in 1948. Maurice Sendak was still an undiscovered artist at that time, but he and Krauss soon became close friends and collaborators. In this reissue,  Bears  has new illustrations by Sendak. Krauss’s charming story about bears and their fantastic habits now has a new twist. In addition to illustrating the bears, Sendak added a subplot: Max, the white-suited character from  Where the Wild Things Are , can be seen searching for his dog, who has snatched one of Max’s teddy bears. This is a piece of literary history and a seductive read for children.

Pio Peep

“The words of nursery rhymes and songs gave both wings and roots to my soul,” says Alma Flor Ada, one of the book’s editors. ¡Pío Peep! compiles 29 rhymes and nursery songs from Spain and Latin America, lovingly selected favorites of these regions’ cultures. Accompanying English versions capture the essence and the beauty of the rhyme, so both English and Spanish versions are poetic and rhythmic, just as nursery rhymes should be. Having only one rhyme per page, with beautiful illustrations by Viví Escrivá, is age appropriate, without too many visual distractions or clutter. The watercolor illustrations have just the right amount of detail for young children. You will have fun introducing these nursery rhymes to your youngster.

Families

This nonfiction board book highlights the common ways humans and animals take care of their babies. “All families give kisses . . . share snacks . . . take baths, take naps, and say ‘I love you.’” Each double-page spread juxtaposes a human family and an animal family taking part in the same activity. The photos are clear and expressive, and who doesn’t like to see families taking care of their adorable babies, whether human, giraffe, or hippo?  Families  is an excellent introduction to the connections between all members of the animal kingdom.

Peekaboo Bedtime

Peekaboo Bedtime , a sequel to  Peekaboo Morning , is a turn-the-page guessing game about all those whom a boy sees on his way to bed. “Peekaboo! I see . . . my mommy[.] Peekaboo! I see . . . my blankie[.]” Each page contains a visual clue about what he’ll discover on the following page. Bright illustrations depict a three-generation family, with several pets too. The book incorporates elements of a successful bedtime routine—waving to the moon, taking a bath, and replacing shoes with slippers. Both the family and the routine make for a comforting book about getting ready for bed. Use the the book’s refrain to describe something you see: “Peekaboo! I see . . . the blanket grandma made for you!”

Hello, Day!

Nobody does color like Lobel, and she devotes an entire page to the illustration of each of the farm animals featured in this day in the country. Painterly renditions of a cow, a sheep, a horse, and more are accompanied on the opposing pages by simple language describing what each animal “says” (moo, baa, neigh). Your young children can practice animal sounds as you read together. Lobel’s twist—telling readers what the animals are really saying—lends an element of discovery and delivers a satisfying wrap-up to the colorful day.

Mother Goose Picture Puzzles

With 20 familiar rhymes on 40 pages, this Mother Goose collection covers the basics and accomplishes a lot more. Each rhyme is illustrated on a generously sized double-page spread, giving young children large close-ups of all the beloved Mother Goose characters. Humorous and folksy illustrations capture characters in happy-go-lucky (Peter, pumpkin eater), disheveled (Jack and Jill rolling down the hill), shocked (Little Miss Muffet), and oblivious (Little Boy Blue) states. Although wonderful to read to babies and toddlers, older children will also enjoy the rebus puzzle component: about one word per line in each rhyme is replaced with a picture that must be “read” as part of the text. In the first line of “Little Boy Blue” (“Little Boy Blue, come, blow your horn!”), a picture of a horn replaces the word horn. Because of the nature of the illustrations and the rebus puzzles, this book can be enjoyed by the whole family.

My Farm Friends

“Welcome to the farm,” Wendell Minor writes in the opening to  My Farm Friends , warmly beckoning readers. Each turn of the page introduces one or two farm animals and teaches interesting facts and habits about each one with humor and rhyme. “Pigs can’t sweat / Or jump in a pool / So they roll in the mud / That’s how they stay cool.” Wendell’s love of animals will be clear when you read the book’s dedication, in which he reminisces about loving his family farm as a child. Children will see the care he has put into illustrating each animal. He captures a pig’s knowing glance, a sheep’s tender nuzzle of her lamb, and the gentleness of a goat’s droopy eyes and soft lips as it chews a stolen bandana. You can share with your children the additional fascinating facts about the animals found at the back.   

Source: Book descriptions adapted from The Reading Chair column that has been published in each issue of  Young Children  since 2005. Isabel Baker has been writing the column since 2005, and Miriam Baker Schiffer joined as coauthor in 2007.

11 Best Books for New Parents to Read

These books will help new moms and dads navigate (almost) any situation.

best books for new parents

We've been independently researching and testing products for over 120 years. If you buy through our links, we may earn a commission. Learn more about our review process.

You've spent the last 40 weeks planning, preparing and readying your home for a baby, and now a new human has arrived. Congratulations! Now what?

Best books for new parents in 2023:

What to Expect the First Year by Heidi Murkoff

The Best Overview

What to expect the first year by heidi murkoff.

Enough About the Baby by Becky Vieira

For the Moms

Enough about the baby by becky vieira.

Cribsheet by Emily Oster

Data-Driven Parenting

Cribsheet by emily oster.

Essential Labor: Mothering as Social Change by Angela Garbes

For the Big Picture

Essential labor: mothering as social change by angela garbes.

How to Raise Kids Who Aren't Assholes by Melinda Wenner Moyer

For Older Kids

How to raise kids who aren't assholes by melinda wenner moyer.

The Happiest Baby on the Block by Harvey Karp

Cuts Down on Crying

The happiest baby on the block by harvey karp.

The Wonder Weeks by  Xaviera Plooij, Frans X. Plooij and Hetty van de Rijt

Parent Favorite

The wonder weeks by xaviera plooij, frans x. plooij and hetty van de rijt.

The Whole-Brain Child by Daniel J. Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson

Understand Their Development

The whole-brain child by daniel j. siegel and tina payne bryson.

How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish

For Better Communication

How to talk so kids will listen & listen so kids will talk by adele faber and elaine mazlish.

Diaper Dude by Chris Pegula and Frank Meyer

Best Book for New Fathers

Diaper dude by chris pegula and frank meyer.

Some offer the nitty-gritty information you need, with science-backed studies about newborn health and development. Others are for first-time caregivers who are feeling their way through different parenting styles and deciding which ones work best for their families. Others turn the lens and focus on the adults themselves, because the transition into parenthood can be harder than you imagine. And then there are a few that look beyond the baby and toddler stage, because you're going to need to keep an eye on the bigger picture.

A personal note on parenting books to stay away from: I’ve never found books about how to take cues from parents in other countries (or time periods?) particularly helpful; if you can’t take advantage of each country’s social polices like parental leave, affordable childcare and healthcare, you won’t be able to copy those citizens’ style of parenting. And I’d also be wary of anything that over-promises magic sleep solutions for babies right out of the gate. Yes, there are things you can do to promote better and safer sleep , but there's only so much you control, no matter what some expert whose coached a million babies says, and sometimes babies just sleep (or not) on their own schedules no matter what you do. So, focusing instead on what you can control, here are the most useful books for new parents.

So many parents recognize the "What to Expect" books from their pregnancy journey, but they do continue into babyhood and toddlerhood. The same way What to Expect When You're Expecting gives a month-by-month look at the body's changes during pregnancy, What to Expect the First Year takes a similar approach to the development of growing babies. You can get a leg up on what behaviors are coming down the pike, what milestones the baby should be hitting and what symptoms are red flags you should bring up to a doctor. And, if you really like the approach, there's also What to Expect the Second Year .

It's not just the baby who goes through tons of changes in that first year. If you've been pregnant, given birth and are adjusting to new motherhood at home, Becky Vieira offers the raw, unvarnished truth that is often glossed over by those who just want to focus on the magic of being a new parent. No topic is too taboo, and Vieira covers everything from getting past that first postpartum poop to dealing with unsolicited advice from relatives.

A parenting book written by an economist? Here's why that's a good idea: With so much conflicting advice out there, Emily Oster approached the parenting info as a data project. She culled studies, crunched numbers and cut through the noise of parenting guides to present what science can back up . (She did a similar thing with her pregnancy book, Expecting Better . ) Now you can find out, based on studies, whether or not breastfeeding will make your kid a genius (it will not) or what the best time to potty-train is (it depends on how quickly you want it to be over with). Her most recent book, The Family Firm , which came out August 2021, delves into how to frame your own decision-making models when you're in a family with older kids.

For something a little different, in this book journalist Angela Garbes notes how the coronavirus pandemic shed light on just how important caregiving is, and puts that in the context of the history of care work and how it should be valued more. (See also: Screaming on the Inside: The Unsustainability of American Motherhood by the New York Times 's Jessica Grose.) Garbes previously trained her journalistic eye on pregnancy and the postpartum period for Like a Mother , which debunks a lot of oft-repeated myths about things like breastfeeding or drinking while pregnant.

Because that's the ultimate goal, right? Science writer Melinda Wenner Moyer discovered there are plenty of studies and research behind things that parents often find vague and fuzzy, like how to develop compassion, generosity, anti-sexism and anti-racism. She demystifies some of the hardest pain points of parenting and tells parents what works to get through them.

If you see a well-rested new parent, they might pull you aside and say that this book is their secret. Harvey Karp, M.D. — child expert and inventor of the much-loved, Good Housekeeping Institute-recommended SNOO bassinet — gives parents what he calls an "off switch" for baby crying . He teaches them to use what he famously calls the "5 Ss" (swaddling, shushing, swinging, sucking, and putting them in a side-stomach position) to tame those tears so the whole family can get more sleep. For those who like Dr. Karp's methods, you can move on to The Happiest Toddler on the Block for help with tantrum-elimination and other toddler woes.

Some parents swear by the insight that The Wonder Weeks gave into their baby's brain and behavior. It details the developmental "leaps" that babies take in their first year-plus — and the challenges that come with them. A newly revised edition released in 2019 gives even more in-depth coverage to the first 20 months of a baby's life, and in 2022 co-author Xaviera Plooij released The Wonder Weeks: Back To You for recovering after pregnancy.

If you've ever wanted to crack your kid's mind open and figure out just what the heck is going on inside, this book basically does it. It tells you what's going on with your kids' brain development, and how that can help you get through your day-to-day struggles like tantrums. If you like the authors' mindset, you can also try their No Drama Discipline techniques.

How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish

This one has been around so long that it's possible your own parents read it when you were a kid. But, in an age where parenting trends cycle in and out rapidly, there's a reason this one has stuck around: It helps decode child-language so you can better communicate with your kids (and therefore stop yelling or repeating yourself a million times — no one's favorite part of parenthood).

We wouldn't dare leave the dads out: The author of the From Dude to Dad pregnancy guide returns with a dispatch from the front lines of fatherhood. The ethos of this book is that guys don't have to lose themselves when they become fathers — there's even a line of Diaper Dude-branded diaper bags that look like regular-guy backpacks and messenger bags.

How to Raise an Adult by Julie Lythcott-Haims

How to Raise an Adult by Julie Lythcott-Haims

Eventually, if you do it all right, you'll launch those little birdies from the nest (but, you know, not too far). Julie Lythcott-Haims, a former dean of freshmen at Stanford University, shows parents how to curb their most helicopter / lawnmower-ish tendencies and raise autonomous beings who can fend for themselves. (Though they'll always need their parents, we promise.)

preview for Good Housekeeping US Section: Life

@media(max-width: 64rem){.css-o9j0dn:before{margin-bottom:0.5rem;margin-right:0.625rem;color:#ffffff;width:1.25rem;bottom:-0.2rem;height:1.25rem;content:'_';display:inline-block;position:relative;line-height:1;background-repeat:no-repeat;}.loaded .css-o9j0dn:before{background-image:url(/_assets/design-tokens/goodhousekeeping/static/images/Clover.5c7a1a0.svg);}}@media(min-width: 48rem){.loaded .css-o9j0dn:before{background-image:url(/_assets/design-tokens/goodhousekeeping/static/images/Clover.5c7a1a0.svg);}} All the Best Books to Read Next

female young behind book with face covered for a red book while smiling

6 Best Taylor Swift Books for Kids of All Ages

the view whoopi goldberg book memoir news instagram

Whoopi Goldberg Shares Personal Book Announcement

today show savannah guthrie book jenna bush hager instagram

Savannah Guthrie Shares Career News with JBH

the first five percy jackson books in a row

How to Read the 'Percy Jackson' Books in Order

today show savannah guthrie book mostly what god does instagram

'Today' Star Savannah Guthrie Reveals New Project

best books of 2023

Must-Read Books Before the End of 2023

best romance books

Turn Up the Heat With These Steamy Romance Books

closeup on happy housewife preparing christmas dinner in kitchen

The Best New Cookbooks That Make Great Gifts

five books in a row on an orange background

The Most-Anticipated Books of 2024 (So Far!)

midnight is the darkest hour book cover

GH+ Reads Review: 'Midnight Is the Darkest Hour'

seafaring sexism

How Women Deal With Sexism on the Open Seas

  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Save up to $300 on AirDoctor Air Filters #aff SHOP NOW

go to homepage

The Gentle Nursery

Organic Mom Blog | Organic Baby Registry | Non-Toxic Nursery | Baby-Gear Reviews | Evidence-Based Parenting

go to homepage

23 Parenting Books That’ll Make Gentle Parenting So Much Easier

By Yasmine Moussa Published: September 10, 2022 Updated: October 29, 2023 This article contains affiliate links. Please see our full affiliate policy .

Parenting books are out there for a reason: they can be incredibly informative and give us insights to parent in ways that you value and feel confident in. Here are some amazing must-read books for new parents !

Best Parenting Books for Baby’s First Year

Parenting books on childhood development, parenting books on breastfeeding and feeding, parenting books on respectful parenting and discipline, parenting books on being a good parent, parenting books on baby and toddler sleep, happy reading, shop this post.

Becoming a new parent is overwhelming and exciting at the same time. And it’s true what they say: the job doesn’t come with a manual. There are no instructions, and yet, having your child is one of your most important responsibilities. And while some parenting decisions will seem straightforward and leave you feeling confident, you will also be greeted with challenges that you might not know how to approach, leaving you feeling a little lost.

The beautiful thing about parenting is that it’s a journey and a relationship between you and your children. And while you’re on your parenthood journey, you can draw inspiration from experts by reading some amazing parenting books. This list covers the best books for new parents .

Read these books if you want to parent a little differently. I highly recommend these books to help you best prepare for this new journey you are on and get you through the first few years of parenting.

You can’t go wrong with tried and true parenting books that hit a little bit on everything you might need to know during the first year! Here are some good first resource books for parenting. Some of them give good general tips across a broad range of parenting and baby care topics.

1. The Montessori Baby

books about babies

Buy on Amazon

For Raising Confident and Independent Humans

Montessori is another parenting philosophy that I love and use with my children daily. This book teaches you how to establish this parenting method from the infant stages.

This is a great book to read during your pregnancy as it will also teach you how to best prepare for becoming a parent in all aspects of your life. It is filled with countless amazing principles to naturally help your child be mindful, present, and develop with confidence!

2. Bringing Up Bebe

books about babies

Learning to Parent, Inspired by the French

This is such a fun, light read! You might even get through reading it in one sitting. American journalist Pamela Druckerman had a baby in Paris and was awestruck at how well-behaved babies were in France.

So, she researched all about French parenting for years and created this amazing resource for new parents. You will learn fascinating, mind-blowing parent hacks to help your child sleep through the night, eat healthily, be creative, and so much more. It’s a great parenting mindset book.

3. The Happiest Baby on the Block

books about babies

A Must-Have for Calming a Fussy Baby

This book was a life-saver during the “fourth trimester,” aka the first three months of a baby’s life. During these three months, babies are adjusting to life outside of the womb and usually require a lot of attention from mom and a little extra help with getting to sleep and calming down.

This is where Dr. Harvey Karp’s magical recommendations came in, and I found them to be just the answer I was looking for when I couldn’t comfort my newborn.

He recommends the Five S’s for soothing babies : swaddling, shushing, swinging, sucking, and side or stomach position. But before trying this, it’s important to read the book or watch the video . The video was extremely helpful because he demonstrated the proper techniques so you can easily follow along and not second-guess yourself.

After your baby is born, you will probably feel tired, drained, and stretched thin as you adjust to your new routine. When your newborn cries no matter what you do, it makes the postpartum period a lot harder. But, after reading this book, you’ll know exactly what to do to calm and soothe your little one.

4. Two Thousand Kisses A Day: Gentle Parenting Through the Ages & Stages

books about babies

LEARN ABOUT GENTLE PARENTING!

Written by L.R.Knost, ‘Two Thousand Kisses a Day: Gentle Parenting Through the Ages and Stages’ introduces the concepts behind gentle parenting and its practical application in your everyday life with your baby/toddler. I love that it guides you through each stage of development through toddlerhood.

As with most gentle parenting books, this one will inform you on how to create a strong foundation of respect and trust between you and your child, encouraging guidance, patience, and an overall healthy connection.

5. CALMS – A Guide to Soothing Your Baby

books about babies

LEARN THE MAGICAL STEPS TO A CALM BABY

This is a wonderful book for first-time parents. A combination of honesty and fact goes a long way in helping new babies and new parents find a sense of peace among the stresses of new parenting.

This book offers practical advice and guidance to help you calm your baby and enable you to have a deep sense of connection with your baby. You’ll also learn a lot about infant development and various parenting resources.

6. First Aid for Babies and Children Fast

books about babies

A Great Resource for Emergency Situations

Any new parent must learn how to take care of their children, especially in emergencies! Be sure to learn first aid for babies as soon as possible. You never know when it can come in handy.

This book was well-written and is straight to the point. It is an excellent first aid guide that every family should have at home after you complete your training.

Please note that this is a great reference book, but it is no substitute for having first-aid and CPR training. Having this book at home will help calm your anxiety in case something goes wrong and you forget exactly what to do.

This book is great for emergencies and everyday issues as well. You’ll be able to identify when something is more serious and how to help your child heal and recover better. I’m so glad I knew all this helpful information! 

Related: 25 Best Baby Books for Your Baby’s First Year

These books center on the development of your baby/toddler. Everything from emotions and intellect to learning about the physical development of a child’s brain, these books make for fascinating reads that will help you raise a happy child.

7. Brain Rules for Baby

books about babies

Tips and Tricks for Raising Smart Kids

“Brain Rules for Baby” bridges the gap “between what scientists know and what parents practice.” You get parenting advice based on scientific research, straight from an expert.

You’ll find many funny stories, research showing just how impactful the first five years of your child’s life are, and simple ways to help your child’s brain develop as best as possible.

Reading this while you are pregnant will profoundly impact your child’s happiness!

Related: 50+ Best Books for Toddlers and Preschoolers

8. Whole Brain Child

books about babies

For Helping You Understand Your Baby’s Developmental Growth

The “Whole Brain Child” is another powerful resource for learning your child’s brain and exactly what is going on at each developmental stage. Different areas of the brain grow stronger at certain times, and once you learn this vital information, you can help your toddler’s anger and turn it into a sense of peace and calmness.

Neuroscientist Daniel J. Siegel and parenting expert Tina Payne Bryson give 12 different strategies to help you nurture your child’s brain properly. You will learn how to label and handle big emotions in toddlers, all through different things a child can understand, like storytelling.

9. Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child

books about babies

For Raising Little Ones with Emotional Intelligence

Children need to learn how to manage and deal with their emotions, but it is hard to teach them this essential principle when you can’t handle your emotions! “Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child” will teach you how to do both.

By reading this book, you will help your little ones learn all about self-awareness, self-control, managing emotions healthily, and so much more. Dr. Gottman is a wonderful resource. This is a must-read for new parents!

10. Generation Stressed

books about babies

A Handy Tool for Reducing ANXIETY

So many children have anxiety nowadays. While it is a good thing that it is talked about, and there are many effective ways to help manage and control anxiety in children, you still don’t want your child to become anxious in the first place.

Dr. Michele Kambolis gives amazing and effective play-based tools to help your child overcome anxiety and be confident and happy little children. It uses cognitive behavioral therapy strategies fit for small children and is so crucial to helping these anxious thoughts and feelings from an early stage.

The exercises in this book can be used both at home and at school. It is an incredible handbook for all parents with young children.

You can find some really helpful books to guide you on your breastfeeding journey. There are also some great reads on feeding your little one table food when ready.

11. The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding

books about babies

An Essential Guide to Breastfeeding

While breastfeeding is a natural process, it is not always natural. Often, it can even be painful and hard for a new mother. The La Leche League created this incredibly helpful guide so you know exactly what to do once your baby arrives.

So many new moms do not get the breastfeeding support they desperately need and struggle for too long until they cannot handle it anymore. This book teaches you how to latch, gives research and data, and helps troubleshoot when things aren’t working for you. It is also filled with all types of lifestyles, from working moms to single moms and everything in between.

Definitely grab this to read so you are best prepared to breastfeed your newborn.

12. The Book of Organic Baby Food

books about babies

Introducing Healthy Foods and Clean Eating

To further help you establish healthy eating habits, grab “The Book of Organic Baby Food.” This resource comes with various foods to incorporate at every stage of your little one’s life.

From finger foods to baby purees , toddler meals, and more, you will find a wide variety of recipes for healthy food your kids and the entire family will actually want to eat.

If coming up with baby and toddler meals is stressful and overwhelming to you, or you want to learn more about introducing solid foods , this book makes it mindlessly easy. You won’t have to worry if what you feed your child is good.

Related: 40+ Finger Foods for Babies

The adventurous toddler years will appear before you know it! And yes, you’ll need some strategy to discipline your child in a way that makes sense to you. Here are some inspiring books that help guide you to helping you and your child find peace.

13. Elevating Child Care: A Guide to Respectful Parenting

books about babies

Best for Overall Respectful Parenting

I am a huge fan of the author, Janet Lansbury. She gives such practical parenting advice that you sometimes just want to do a facepalm and ask yourself, “Why didn’t I think of that?”

Her philosophies are centered around respecting a baby (yes, even a newborn), and I feel like her advice has awakened a new generation of parents to caring for their children differently – more gently and carefully – than was done in the past.

I don’t agree 100% with any one parenting philosophy, but I did learn so much from Janet. In short, Janet’s books and her blog are a must-read!

Read this book to have a great bond with your child for life!

14. No Bad Kids: Toddler Discipline Without Shame

books about babies

For Gentle Toddler Parenting and Discipline

Another of Janet’s books will be helpful as your baby grows from the newborn stage and becomes more independent.

I recommend reading this before you have a defiant toddler on your hands because her advice is so practical and useful for even earlier stages. For example, her advice will come in handy around 9 and 10 months of age when your baby starts resisting diaper changes.

It’s better to be prepared for how to effectively handle your baby’s growing sense of independence rather than to find yourself stuck and wondering how to handle a tricky situation. The toddler stages are so hard, and you’ll want just to give up and yell at times, but by reading this book, it was so much easier to handle both my own emotions and my toddler’s feelings.

Related: 15+ Realistic Self-Care Ideas For Tired New Moms

15. How to Talk So Little Kids Will Listen

books about babies

super Smart TIPS for Communicating With Little Ones

While you might not need to read this before you have kids, it is still a great one to read sooner rather than later. “How to Talk So Little Kids Will Listen” is for parents with children ages 2 through 7 years old. You won’t just learn how to manage the toddler stages; you will thrive and know exactly how to get your children to listen to you.

Toddlers will always have outbursts; that is just how they learn more about their emotions and the world. But that doesn’t make it easy for parents with young ones. By reading this book, you will be equipped with knowing exactly what to say and do to manage both of your emotions healthily. You will learn how to communicate effectively even in hard times when you are exhausted with toddlers screaming at you.

16. Unconditional Parenting: Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason

books about babies

LEARN WHAT YOUR CHILD NEEDS

This book focuses on the central question: what do kids need, and how can we meet those needs? It’s a great parenting book that will force you to rethink the conventional approaches to discipline. One of the main ideas is that we need to learn to work and live with our children rather than feel like we control them.

Another concept this book addresses tackles how parents think and feel with their children to ultimately inspire parents to rethink how they conceptualize parenthood and the parent-child dynamic. You’ll find thirteen techniques that can help parents reframe how they approach their children, inviting them to live and grow together, side-by-side.

17. Positive Parenting in Action

books about babies

READ HOW TO DISCIPLINE WITH REAL-LIFE SCENARIOS

While you’ll find many positive parenting books discussing how important it is to not become adversaries with our toddlers, very few books go into real-life scenarios to show you how to practice positive parenting, which is why I love this book!

This one will go through about forty examples of various situations and circumstances so you can see how it works and how to break down real situations and peacefully approach them, showing you how you can teach rather than punish.

18. If I Have To Tell You One More Time…

books about babies

POSITIVE PARENTING TO THE RESCUE

Amy McCready offers more positive parenting solutions to bring a sense of calmness to your household. Throughout this book, she provides all the tools you will need to sort through child misbehavior.

As you might guess, this book is not a book about babies! It focuses on toddlers and young children. Of course, those years are fast approaching, so it can’t hurt to give this one a read once your little one turns one!

19. Positive Discipline: The First Three Years

books about babies

TODDLER-SPECIFIC DISCIPLINE FOR EVERYDAY CHALLENGES

In this book, you’ll find really helpful solutions to challenges you may face in the first three years of your little one’s life. This book takes positive parenting and breaks it down into various stages you may encounter with each phase of development.

I love that this book centers its discussion on the first three years of your little one’s life. It makes it manageable and specific to your little one’s needs. For example, the concepts all revolve around encouraging independence while providing boundaries (definitely necessary for a young toddler!). By the end of this read, you’ll be able to identify your child’s behaviors, understand what the best method of approach is, and offers a variety of ways to use non-punitive methods for feedback. It even dips into things like sleep and potty training.

A good part of parenting is as much about you, the parent, as it is about your child. These books are specifically about you and how to make you into a better parent by connecting to yourself and your emotions and growing into your new role.

20. The Conscious Parent: Transforming Ourselves, Empowering Our Children

books about babies

TRANSFORMING YOURSELF AS A PARENT

The premise of Dr. Shefali Tsabary’s The Conscious Parent   is that our own children have the power to transform us out of our unconscious being, triggering emotions and reactivity that ask us to be conscious and present. The idea is that our unconscious emotions can surface in our parenting techniques and ultimately affect our children’s unique beings. So, the goal for parents is to learn how to awaken into a conscious present so that we can give our own children opportunities to become who they are.

It’s a heavy concept and certainly does not hone in on how to parent a baby. It’s more of a philosophical read that focuses on you, the parent. It identifies your child as more of a spiritual compass to help you grow.

An interesting read for sure, but make sure you go into this book with the knowledge that this is not a how-to-parent book. The book can also feel a little obvious in parts if you’re already familiar with gentle parenting.

Sleep is a big one in those early years. Without sleep, you can feel pretty lousy and certainly not your best self. Help your baby sleep better so you can sleep better, too! Here are some great books on various methods to help your household get a good night’s rest.

21. The Gentle Sleep Book

books about babies

EFFECTIVE GENTLE SLEEP METHODS

Sleep patterns can be challenging. Sarah Ockwell-Smith will help you out! She examines everything from the newborn stage through toddlerhood. Whether you’re dealing with naptime woes or frequent nighttime waking, she offers a lot of information, guidance, and evidence on how to gently help your little one get a good night’s rest. Instead of feeling guilty or frustrated, the author encourages us to tackle the potential issues gently with grace.

22. Sweet Sleep: Nighttime and Naptime Strategies for the Breastfeeding Family

books about babies

AN ESSENTIAL READ TO LEARN ABOUT NORMAL SLEEP

This book will make nighttime much easier! It offers well-researched information (that leans towards attachment parenting). This can be truly an invaluable resource for breastfeeding moms! I appreciate this book because it sorts out the facts about bedsharing, discusses what normal sleep looks like for a baby and toddler (and every stage!), and helps steer your baby towards longer periods of sleep.

Related: 10+ Things to Try When You Need to Calm a Fussy Baby

23. Safe Infant Sleep

books about babies

A DISCUSSION ON COSLEEPING

This book breaks down infant sleep statistics and offers expert opinions and guidance around cosleeping (sleeping in the same room or on the same bed as your baby). This book examines historical insights on infant sleep and discusses the various facets of sleep safety, and compares recommendations to scientific findings.

I appreciate this book as it is a great source of information to help you make informed decisions about your baby’s sleeping practices.

Luckily, there are some amazing parenting books out there that offer some really helpful information, opinions, and insights to help you prepare for the complexities of early parenthood.

The nice thing about most of these books is that they are available as audiobooks to help you learn the material even if you are super busy.

While these books may not necessarily have an answer for all the parenting questions you will have along this new journey, they will make a huge difference in how you parent and raise your children. Even if you just have time to read one, do it!

What’s your favorite parenting book? I’d love to know!

books about babies

More Book Recommendations:

  • The Best Pregnancy Books for a Healthy and Mindful Pregnancy
  • 25 Best Baby Books for Your Baby’s First Year
  • 50+ Best Books for Toddlers and Preschoolers
  • 22 Children’s Bedtime Story Books That Are Popular for a Reason

books about babies

Shop The Master List of Non-Toxic Products

Are you looking for a shopping list of non-toxic products you can reference anytime you need to make a clean swap? Shop my master list for safe swaps and vetted products.

Shop my favorite products — from clean beauty and supplements to pets, household, and cleaning products.

Get Free Access Now

Related Posts

books about babies

MEET THE AUTHOR

Yasmine moussa.

Founder and Chief Mama Officer of The Gentle Nursery. Yasmine is the founder of The Gentle Nursery as well as the CEO of Biomeology , a prenatal wellness company. She is a wife, proud mom of two boys, a graduate of the University of Southern California, and a Functional Nutrition Coach. With a 10-year background in research, analytics, and leadership for a Fortune 100 company, Yasmine applies the same principles and attention to detail to every article she writes and researches.

Reader Interactions

Leave a reply cancel reply.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

books about babies

Listen to our Podcast

Listen in as we dive deep into the world of healthy living for you and your little ones. Each episode is packed with tips, insights, and honest conversations about making the best choices for your family, minus the harmful stuff.

books about babies

Download My Top 12 Ingredients to Avoid in Baby Products

This helpful 5-page checklist explains the 12 most common ingredients to avoid in baby products and explains why.

  • Baby Products
  • Formula & Feeding
  • Toys & Learning
  • Breastfeeding
  • My Amazon Store
  • My LTK Page

Quick Links

  • Write for us
  • Submit a Product
  • Terms | Privacy Policy

Mom Rewritten

50+ Best Baby Books for Babies and Toddlers (2024)

50+ Best Baby Books for Babies and Toddlers (2024)

Stock your new baby library with these top selections for reading and story time! This list of over 50 best baby books for babies and toddlers includes ideas for baby shower gifts, interactive books, picture books, bedtime stories, and more.

books about babies

Mom Rewritten uses affiliate links which means I may earn a small commission if you purchase through the links in these posts. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. For more information, see the Privacy Policy and Disclosures tab.

Choosing the Best Baby Books

We have a LOT of books at home! And as my children have grown, I’ve hung on to our favorites. My kids are older now, but surprisingly they still enjoy listening to and reading these top baby books. There’s sentiment for them, I suppose. And they’re just such GREAT books, reading the stories again and again is a joy.

Each of the books suggested in this article are my family favorites. They have been read and owned by my own children, stand the test of time and are age-appropriate. 

Whether you’re purchasing books to gift at a baby shower or simply stocking your own book shelves, these top titles are proven winners. Most of the books shared in this article are clickable with a link that will direct you to Amazon for easy shopping. Keep reading for the list of the best books to buy for babies.

books about babies

Which Baby Books Are Really the BEST?

Books are subjective material. It’s hard to determine the perfect book, or what’s “best” because opinions vary! Naturally, what one person finds fascinating, is uninteresting to another.

Choosing Books for Babies

When it comes to choosing the best baby books, it’s all dependent upon two people: the baby and the person reading to the baby! Babies can’t choose their own books. So the book must appeal to the person that’s going to pick up the book and read it.

Picking Out Books for Toddlers

Once your baby becomes a toddler, you can be sure the child will have strong opinions on which books they want to read! Toddlers are known to want to have certain books read and reread over and over again.

How can you adopt the kindness challenge to make big changes in your life everyday? Find out how to incorporate kindness into your life each day.

How to Choose the Best Baby Books

When choosing the best baby books for babies or toddlers, look for stories that are appealing to both children and adults.

In general, the text should be a jumping off point for the reader. Illustrations should offer lots to discuss in addition to the storyline, so that the child can get more involved.

Choose Durable Versions

Children’s books are sold in a variety of styles, including hardcover, paperback, board books, and spiral bound.

Hardcover books are nice to give as a special baby shower gift. Paperback books are best for preschoolers that can handle the softer pages.

Best Board Books

I almost always choose sturdy board books for babies and toddlers. These books are usually smaller in size so they’re great for little hands. The pages are made out of stiff board instead of paper. Board books tend to stand up better with daily use.

Of course, you’ll still want to watch your baby carefully when they are handling books. Babies are always going to put the book in their mouth to gnaw, which can quickly destroy even board books (ask me how I know!)

Best Practical Holiday Gifts for Kids

Beloved Classics Make the Best Baby Books

Any of these all-time favorites are sure to be a hit, especially for new parents that are just building a library. These are the classic baby books that all children should own and read.

Goodnight Moon – The perfect bedtime book with soothing text and sweet illustrations, you’re sure to read this night after night. Keep reading this article for additional bedtime book suggestions.

books about babies

Jamberry  – A whimsical story about a boy and a bear as they explore berry country. One of my very favorites, with tons of detail and wonderful read-aloud rhyme.

books about babies

Corduroy – Sweet story about friendship between a department store bear and the little girl who wants to take him home.

books about babies

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? – Lyrical text and stand-out illustrations make this one a gem. In subsequent readings, your baby will be able to predict which different animals will appear on the next page.

books about babies

Guess How Much I Love You – Little and Big Nutbrown Hare discuss their immeasurable love for each other in this timeless story.

books about babies

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom – Rollicking adventure about the alphabet with bold illustrations and a quirky storyline that babies love.

books about babies

Best Baby Books for Baby Shower Gifts

While many would argue that books aren’t essential for babies, I think that reading to children when they are young is extremely important.

True, you can’t dispute that a car seat, crib, or stroller isn’t a great baby shower gift. And all of those adorable baby clothes and diapers are necessary. But there’s something special about gifting books for baby’s first year.

Make These Books a Memento

A hardcover copy of any of these titles make an ideal shower gift. The pages can be inscribed as a memento. Request that others write inside, including baby shower guests, parents on each year of the child’s birthday, or annually from classroom teachers.

Oh, Baby, the Places You’ll Go! – Written in the style of Dr. Seuss, this lyrically rhyming text is ideal for a baby shower gift.

books about babies

The Wonderful Things You Will Be – Sweet illustrations showcase children of different cultures, with a hopeful rhyme accompaniment.

books about babies

Love You Forever – This classic baby book describes the never-ending love that parents have for their children (and vice versa). Consider buying a hardbound version for inscription, as well as a board book for reading.

books about babies

Best Baby Books for Newborns

I’ve been reading to my kids since they were newborns. From a very young age, babies love to hear the cadence of your voice, responding to vocal inflection and tone.

Look for images that offer a high contrast. Text can be minimal to allow you to riff off the pictures. Or simply talk to your little one about the image and make up your own story.

I Kissed the Baby! – The enthusiasm is infectious in this vibrant book about animals meeting a baby chick for the first time.

books about babies

Look, Look!  – The black and white contrasts with minimal text, making this perfect for newborns. This is a great book to use for tummy time, as it encourages your baby to lift their head to see the images.

books about babies

Indestructibles – These clever books are chew proof, rip proof, nontoxic, and 100% washable. Choose from a wide variety of titles, perfect for teething babies.

books about babies

Black and White – Striking silhouettes of household objects are bold images that are great for stimulating newborn babies.

books about babies

Learning Books for Babies

First 100 Board Book Box Set – Chunky board books are ideal for little ones to “read” on their own. This collection of books includes topics like animals, shapes, numbers, colors, and words.

books about babies

Disney Baby – Baby Animals – The sweetly illustrated books feature familiar Disney characters with minimal text and lots to talk about with babies. Check out all the Disney Baby series books, including colors, shapes, and baby signs.

books about babies

Baby Faces – A diverse group of babies are featured in the photos of this learning book. Encourages babies to recognize facial emotions and imitation.

books about babies

My First 1000 Words – My kids had a “baby dictionary” like this for many years. By the time I had my fourth child, the book was clinging together by threads, it had been so well-loved! Choose a book with bright photographs and a wide variety of subjects to discuss while you read together.

books about babies

Beginner Story Books for Babies

When your baby is ready to sit for a story, try one of these engaging picture books.

Big Red Barn – Follow farm animals from day to night in this engaging Margaret Wise Brown classic.

books about babies

No Matter What – A baby fox and its parent showcase the emotion of unconditional love in this affirming, sweet title.

books about babies

Little Blue Truck – With repetition, your baby will soon enough be able to chime in with the animal sounds in this sweet story about a truck driving through the farm.

books about babies

If I Could Keep You Little – Gentle rhyming story about babies growing up. Simple sketch illustrations are appealing to babies and feature a diverse range of children.

books about babies

“More More More”, Said the Baby – The colorful adventures of three little ones, as their parents love on them with hugs and kisses.

books about babies

Curious George – The inquisitive baby monkey gets into mischief, to the delight of little kids everywhere!

books about babies

Tips for Introducing Books to a Baby

What to expect from story time with a baby.

Set aside a few books to read together. Some babies will be able to sit through several books, while others will want to stop after a few pages. Engage your baby by pointing at images, changing the sound of your voice, or switching to a new book.

Reading to baby should be one of your daily activities. Aim to create specified story times throughout the day, ideally during a period of rest. Lap reading and cuddling with a book is a great segue towards nap or for use in the bedtime routine.

Letting Young Children “Read” on Their Own

Encourage babies to read during tummy time by propping a book with bright illustrations in front of them.

At first, toddlers may just dump out the books or chew on the edges. In time, you’ll notice them opening the books, turning the pages, and pointing to the images. Babies will bring books to you for reading, as well.

Looking for fun things to do with your toddler? Check out these ideas for brain-boosting games, indoor exercise, toddler-friendly crafts and healthy nutrition. #AD

Rotate Your Baby’s Library of Books

To eliminate story time boredom (for both adults and children), rotate books in and out. Place books out of rotation on a high shelf and refresh the bookshelf with newer reads.

Have Books within Easy Reach for Reading

Putting baby books neatly on a shelf is often a lost cause, as young kids generally just push them onto the floor.

Keep durable baby books in an easy to access location. A low basket or a bookshelf fabric sling organizer is an easy way to keep books accessible for babies.

books about babies

Older Babies and Toddlers – Storytime Tips

Introduce longer stories.

As kids get older, their attention span can stretch to include a longer story time or a more complex book. Introduce longer books with more text as you see fit. Show young readers the words and have them repeat after you.

Have a Conversation About the Book

Feel free to riff off the illustrations and have your own conversation with little ones about each page. Ask questions about different aspects they see and what they think is going to happen next.

Raising toddlers isn’t only about diffusing temper tantrums and getting through the “Terrible Twos”! Positive parenting includes looking on the positive side and reveling in the unexpected joys in raising a toddler including newfound independence, silly giggles and increased vocabulary. AD

Change Your Tone

Choose a book with a fun rhyme that will help your toddler pick up words and rhythm. As you read, change the tone of your voice, adding sing-song, funny voices, and get soft or loud when the text demands it.

Teach Gentle Handling

Set aside hardbacked books, paperback books, and lift-the-flap books until toddlers are ready for gentle handling. Choose to pull these special books down from the bookshelf when reading together. Encourage toddlers to carefully turn the pages.

books about babies

Best Books for Toddlers

Is Your Mama a LLama? – A baby looks for his mama, while meeting lots of other baby animals in his area. Offers fun rhymes that lead the child to guess which animal baby llama has found.

books about babies

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie – The ping-pong nature of toddlers is present in this charming story about a very distracted mouse. With frequent reading, kids will be able to predict what the little mouse will want next!

books about babies

Good Night, Gorilla – A sneaky baby gorilla takes all the zoo animals out of their cages, without the zookeeper’s knowledge. This mostly wordless book is all about the humorous illustrations, which will pique your toddlers interest.

books about babies

The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear – One of my personal favorites, this story features a little mouse trying to figure out how to hide his precious strawberry (with a surprise ending!). The colorful illustrations highlight the quirky mouse and his beautiful berry.

books about babies

Sheep in a Jeep – So much fun to read aloud, kids will lament these distracted sheep that just can’t seem to stay out of trouble during their joyride.

books about babies

Fun Baby Books to Read Aloud

These raucous titles encourage kids to join in as you read. The more you read these books, the more familiar they’ll be come with the storyline and be able to predict what happens next! Encourage children to play along, including jumping, clapping, or shouting the words.

The Monster at the End of This Book – Sesame Street’s furry little friend Grover tells this hilarious story in a page-turner that delights kids.

books about babies

Dinosaurumpus! – Rollicking story about dinosaurs having a midnight dance party. Lots of opportunity for toddlers to stamp and clamp with the rhyme.

books about babies

Mother, Mother, I Want Another – All the neighboring animals come to visit Baby Mouse for the evening in this sweetly illustrated picture book that’s a family favorite. My daughter insists I sing each of the animal voices differently, making this a fun read aloud.

books about babies

Caps for Sale: A Tale of a Peddler Some Monkeys and Their Monkey Business – Clever book about a man selling hats and the silly monkeys that he outsmarts. Kids will love to stomp and shake their fists along with the storyline.

books about babies

Quick As a Cricket – Vibrant, larger than life images that compare a child’s emotions and energy to wild animals.

books about babies

Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You? – There’s a reason Dr. Seuss books are so appealing to children and adults alike! The books are lively and fun to read aloud, which teaching kids cadence and rhythm through this “book of wonderful noises”.

books about babies

Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed – Uh, oh…these little monkeys aren’t settling down for bed! See what happens in this silly story of misbehaving monkeys.

books about babies

The Napping House – A perineal favorite book in our house! This adorable story tells what happens in the wee hours when a restless flea interrupts a sleeping family and their pets.

books about babies

Educational Books for Toddlers

“The Way I Feel” Library – Toddler essentials for teaching about feelings and emotions in a gentle way. The illustrations are sweet, with bright colors. Each book handles a kid-friendly topic, including fear, anger, separation anxiety, worry, and friendship with simple text. Consider purchasing the entire series.

books about babies

Dr. Seuss’s ABC – A best first alphabet book, with bold letters, engaging images, and catchy verse by Dr. Seuss.

books about babies

Potty – A great first potty training book to open the discussion with babies and toddlers. Super simple words and illustrations stick to the basics of using the potty.

books about babies

Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever – The charming oversized book series by Richard Scarry are absolute gems. Appealing to children that love detail and learning about the world around them. The fun illustrations are enjoyable for the whole family. 

books about babies

Top Interactive Books for Toddlers

An interactive book is a fun way to get older babies involved in story time or to encourage reading alone. Little ones love flaps, different textures, and peek-a-boo features on books, but they can be easily damaged.

Store interactive books in a place where they can be mishandled by rough hands. Once toddlers can handle books gently, these copies can be placed within reach.

Where’s Spot? – This simple classic combines lift-the-flag pages and basic text to encourage kids to find the hiding puppy.

books about babies

Dear Zoo: A Lift-the-Flap Book – Which animal makes the best pet? Your child will delight in lifting the flaps to find out which animal the zoo has sent next.

books about babies

Pat the Bunny – This classic has minimal words accompanied by touch and feel pages that cover all the senses.

books about babies

Ten Little Ladybugs – Excellent book for teaching how to count to ten, with tiny ladybugs embedded in the pages.

books about babies

The Very Hungry Caterpillar – An Eric Carle classic, little kids will enjoy poking their fingers into the die-cut holes that the caterpillar creates as he munches across the pages!

books about babies

Longer Picture Books for Toddlers

When your toddler is able to sit for a longer period or enjoys more of an in-depth storyline, try one of these picture books.

Where the Wild Things Are – One of the most beloved children’s stories, this tale of imagination by Maurice Sendak is a classic that every child should own.

books about babies

Little Bear – Sweet short stories about an imaginative bear and his patient mother.

books about babies

Harry the Dirty Dog – This is one of the first picture books I remember from my childhood! Amusing story about a little dog that doesn’t want to take a bath.

books about babies

The Cat in the Hat – A must have for every child’s library, the mischievous cat (along with Thing 1 and Thing 2), make rhyming fun in this classic book.

books about babies

The Poky Little Puppy – This Little Golden Book about curious puppies is a classic for children that can sit for a longer story.

books about babies

The Rainbow Fish – Gentle story about friendship and generosity speaks about sharing, a major subject for toddlers. The shimmering, iridescent pages are a highlight for little kids.

books about babies

Strega Nona – Find out what happens when Strega Nona’s magic pasta pot won’t stop making pasta, nearly covering the town. My older kids all come to listen when I read this story aloud!

books about babies

Best Bedtime Books for Babies and Toddlers

A bedtime book (or two, or three!) is a baby and toddler must. Whether it’s naptime or night time, these sleepy time books are ideal reading to wind down. Choose a restful bedtime story that makes it easier to transition to sleep.

Time for Bed  -This one is gentle and sweet, with animal parents putting their littles one down to bed for the night. Beautiful illustrations make this one of our favorite books for bedtime. 

books about babies

Say Goodnight – Sleepy babies get ready for bed in this sweet book that eases little ones to rest.

books about babies

Ten Out of Bed – A boy and his stuffed animals frolic in bed, until it’s time to fall asleep in this twist of the time-tested rhyme.

books about babies

On the Night You Were Born – Vibrant story about how all the animals in the world celebrate when a child is born.

books about babies

Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site – Ideal for vehicle lovers, all the trucks rest at the end of the day so they’re ready for work in the morning.

books about babies

Llama Llama Red Pajama – Little Llama doesn’t want to be left alone without his mama. This precious story speaks to the heart of children who want extra evening comforts.

books about babies

Looking for Additional Book Suggestions?

For more book ideas, check out this round up of the top 100 best books for kids of all ages, from baby to teen.

Subscribe to Mom Rewritten Newsletter

books about babies

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed .

Things you buy through our links may earn Vox Media a commission

The Best Parenting Books for Every Stage of Life

books about babies

For more of the Cut’s favorite fashion, beauty, and home finds,  sign up for the weekly  Cut Shop Newsletter .

If you’re going to invest your time and money in reading a parenting book, it should leave you feeling better than you did before — but not in a corny way with ten steps or a “plan” for success. Instead, the best parenting books should make us feel better in a complicated, hard-truth way. We can’t really control things (like our kids), but at least we aren’t alone.

Parenting books, if they’re worth their salt (and most aren’t), tend to lead us back to ourselves and toward a reckoning with our own parentage. Stuff comes up. In this way, they’re a lot like parenting itself: We want to shape our children into something other than our own image (something better). Hoping for this is a trap, one that’s impossible to avoid.

The very best parenting books are better than the intentions we bring to them. The good ones are both consoling and challenging, reminding us that to be a parent who is present, and forgiving, and kind, you must first be all of these things to yourself. (Harder than you’d think.) The 26 parenting books listed below are some of the best of the best for every age and stage of life.

Best for New Parents

All Joy and No Fun by Jennifer Senior

This book is a great answer to every time you’ve ever wondered, Is it just me, or is being a parent bad in a very particular way right now? A leading question, maybe, but Senior has convinced me that the answer is yes. Inspiring either a consoling self-forgiveness or a maddening fire under one’s ass (both, one hopes), former  New York  staff writer  Senior  winningly leads us through the world of modern parenthood with both depth and breadth, in a voice that is insightful, relatable, and genuinely searching.

Structuring her book around portraits of a handful of American families from all over the country, Senior goes with them to soccer games and PTA meetings, sits with them at dinner time, interviews them during nap time and right in the thick of things, capturing that deeply familiar day-to-day survival that characterizes the reality of life with kids. Senior weaves in existing research on the psychology and sociology of parenthood from the past 50 years and highlights what’s changed and what hasn’t to great effect. (Her book’s bibliography would make an excellent syllabus.)

Senior concludes that this particular cultural moment is a unique intersection of high emotional investment (resulting from having children later, voluntarily, and expecting to be fulfilled by them) and low structural support. What Senior’s book clarifies, again and again, is that the thing that affects parents (and therefore children) the most is what gets lost in most conversations about “parenting”: the daily, lived experience of raising children.

In other words, it’s a good book to text passages of to your friends, especially mom friends who are exhausted and behind on work and ignoring the dishes but still up way too late and about to spend too much money on a bespoke Halloween costume from Etsy (let’s not even talk about the ones who sew them themselves). “Our expectations of mothers seem to have increases as our attitudes toward women in the workplace have liberalized.”

“ Yup ,” they’ll say. “Okay, how bout this Moana one? It’s good, right?” —  M. O.

When Partners Become Parents by Carolyn Pape Cowan & Philip A. Cowan

Cited by Senior throughout her book, this ten-year longitudinal study of the effects of parenthood on romantic partnership is wildly affirming (it’s not just you). This book captures the ups and downs (mostly downs) of relationships during the crisis of new parenthood in a way that few books have since it was published in 1992. — M. O.

'The Whole-Brain Child,' by Daniel J. Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson

For the skeptic parent who is unmoved by anecdote (fine). This book features a similar approach of acceptance but makes use of basic neuroscience to back itself up — knowing what parts of the brain are activated mid-tantrum, for example, might change how we confront one. — Meaghan O’Connell, author

'How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk,' by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish

This book became an instant classic when it was published in 1980 and has sold millions of copies since. Show it to a bookseller and they might sigh audibly or say, “Oh yeah,” with an undercurrent of resentment over all the times a customer stood before them trying to recite the title. “It’s yellow? With block letters? What we talk about when we are … listening? About … talking?”

In any case, believe the long-running hype. Every time I think about this book I get a rush of tender feelings toward it, feelings that quickly shift into contending with my own urge to be re-parented, preferably by the book’s co-authors, Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish. The two have six children between them but for purposes of simplicity, they write in the first person and have little composite children. The resulting voice is charming and funny, full of humility and compassion, like if Anne Lamott were leading a parents’ support group but without the Jesus stuff.

This book really is framed by a weekly support group, with each chapter covering a week of the authors’ real-life parenting workshop. If that sounds too corny for you, well, my god, consider the genre. But corny threshold notwithstanding, consider that this means voyeuristically reading about a bunch of ‘80s adults talk about their feelings and their extremely specific battles with their kids and their expectations and their frustrated powerlessness (all with a blessed lack of hand-wringing about The Dangers of The Internet).   I ate it up.

The very first chapter is “Helping Children Deal With Their Feelings,” which made me sure my own boomer parents were not among the 3 million people who have purchased this book. Later comes “Alternatives to Punishment,” “Engaging Cooperation,” and “Encouraging Autonomy.” I must warn you: Sprinkled throughout are cartoons illustrating good and bad parent-child interactions (“INSTEAD OF DENYING THE FEELING,  exhibit A,  GIVE THE FEELING A NAME,  exhibit B “), and they are drawn in a painfully amateurish style that didn’t bother me and in fact seemed to make the book feel more urgent, as if the co-authors’ eagerness overcame their embarrassment. It’s very on-message.

The authors’ little tips don’t necessarily come naturally, but if you do remember to try them, just try not to laugh when you see how well they work. It’s almost annoying, or would be if the book weren’t written in the spirit of generosity and in the interest of children and parents both feeling heard and respected and then forgiving each other when they both mess up more or less constantly. Corny, sure, but true. —  M. O.

Simplicity Parenting by Kim John Payne

This book is a classic parent troll, so you’ll need to be ready for that. Read it at a time of emotional fortitude, ideally at a moment when you think to yourself, “Okay, things are about to get easier soon. I feel like I can finally catch my breath. Is there a man somewhere who can Kondo my family life?” (The author’s first name is Kim and yes, I felt betrayed when I realized he was in fact an Australian man and not a Scandinavian woman sent to share the gospel of toys made from natural wood.)

In fact, what Payne calls for is reassuringly intuitive and well, nice. Payne advocates for fewer toys, less TV (okay, “no TV,” but I’ve already edited the book in my mind), more of a “daily rhythm,” fewer stressful extracurriculars, and filtering out too much adult information like the news or shop talk. Initially, I bristled at this last suggestion, but then I was driving to preschool with NPR on when my kid piped up from the backseat: “What do hurricanes do? I mean, what do they do to people — do they make them dead? Are there hurricanes here?” Okay fine. I get it.

Some of the book is too strident or out there (let’s just pretend the phrase “soul fever” doesn’t occur within these pages), but I found myself less interested in the particulars than in Payne’s underlying idea: that when we can — when we have the breathing room — it’s worth revisiting our long-abandoned ideas about what we imagined our family lives would look like.

In this way,  Simplicity Parenting  is a sort of late-capitalist “solution” to the problems introduced in  All Joy and No Fun . Senior and Payne both seem to argue that we are too stressed, too busy, too focused on achievement and not enough on well-being. Payne takes these problems for granted, and spends his book offering practical suggestions to bring ease and space back into your life. While one might (and I would) argue that agitating for political change (paid family leave, universal health care, and child-care subsidies, for instance) would be a much, much more effective antidote, short-term actions you can put into motion yourself — baking a cake on Sundays, say, or making an after-dinner walk a family tradition — also sound nice.

“Even if some of the details were unrealistic,” Payne argues, “your dreams about your family had truth to them.” He may as well be talking about this book. —  M. O.

The Second Shift by Arlie Hochschild, with Anne Machung

Because it’s easier to be unruffled when you don’t have to do all the domestic labor yourself. This groundbreaking portrait of working parents and how they divide household tasks is a few decades old but sadly as relevant as ever. I first read this as a freshman in college, but I still think about it all the time. — M. O.

Like a Mother: A Feminist Journey Through the Science and Culture of Pregnancy

Because children aren’t the only ones developing. With a sorely needed feminist perspective and a treasure trove of accessible scientific revelations (the placenta alone!), Garbes shares her own transformation into a parent and reminds us what our bodies go through in pregnancy, birth, and breastfeeding. Garbes’s book works from the radical assumption that actually, women do know what they need, which serves to highlight all the ways that inequality and gaps in structural support make everything harder than it needs to be, especially for women of color. “Becoming a mother may be one of our most culturally traditional acts, but,”  Garbes argues , “it is also the place where we can break with our most limiting, oppressive traditions.” — M. O.

Best for Young Children & New Siblings

Siblings Without Rivalry: How to Help Your Children Live Together So You Can Live Too, by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish

The way we argue, what we value, our level of competitiveness, the amount and kind of guilt we possess — so much of our identities are determined by the crapshoot of sibling dynamics. This proved to be fertile ground for Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish, the authors of  How to Talk So Kids Will Listen … The authors’ book on siblings has the same instructive cartoons, the same entertaining group-therapy frame, and a similar unwillingness to sacrifice depth at the altar of the digestible message.

While specific tactics are provided for everything from handling violent physical fights to avoiding comparison and overdetermined family roles, the most effective parts are in-scene at their parenting workshops, where the parents depicted first express desperate exasperation and disbelief, then reveal a bounty of alluring interpersonal anecdotes from their own childhoods, and finally, arrive at an actual reckoning. Of course siblings fight. They’re natural rivals, competing for resources (actual and emotional). How many of us can spend more than a few days with our own siblings without regressing into moody teens?

The book ends with middle-aged moms and dads calling their siblings (sometimes estranged, often simply begrudged), and finding themselves able to forgive or at least sympathize and connect with them in a way they couldn’t before they saw the dynamics play out in their own children. There are ways to alleviate this, the book argues, to manage the inevitability and to make it less wounding, or less defining. This may sound grandiose, but that’s only because you haven’t read the book yet. —  M. O.

'Your Two-Year-Old,' by Louise Bates Ames & Frances L. Ilg

This is book is part of a series of the best little books about child development. They’re all actually little — about 150 pages (a third of which are black-and-white photo illustrations of children from the ‘70s) — and follow the same general formula: here’s what you’re dealing with, here’s what tends to work, isn’t it fascinating!, do what works and it will get better soon. I goddamn love them.

The late co-authors, Louise Bates Ames and Frances L. Ilg, were psychologists and co-founders of the Gesell Child Development Institute at Yale, but their authority on the subject feels both colloquial and encyclopedic, like they’re describing a dear friend they’ve spent their whole lives observing and thinking about. But this friend just so happens to be your child, which means they must be spying on her from the great Yale tenure in the sky (then hopping in a time machine to publish these books in 1976, 40 years before she was born).

Your mom might have read these about you. If so, ask to borrow them. I promise they are not too boomer-authoritarian, and will only make you feel better about your kid. “Remember that television can be your friend,”  Your Three Year Old: Friend or Enemy  offers. “Wisely used, it can keep a child happy, well behaved, and out of difficulty for long periods.” This must be what Amazon commenters mean by the advice being out-of-date but I, for one, find it as relevant as ever. Do whatever it takes to get by without causing too much of a fuss, the book seems to argue. The authors promise smoother sailing in a few months when there’s difficulty, and affectionately sing the praises of the particular sweetness and creativity of young children. I find their tone to be tender but consoling, their approach the perfect mix of no-nonsense and wildly compassionate.

Read these books with a glass of wine after bedtime to remind yourself your kid is not a fact a monster. Revel in the fleeting particulars of him at this age. Laugh when the best advice the authors can come up with for stubborn 3.5-year-olds is this: Send them to preschool, because they’ll behave better for people who aren’t their parents. —  M.O.

The Philosophical Baby by Alison Gopnik

Read Gopnik’s earlier book as a reminder that children give as much as they get, and not just because they’re cute. Gopnik brings us on a tour of the awakening consciousness of babies and shows us how much we can learn about the essential questions of human nature by looking to the small, screaming friends we are trying our best to keep alive. — M. O.

The Gardener and the Carpenter by Alison Gopnik

Gopnik is a professor of both philosophy and psychology at UC Berkeley. In her latest book, she explores “the new science of child development” and what it tells us about the parent-child relationship. She opens with a criticism of the way we talk about raising children — “parenting” is a word, and a cottage industry, invented in the past 30 years. We should be discussing our children in language that more closely resembles a gardener’s, as in tending to and caring for one’s garden. A gardener harbors no illusions of control, and is open to — cherishes even — the vicissitudes of her plants. She is willing to be surprised. She knows the plants grow on their own.

Gopnik uses evolutionary psychology, neuroscience, and animal behaviorism to argue that we must have such vulnerable babies with such extended childhoods for a reason. Children, she explains with the blissful detachment of someone whose children could only be grown, are meant to be messy chaos agents. They are meant to learn through play and exploration, and they are great at it, and will, overwhelmingly, turn out just fine, no matter how many parenting books we read. It’s a nice idea, and a welcome corrective, though one I can imagine it might take becoming a grandmother before fully inhabiting. — M. O.

No Bad Kids by Janet Lansbury

Lansbury is a former actress and model who has taught parenting classes in Hollywood for decades, but found wider success as a prolific writer and podcaster and general toddler consigliere. A couple of my mom friends and I simply refer to her as “the guru” and I still don’t know if we’re joking or not. Her popular books are self-published compendiums of some of her best blog posts (when I filled out the contact form on her website to request a review copy, I got a prompt reply from Michael L., who introduced himself as “Janet’s husband and Mailroom Supervisor”). Lansbury’s general approach or “philosophy” is that we should treat children with respect and, whenever possible, try to meet them where they are.

I am normally averse to “schools” of parenting (and anything overarching when it comes to kids), but I make an exception for Janet because (1) The phrase “without shame” is in the title and shame might be one of the ruling negative emotions in my life and if there’s anything I’d like to spare my son it’s that, and (2) Lansbury brings a self-aware resistance to dogma that’s refreshing and reasonable. She seems to want to help our children blossom into their best, most authentic selves without totally fraying our nerves in the process.

It’s that last part that endears Janet to me most of all; without it, a lot of what she advocates for would seem foolishly optimistic or just absurd. You don’t need to “respectfully” tell your toddler to stop kicking you in the damned face, and you need to know the limits of your own patience before you let your child cross them. They’re kids, she argues, and they want to know that you’re in charge. A parent should embody, per the guru, the calm, “unruffled” bearing of a CEO.

Are there weird implications of aspiring to be a CEO-mom? Maybe … but let’s just say it’s a helpful image, something to come back to when you’re feeling worn down or having a tough week. There’s value in a parenting mentor who seems to more interested in process than product (or is it the other way around?). Unruffled, proud, self-confident. I never know if she means us or the children — how nice that both are taken into account. —  M. O.

Best for Understanding Your Child’s Emotions & Learning to Support Them Through Different Stages

Becoming Attached by Robert Karen

This occasionally slow-going but fascinating book goes deep on the history of attachment theory and its current renaissance, raising questions like: In what specific ways did my parents ruin me for all future relationships? — M. O.

The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk

This one is not about parenting per se, but my experience with childbirth left me mildly traumatized in ways I only truly understood after reading this book. I feel better for having read it, and better equipped, as a parent and a citizen, to see the way trauma — beyond the buzzword — is at work in so many of our experiences. — M. O.

No-Drama Discipline: The Whole-Brain Way to Calm the Chaos and Nurture Your Child's Developing Mind

From the authors of The Whole-Brain Child , this best seller employs strategies for identifying and improving your discipline philosophy. Siegel and Bryson prompt parents to calmly and effectively connect and communicate instead of just reacting to behavior. Reviewers love the mindful approach to parenting for helping diffuse tantrums and outbursts and helping improve communication between them and their children. Offering practical advice backed by science the book is an easy read featuring illustrations and relevant stories. — Chinea Rodriguez, shopping writer

Raising Good Humans: A Mindful Guide to Breaking the Cycle of Reactive Parenting and Raising Kind, Confident Kids

Raising Good Humans is a guide to raising kids with compassion and confidence by looking inward. The book asks parents to reflect on their own patterns and habits and features a number of mindfulness skills to help parents communicate and resolve conflict by not just reacting. Reviewers have called this a joy to read, and many write that it’s also a practical and essential tool for cultivating peace in the chaos of parenting. Broken into two parts, part one offers tips for breaking your reactive cycles, and part two offers tips for communication and problem-solving. — C.R.

Raising Free People: Unschooling as Liberation and Healing Work by Akilah S. Richard

When it comes time to consider what type of schooling you might want for your kids, Raising Free People is a must-read. The book discusses the transition from school or homeschooling to unschooling and how it allows us to address trauma and unlearn the habits we mindlessly pass on to children as well as a “how-to” when it comes to this radical idea of schooling. Plus it features a reading list and tips on how to respond when people don’t get this type of parenting style. It truly is a guide to unschooling. —  C.R.

The Gender Identity Workbook for Kids: A Guide to Exploring Who You Are by Kelly Storck LCSW

This workbook offers age-appropriate tools from a licensed clinical social worker who specializes in gender-nonconforming youth that will allow your child to better understand gender and identity. One reviewer says: “By providing a young person with bite-sized lessons about both identity and expression and asking thought-provoking, open-ended questions, kids are offered a chance to figure out exactly who they are and where they fit on their own, with no pressure and no judgment.” Whether your child is exploring their gender identity or not, this is a helpful tool for them to feel accepted and understand the complexity of gender. — Brooke LaMantia, Cut contributor

Best for Adoptive Parents

The Child, the Family, and the Outside World by D.W. Winnicott

Pay a corrective visit to the wildly influential pediatrician and psychoanalyst who introduced the world to the concept of the “good-enough mother.” — M. O.

Supernormal by Meg Jay

If you haven’t noticed or made fun of them yet, parenting culture’s trendiest desired attributes are grit and resilience. Grit is, of course, the goofier of the two, evocative of both dirt and a southern breakfast food. But who doesn’t want to be resilient? Who doesn’t want their children to be?

With this book, longtime clinical psychologist Meg Jay challenges us to interrogate our assumptions about resilience, to grapple with what’s really going on inside a kid we want to praise for overcoming adversity. Children adapt well, almost too well in some cases, and the coping skills that help children survive may be the ones preventing them from relating as adults. When adapting becomes a way of life, do you ever feel confident that other people will adapt to you? Would we rather our children hide behind their accomplishments or have a sense of inherent self-worth?

Jay weaves new brain research, celebrity anecdotes (Marilyn Monroe’s childhood spent in foster care, for example), and some choice psychoanalytical wisdom, but the narrative centers around anonymized former clients. Jay introduces us to each of her extremely high-achieving patients and then walks us through their painful but often common circumstances — they are children whose parents are divorced, or alcoholics, or dead; kids with disabled siblings, or abusive coaches — and then, their current feelings of isolation, exhaustion, or depression.

Over half of adults experienced adversity in their childhoods, according to research Jay cites, so these patients are not abnormal, despite feeling that way, and despite our romanticization of their resilience. These kids grow up to be most of us, actually, to whatever degree. Perhaps we all need to focus on our own shit to be the kind of parents who can really see and accept our children, to escape the trap of choosing the appearance of “doing well” at the cost of feeling okay. — M. O.

NurtureShock by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman

This book is the ultimate compendium of magazine-style counterintuitive parenting-trend pieces. “Why our instincts about children can be so off the mark,” its marketing copy argues, promising real data and the always-beguiling shattering of conventional wisdom. I don’t mean to sound dismissive, as NurtureShock is both a great read and manages to make its points without trafficking in parental anxiety. If anything, the book — with chapters on kids needing more sleep, being praised too much, labeled gifted too early — seems to argue that it’s our own misplaced agita that causes problems. As I read it I was overflowing with the urge to share all of my new “actually” child facts with my husband, who would respond with a polite “Wow.”

If most of the book argues that parents should worry and interfere less, the standout chapter is a notable exception. Titled “Why White Parents Don’t Talk About Race,” it should be necessary reading for all those implicated. Kids do notice difference, especially race, and hoping to raise your own as “color blind” is both naïve and dangerous. If you avoid the subject, you risk your kids internalizing awkwardness and assuming you’re racist. This might sound intuitive to some, but we should all remember the powerful consequences of ideas we consider “instincts” or “conventional wisdom” or “convenient theories for me.”

The book’s ideas — children are contradictory and complex, cannot be hacked, and should be allowed to develop on their own time — make for a less-than-straightforward read. That the authors managed to write such a commercially successful book (the aggressive title doesn’t hurt) is a testament to their deft skill as much as their genuine intentions. — M. O.

Unequal Childhoods by Annette Lareau

Cited by everyone from Senior to Malcolm Gladwell, this book was a watershed examination of the unexpected (to some!) roles class and race play in American childhoods, and along the way, it questions the “concerted cultivation” approach of the middle-class parent. — M. O.

Best for Preteens and Teenagers

You Know, Sex: Bodies, Gender, Puberty, and Other Things by Cory Silverberg and Fiona Smyth

When it comes to raising a trans teen , finding proper tools can be difficult, which is why this gender-inclusive puberty book is such a great resource to have on hand. Radically diverse, this book covers more than the typical sex-ed book, talking not only about hormones, development, and reproduction, but going further to discuss power, pleasure, and consent. Featuring bodies of all different shapes, colors, sizes, abilities, genders, and sexual orientations, this book is the inclusive sex-ed book I could’ve only dreamed about having as a young adult. — B.L.

How to Hug a Porcupine by Julie A. Ross

For parents whose kids aren’t yet mean girls: This book is full of sympathy and brimming with tips (and an abundance of metaphors, be warned), and it eases you in with an adorable cartoon porcupine. — M. O.

Queenbees and Wannabes by Rosalind Wiseman

This book served as the inspiration and source material for Tina Fey’s  Mean Girls . Whether that serves as disclaimer or recommendation is up to you.  Queen Bees  seems to meet teens on their level, which is probably what makes it so effective (if not occasionally alarmist, or maybe that’s the super Christian nerd in me talking?).

Rosalind Wiseman had been visiting high schools and leading workshops with adolescents long before she introduced us to Girl World and the taxonomy of teenage girls. There’s the Mean Girl, the Wannabe, the Bystander, the Banker — Wiseman could be accused of many things but missing the opportunity for a coinage is not one of them.

Where others might be more dismissive, Wiseman takes the challenges and power dynamics and high-stakes anxieties of Girl World seriously. It’s clear she has keen empathy for and insight into not just the drama and the gunning for social status, but the bigger picture, too: questions of intimacy, self-worth, and trust.

My son is only in preschool, so I had the luxury of relating more to the teens than to the parents of teens, the latter of whom often seem to find themselves completely out of their element in a way that recalls the earliest days of parenting a newborn. If the glut of books about parenting teens is any indication (my personal favorite, by title if not painfully corny content:  Yes, Your Teen Is Crazy! ),   this is a conundrum that’s inevitable and inherent to raising a child. But accepting that doesn’t make it any easier. For someone in the thick of parenting a teen, this book would be a small mercy, touching as it does on the subjects your kid would be too embarrassed or annoyed to explain to you on their own. —  M. O.

The Drama of the Gifted Child by Alice Miller

File under “books to help you straighten your own shit out before you repeat the cycle despite actively fearing it exactly” (woo!). Gifted kid or not, the particular family dynamic captured by this book is one that I notice all the time (especially in myself): kids who learn all too quickly how to please their parents at the expense of actually knowing what they like or want. — M. O.

Our Experts:

  • Meaghan O’Connell , an author and features editor at Romper.
  • Chinea Rodriguez, a shopping writer at the Cut.
  • Brooke LaMantia, a contributing writer for the Cut Shop.
  • parenting trends
  • parenting advice

The Cut Shop

Most viewed stories.

  • The Lure of Divorce  
  • Some Love Horoscopes for Valentine’s Day
  • The Return Grift Is Over
  • What’s Going On With Brittany and Jackson Mahomes?
  • Kourtney Kardashian Barker Is Leaving You on Read
  • Greta Lee Is Getting Used to This
  • 17 Designer Handbags That Reflect the Real You

Editor’s Picks

books about babies

Most Popular

What is your email.

This email will be used to sign into all New York sites. By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy and to receive email correspondence from us.

Sign In To Continue Reading

Create your free account.

Password must be at least 8 characters and contain:

  • Lower case letters (a-z)
  • Upper case letters (A-Z)
  • Numbers (0-9)
  • Special Characters (!@#$%^&*)

As part of your account, you’ll receive occasional updates and offers from New York , which you can opt out of anytime.

20 Kids' Books About Reproduction to Answer Questions Like, "Where Do Babies Come From?"

Published on 5/19/2021 at 11:43 AM

books about babies

"Where do babies come from?" It's an innocent enough question that usually crops up once your toddler or little kid is exposed to a newborn baby or a pregnant person, but it's not the easiest of answers to get into swiftly. Along with other inquiries about reproduction, it can be hard to approach such on-the-spot conversations in an age-appropriate manner without having the chance to give it proper thought. So why not let a book assist you before these questions pop up?

From books that teach about the human body and reproductive organs to ones that are strictly about presenting the birds and the bees in a digestible but accurate way, keep reading for 20 books that can help you approach answering these questions with your toddlers, preschoolers, and grade schoolers.

What Makes a Baby

What Makes a Baby

What it's about: "Geared to readers from preschool to age eight, What Makes a Baby is a book for every kind of family and every kind of kid. It is a twenty-first century children's picture book about conception, gestation, and birth, which reflects the reality of our modern time by being inclusive of all kinds of kids, adults, and families, regardless of how many people were involved, their orientation, gender and other identity, or family composition. Just as important, the story doesn't gender people or body parts, so most parents and families will find that it leaves room for them to educate their child without having to erase their own experience."

Ages it's best suited for: 3-7

Buy it here: What Makes a Baby ($17)

Main Image

Amazing You!: Getting Smart About Your Private Parts

What it's about: "'Mom, where do babies come from?' Many parents live in fear of the day their child asks this question — which inevitably happens, often as early as the preschool years. Here is a picture book designed especially for young children who are becoming aware of their bodies, but aren't ready to learn about sexual intercourse. Written with warmth and honesty, Amazing You! presents clear and age-appropriate information about reproduction, birth, and the difference between girls' and boys' bodies. Lynne Cravath's lighthearted illustrations enliven the text, making this a book that parents will gladly share with their young ones."

Buy it here: Amazing You!: Getting Smart About Your Private Parts ($8)

Main Image

Where Willy Went...: The Big Story of a Little Sperm!

What it's about: "Hilariously funny, warm, endearing and totally non-threatening — this small masterpiece from Nicholas Allan presents the facts of life to young children in a unique but totally accessible way. A godsend for any parent faced with awkward questions."

Ages it's best suited for: 4-7

Buy it here: Where Willy Went...: The Big Story of a Little Sperm! ($8)

Main Image

Making a Baby

What it's about: " To make a baby you need one egg, one sperm, and one womb. But every family starts in its own special way. This book answers the 'Where did I come from?' question no matter who the reader is and how their life began. From all different kinds of conception through pregnancy to the birth itself, this candid and cozy guide is just right for the first conversations that parents will have with their children about how babies are made."

Ages it's best suited for: 5-8

Buy it here: Making a Baby ($18, available for preorder)

Main Image

What's in There?: All About Before You Were Born

What it's about: "Gus and Nellie have some exciting news: there's going to be a baby in their family! Join them through the seasons as they watch their mother's pregnancy with fascination and curiosity while awaiting the birth of their new baby sibling. Combining accessible, humorous, and accurate illustrations; conversations between the two siblings; and a factual text, here is the ideal book to help young children understand that the way a growing baby develops inside a woman's body, and how a baby is born, are both perfectly normal and totally wonderful."

Ages it's best suited for: 2-5

Buy it here: What's in There?: All About Before You Were Born ($17)

Main Image

Zak's Safari: A Story About Donor-Conceived Kids of Two-Mom Families

What it's about: " Zak's Safari is a book about donor-conceived kids of two-mom families.When the rain spoils Zak's plan for a safari adventure, he invites the reader on a very special tour of his family instead. Zak shows us how his parents met, fell in love, and wanted more than anything to have a baby — so they decided to make one. In the first half of the book, Zak teaches us about his biological origins. Using simple but accurate language, we learn about sperm and egg cells, known-donors, donors from sperm banks, and instructions called genes that make up who we are. Zak's enthusiasm, combined with his scientific curiosity and gratitude for his inherited 'awesome genes' make him the perfect tour guide for this contemporary conception story. The second half of the book celebrates family."

Ages it's best suited for: 3-6

Buy it here: Zak's Safari: A Story About Donor-Conceived Kids of Two-Mom Families ($15)

Main Image

Let's Talk About the Birds and the Bees

What it's about: "It's natural for young children to have questions about their bodies and where they came from, but it can seem a daunting task to answer honestly so that they understand the subtleties of puberty, sex, reproduction and relationships, and are comfortable with their bodies.

"This books uses clear, easy to understand language to answer complex questions about sex and relationships, and covers all manner of tricky subjects from puberty to consent with delicate accuracy and honesty. Filled with bright, fun illustrations and helpful advice for parents and carers, Let's Talk About the Birds and the Bees is the perfect book for explaining the facts of life to small children."

Ages it's best suited for: 5-10

Buy it here: Let's Talk About the Birds and the Bees ($21)

Main Image

It's Not the Stork!: A Book About Girls, Boys, Babies, Bodies, Families, and Friends

What it's about: "Young children are curious about almost everything, especially their bodies. And young children are not afraid to ask questions. What makes me a girl? What makes me a boy? Why are some parts of girls' and boys' bodies the same and why are some parts different? How was I made? Where do babies come from? Is it true that a stork brings babies to mommies and daddies?

" It's Not the Stork! helps answer these endless and perfectly normal questions that preschool, kindergarten, and early elementary school children ask about how they began. Through lively, comfortable language and sensitive, engaging artwork, Robie H. Harris and Michael Emberley address readers in a reassuring way, mindful of a child's healthy desire for straightforward information. Two irresistible cartoon characters, a curious bird and a squeamish bee, provide comic relief and give voice to the full range of emotions and reactions children may experience while learning about their amazing bodies. Vetted and approved by science, health, and child development experts, the information is up-to-date, age-appropriate, and scientifically accurate, and always aimed at helping kids feel proud, knowledgeable, and comfortable about their own bodies, about how they were born, and about the family they are part of."

Ages it's best suited for: 4-8

Buy it here: It's Not the Stork!: A Book About Girls, Boys, Babies, Bodies, Families, and Friends ($13)

Main Image

Where Did I Come From?

What it's about: "An international and beloved bestselling children's classic, Where Did I Come From? helps parents and their curious children get up close and personal with the intimate world of human sexuality in the form of a picture book. Told in an age-appropriate voice respectful of young people's natural intelligence and warmly and relatably illustrated throughout, Where Did I Come From? creates a safe space where families can learn about the traditional facts of life — from the different parts of the body to orgasm to birth."

Ages it's best suited for: 6-9

Buy it here: Where Did I Come From? ($11)

Main Image

Tell Me About Sex, Grandma

What it's about: "The dialogue focuses on the dynamics of sex, rather than the mechanics, as Grandma reminds readers that sex is not marriage or reproduction, and doesn't look the same for everyone. Instead, each person's sexuality is their very own to discover, explore, and share if they choose."

Ages it's best suited for: 6-12

Buy it here: Tell Me About Sex, Grandma ($20, available for preorder)

Main Image

30 Days of Sex Talks For Ages 3-7: Empowering Your Child With Knowledge of Sexual Intimacy

What it's about: "Written by parents and reviewed by professionals, the 30 Days of Sex Talks program makes it simple for you and your child to talk about sex in the context in which it belongs; as part of a healthy relationship that also includes joy, laughter and the full range of emotion that defines human intimacy."

Buy it here: 30 Days of Sex Talks For Ages 3-7: Empowering Your Child With Knowledge of Sexual Intimacy ($18)

Main Image

Your Body Is Awesome: Body Respect For Children

What it's about: "Bodies do all sorts of amazing things, like move around, grow bigger and heal themselves. Bodies also come in all sorts of shapes and sizes and we need to take care of them so that they stay healthy and strong. If we listen to our bodies they tell us exactly what they need.

"The colorful illustrations in this unique picture book will encourage children to love their bodies from an early age. By learning about all the wonderful things bodies can do, and how each body is different and unique, children will be inspired to take good care of their bodies throughout their lives. Promoting respect for body diversity among children will also encourage kindness and help prevent bullying."

Buy it here: Your Body Is Awesome: Body Respect For Children ($18)

Main Image

Before You Were Born

What it's about: "It's the mystery of mysteries for soon-to-be older siblings: what's going on inside a pregnant mother's belly? Before You Were Born , a joyful lift-the-flap book for children, that tells the parallel story of mother and baby during the nine months of pregnancy. . . . Each page shows what's happening to the mother on the outside and then, under the flap, in the mother's belly to the baby on the inside. Children learn how Mommy is feeling and how the baby is developing, about hiccups, kicks, and umbilical cords, a first heartbeat, and the contractions that mark the beginning of labor."

Ages it's best suited for: 2-6

Buy it here: Before You Were Born ($15)

Main Image

The Wonderful Way You Were Made

What it's about: " The Wonderful Way You Were Made is a story about hope, loss and love. Sometimes you need a whole lot of love and a little bit of science. IVF (Invitro Fertilization) can be a scary and taboo subject. This true story is child friendly and gives parents a simple way to talk to their children about the different way a family can be created."

Ages it's best suited for: 2-12

Buy it here: The Wonderful Way You Were Made ($18)

Main Image

Nine Months: Before a Baby Is Born

What it's about: "A soon-to-be big sister and her parents prepare for the arrival of a new baby in the family. Alternating panels depict what the family is experiencing in tandem with how the baby is growing, spanning everything from receiving the news about the new baby to the excitement of its arrival.

"In this pregnancy book unlike any other one out there, watch what's actually happening through meticulously detailed, actual size illustrations, perfectly paired with a lyrical yet informative text, and culminating in a warm, joyful birth scene."

Buy it here: Nine Months: Before a Baby Is Born ($9)

Main Image

Birds and Bees and More

What it's about: "This colorfully illustrated book is designed to help parents and other educators talk with children about how babies are made and families are formed. It begins by explaining the typical way of getting pregnant through sexual intercourse. However, it acknowledges that some couples have difficulty conceiving and may turn to assisted reproductive technologies such as IVF, ICSI, artificial insemination, sperm or egg donor or even surrogacy for help in becoming pregnant — and ultimately parents. There are also people who are single or in same-sex relationships that are also turning to such options in order to become parents. Adoption and foster care are also included here. The book conveys the importance of children understanding the variety of ways babies are made and the great lengths people may go in order to become parents. The authors contend that knowing the various ways is not to weaken or shame the process, but instead to celebrate the love and desire to be parents."

Buy it here: Birds and Bees and More ($20)

Main Image

Something Happened: A Book For Children and Parents Who Have Experienced Pregnancy Loss

What it's about: "This beautifully illustrated, simple, clear story is designed to help a young child understand what has happened when there has been a pregnancy loss. The book addresses the sadness that a child experiences when the anticipated baby has died. The child's fears and feelings of guilt are addressed as well as other confusing feelings. Perhaps most important, the book includes the family's experience of going on with life while always remembering their baby. The child reading the book is left with a sense of reassurance that life continues and he is still a vital part of a loving family. Most pages include a box with words for parents. These words are there to help parents understand what their child might be experiencing and why the particular illustrations and text were chosen. They are right there on each page so that the parents don't miss them and can easily scan them while their children look at the illustrations. Children who have experienced a death in their family are very reassured by stories of other children who have had a similar experience. It helps them to understand better what has happened in their own family while at the same time offering the comforting knowledge that they are not alone in their feelings."

Buy it here: Something Happened: A Book For Children and Parents Who Have Experienced Pregnancy Loss ($27)

Main Image

These Are My Eyes, This Is My Nose, This Is My Vulva, These Are My Toes

What it's about: " These Are My Eyes, This Is My Nose, This Is My Vulva, These Are My Toes is a book to help children of all genders and their caregivers normalize body parts. Different parts of the body are covered in fun images representing children from all sorts of lifestyles and backgrounds. The fun doesn't stop there! This inclusive book has children with all sorts of body shapes and abilities to show we all have bodies and can have fun together! This text also includes gender diversity, pronoun usage, and even a little about body changes at puberty in non scary ways! Read along in a fun little rhyme, enjoy the captivating illustrations, and have fun using this text as a springboard for more conversation!"

Ages it's best suited for: 3-8

Buy it here: These Are My Eyes, This Is My Nose, This Is My Vulva, These Are My Toes ($15)

Main Image

What's the Big Secret?: Talking About Sex With Girls and Boys

What it's about: "Are boys and girls different on the inside? How do you tell girls and boys apart? Do girls and boys have the same feelings? Is sex a dirty word? Where do babies come from? What does being pregnant mean? How do you get a belly button? Tell me about when I was a baby . . .

"With characteristic sensitivity and humor, the talented team who created Dinosaurs Divorce and When Dinosaurs Die presents helpful basic information, including answers to tough questions for preschoolers, early elementary students, and their teachers and caregivers."

Buy it here: What's the Big Secret?: Talking About Sex With Girls and Boys ($9)

Main Image

A Rainbow Baby Story: The Rainbow After the Storm

What it's about: "Baby Bird and his family live in a nest high in a tree. One day while his mother is out looking for food, a fierce storm rolls through. Alone and scared, his mother soon returns to the nest and comforts him. This seems the perfect time for her to tell the story of the little sister he never met and a beautiful hope that sometimes follows a storm."

Buy it here: A Rainbow Baby Story: The Rainbow After the Storm ($15)

Main Image

  • Little Kids
  • Child Health and Safety

books about babies

50 Must-Read Board Books for Babies

' src=

Vanessa Diaz

Book Riot Managing Editor Vanessa Diaz is a writer and former bookseller from San Diego, CA whose Spanish is even faster than her English. When not reading or writing, she enjoys dreaming up travel itineraries and drinking entirely too much tea. She is a regular co-host on the All the Books podcast who especially loves mysteries, gothic lit, mythology/folklore, and all things witchy. Vanessa can be found on Instagram at @BuenosDiazSD or taking pictures of pretty trees in Portland, OR, where she now resides.

View All posts by Vanessa Diaz

Here’s the deal: I’m 33 and single with no kids. Until recently, I didn’t find myself reading a lot of kids books , ya know? Then two things happened. 1) I began working in a bookstore, one located in a neighborhood with tons of parents wanting books for their tiny humans. 2) My brother and his wife announced that they’re expecting their first child. BAM! Suddenly I’m reading all the board books for babies and hoarding them as gifts.

Why Board Books For Babies?

Board books are where it’s at when it comes to reading to the littles. Their thick paperboard construction makes them durable, a crucial quality as kiddos are apt to treat their books as chew toys. Their simple concepts and colorful illustrations are beneficial for early learning and development. Board books are also super affordable; prices range from $6–$10 on average, and that’s at full price.

Where to Buy Board Books For Babies

You probably know where to find new books—your favorite local indie, Barnes & Noble, or Amazon. But what if you’re searching for used board books at a bargain? Resources like Alibris and Thrift Books offer some deep discounts, with pricing as low as $0.99! Your local thrift store, sales at your local library and used bookstores are also excellent resources for discounts. Less money spent equals more books purchased, amirite?

Another great option to explore is customization. Companies like Pint Size Productions and Pinhole Press allow you to create a totally personalized board book. Use your own photos, add a story, or include no words at all; the options are endless for creating a one-of-a-kind gift. Find even more suggestions for personalized books for kids here .

Choosing Board Books for Babies

Not all board books are created equal: some are better for toddlers than for baby brains who have yet to learn and form words.

Thank you for signing up! Keep an eye on your inbox. By signing up you agree to our terms of use

The overwhelming majority of parents I’ve spoken to agree that certain qualities are key: rhyme and repetition to keep baby’s attention engaged; color and/or contrast to stimulate their senses; textural variety for babies to explore through touch; finally, simplicity is best. 

The best board books for babies

So whether you too have a little bundle of joy to read to, need a gift for someone who does, or, like me, are on a mission to bring a niece or nephew to love of reading, here are 50 board books for babies to get ’em started while they’re young.

Hug M achine   by Scott Campbell

Admit it, you’re singing “I’m just a huuuug machine.” Don’t worry, I ain’t mad at it. This popular picture book condensed down to board book form is a feel-good read about hugging and is so. darn. cute. It’s also kind of hilarious: the little boy in the book goes around hugging everything . The image of him hugging a mailbox took me down.

Moo, Baa, La La La by Sandra Boynton

If the adorable babbling in the kids corner at the bookstore has taught me anything, it’s that kids love funny sounds. This little board book is a fantastic read-aloud to teach babies the sounds that animals make. And again…that title is just fun to say.

Besos for Baby by Jen Arena and Blanca Gomez

I can’t handle the cuteness of these illustrations, which, ahem, were done by a Latina. The bilingual storyline—which is simple enough for a baby to follow—is paired with gorgeous, graphic visuals and encourage sweet kisses from baby. Si, please.

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr, Illustrated by John Archambault

This is possibly the most popular title among the littles at my store. Babies seem to alight when they see it on the shelf, while toddlers giddily clap and shriek the title over and over again. It is pretty fun to say: go on, you know you want to.

The Pout Pout Fish by Deborah Diesen, Illustrated by Dan Hanna

I like to joke that this book is about a fish with a case of RBF. It’s an adorable tale of a gloomy gus whose fishy friends help to turn his frown upside down. It’s another one of those books that kids recognize and get really excited over.

Some Bugs by Angela DiTerlizzi, Illustrated by Brendan Wenzel

I work at an indie bookstore and my owner’s three-year-old daughter has her own section on our website’s Staff Picks section. This one is at the top of the list and I see why—the illustrations are so gorgeous that I almost—almost!—forgot that most bugs terrify me.

Dream Big, Little Leader by Vashti Harrison

I’m cheating here because this one hasn’t come out yet—but hear me out! Author Vashti Harrison is the creator of adorable and empowering Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History . This forthcoming board book is an adaptation of that first release and will feature 18 trailblazing black women in American history. It might be a little bit advanced for babies, but I’m still recommending it. Representation matters! Worth the wait till October.

Sheep in a Jeep by Nancy E. Shaw and Margot Apple

It’s called Sheep in a Jeep. What more do  you need to know?

Baby Koala: Finger Puppet Book (Little Finger Puppet Board Books) by Chronicle Books, illustrated by Yu-Hsuan Huang

Kids looooove them a finger puppet. Heck, so do I! These tiny little books are an understandable favorite due to the cute little finger puppet at the book’s center, which comes in every variety from koala to tiger to crab.

Lil Libros Board Books by Patty Rodriguez and Ariana Stein, illustrated by Citlali Reyes

I can’t express how much I love this series: beautifully illustrated, first concept stories in bilingual text with a focus on Latin American cultural and historical icons. Check this list: Frida, Cantinflas, Celia, Zapata and…wait for it…Selena. What are you waiting for? You do anything for Salinas!

Feminist Baby by Loryn Brantz

My only issue with this book is that I wish the imagery was more diverse. Still, the feminist baby has some pretty great knowledge to share and those pearls of wisdom make it a great gift.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

No list of board books would be complete without this classic. The timeless story, beautiful artwork and die-cut pages make this a favorite of parents and babies alike. Bonus: if you’re looking to add an extra touch to your gifting, pair this book and other classics with a matching pair of socks or a onesie . This combo is one of my gifting go-tos.

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr, Illustrated by Eric Carle

Though A Very Hungry Caterpillar is probably Eric Carle’s most well-known children’s book, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? actually came first. Educator and author Bill Martin Jr approached Carle to illustrate a story he’d written in 1967. Brown Bear is the result of that collaboration and the first of several others: if you like bears, there are panda and polar bear versions available for your reading pleasure.

The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats

The Snowy Day first broke the color barrier in mainstream children’s publishing in 1962 when it introduced us to Peter, an absolutely precious little brown boy in a red snowsuit playing in the snow. Keats has made a concerted effort to make all of his characters diverse and for that he gets all of the points.

Mini Look At Me books by Giovanni Caviezel, Illustrated by L. Rigo

These books are die-cut and feature adorable creatures. Picking out which ones to carry in store is always such a challenge for me—they’re all so precious. Have fun choosing!

Corduroy by Don Freeman

This one’s a little wordier than I’d usually say a baby book should be, but I just couldn’t leave my buddy Corduroy out in the cold. It’s another one of those classic stories for kids to grow into and grow with.

All the World by Liz Garcia Scanlon, Marla Frazee

This Caldecott winner is a classic, a story of the ways—big and small—in which we are all connected. Simple but poignant, I’ve gifted it numerous times.

Vegetables in Underwear by Jared Chapman

Vegetables. Underwear. This is a no-look purchase. But seriously, it’s cute and it’s funny and VEGETABLES ARE IMPORTANT. Underwear is too.

GoodNight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown

You’ve heard of this one, right? Thought so. This timeless bedtime story is a staple of any tiny reader’s collection, a poetic lullaby to put little ones to sleep.

A Book of Sleep by Il Sung Na

Korean author and illustrator Il Sung Na creates such whimsical visuals, a particular style unlike what you usually see in board books. The text is sparse but lovely and pairs with the unique illustrations for a story that’s simple, soothing and a treat for the eyes.

A is for Activist by Innosanto Nagara

I know what you’re thinking: a baby barely knows where their nose is, ain’t it a little early to start with activism? To that I say, not at all! Though just a little text-heavy for babies, it goes through the alphabet and does check the boxes for rhyming and some seriously stunning color. And what a great gift for babies of parents who resist—or maybe ones who need to…Bonus: It’s available in Spanish too as A de Activista .

Black Bird, Yellow Sun by Steve Light

Colors & animals, straight up & simple. The entire book is exactly 20 words long but that is just dandy for babies newly exposed to these concepts.

Click Clack Moo: Cows That Type by Doreen Cronin and Betsy Lewin

I was already pretty sold on a Caldecott honor book on typing cows, but the story itself speaks to my soul. A group of cows are sick of their barn’s frigid conditions and draft up a letter to their farmer demanding electric blankets. They go on strike when their demands aren’t met and get the chickens involved, and there are meetings and counteroffers. This is board book gold. These cows stand for what they believe in and I think that makes this a pretty stellar baby gift. Don’t you let anyone get in the way of your blankets, kids!

Count with Little Fish by Lucy Cousins

This looks like just another counting book at first glance, but there’s a little surprise inside. The numbers and fish on the pages are made of a shiny, reflective material, giving the art a pretty sheen that’s a treat for baby’s developing eyesight.

Counting on Community by Innosanto Nagara

Counting on Community is also by Innosanto Nagara, the writer and illustrator of the aforementioned A is For Activist . This second book follows in the same progressive vein, this time focusing on counting. Just like his first work, Nagara brings it with the vibrant artwork. The page on “nine tasty dishes” made my mouth water *just* a little bit.

Cozy Classics Series by Jack & Holman Wang

You know, I thought I was going to have to work a lot harder to sneak Jane Eyre into a list of baby books. But here come the folks at Cozy Classics making it way too easy AND baby appropriate! Each of the books in this adorable series feature simple concepts, words and stories using images of needle-threaded felt people from the classics. COME ON. Jane Eyre is my favorite but I must admit: I’ll probs buy War & Peace so I can say my nephew is up on Russian lit.

Dinosaur Dance by Sandra Boynton

These dancing dinos go tippity tap and flap, flap, flap and bompity bomp and stop stop stomp. The fun and silly words make for a wonderful read aloud—and maybe a baby dance party of one’s own.

Dr. Seuss’s ABC: An Amazing Alphabet Book! By Dr. Seuss

Not all of Dr. Seuss’s works are baby-level reads, but this one works pretty well even for the littlest of the little. It’s just what it sounds like: the ABC’s Seussified. A good gateway into the rest of the Dr. Seuss world.

First 100 Words by Roger Priddy

There really are 100 words packed into this tiny book, each paired with a colorful image to help babies learn the basics. Think stuff like apple, car, flower, chair. High on color, low on complexity.

Global Babies by The Global Fund for Children

A friend recommended this one and it’s easy to see why: this collection of full-color photographs features babies from around the world in all of their diverse and chubby-cheeked glory. The book’s curators, Global Fund for Children, donate time and funds to community-based organizations working to improve the lives of the world’s most vulnerable youth. Great book, great message, great cause—and beautiful babies. Bonus: available in a bilingual version AND it’s the first in a series.

Playshapes Series by Twirl Books, Illustrated by Nadia Shireen

These sturdy and brightly-colored plastic board books are cut in the shape of animals and contain quick mini-lessons inside about the animal too. My fave is Emperor Penguin, but you perhaps will prefer the T-Rex, Triceratops or Seal.

Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site: Let’s Go! by Sherri Duskey Rinker and Tom Lichtenheld

You’re never too old to learn construction work, right? The graduated pages are shaped like the vehicles they describe in simple, easy language. It may be a while before baby can properly identify a canopy or outrigger, but the playful shape of the book itself is great from the get-go.

Time for a Hug by Phillis Gershator and Mim Green, illustrated by David Walker

I sense you’re looking for more books about hugs, yes? Here you go. I must say that while bunnies are cute in general, the ones in this book are just delightful. Lot’s of rhyming, lots of hugging. My friend’s little one loved reading (and chewing…and playing with…) this book so much that mama had to toss it in the trash one sad, sad day. So maybe buy two? Yeah. Good idea.

Simply Small books by Paola Opa

These books in this series are just so charming! The illustrations are minimalist but so, so sweet and feature cute baby animals finding clever ways to solve their not-so-small problems. My favorites are Saffy and Ollie , about a tale of a baby giraffe and elephant, and Emma , who’s the cutest little hedgehog ever.

Usborne Touchy Feely books by Fiona Watt

I discovered That’s Not My Dragon recently and really dug the tactile aspect: there are lots of fun textures for baby to touch and feel while they process the repetitive text and bold colors. There is a whole collection of these Touchy Feely books to choose from if dragons aren’t your bag: kittens, elephants, pandas, puppies and much, much more. My new personal favorite? Goats.

Girl of Mine / Boy of Mine by Jabari Asim, Illustrated by LeUyen Pham

With text inspired by “Rock-A-Bye Baby,” this sweet tale follows the adventures of a little girl who’s whisked off to whimsical places when she climbs into her daddy’s arms at bedtime. A companion book titled “Boy of Mine” follows the similar journey of a little boy and his mommy.

Hello Baby books by Roger Priddy

Roger Priddy’s High Contrast Board Book series is designed just for babies: bold colors, high contrast, simple concepts. The books themselves are chunky and easy for little hands to grasp. Perfecto.

On the Farm by Kate Riggs, illustrated by Fiammetta Dogi

I love a good, cute, fluffy rendering of a barnyard animal as much as the next girl, but this book has my vote for its realism. The illustrations in this bad boy are detailed and so friggin’ lifelike! In a close-up of a cow, the folds of its skin around the neck, flared nostrils, and wide eyes gave me major flashbacks to the first time I saw a cow in person and felt woefully deceived. I’ve recovered, but this book might have been cool to have back in the day, you know?

Hello Bugs! by Smriti Prasadam Halls

Hello Bugs  is another book that uses high contrast in black and white patterns to teach young readers about 10 types of bugs. As an extra visual treat, each page contains a burst of colorful foil.

I’ll See You In The Morning by Mike Jolley, illustrated by Mique Moriuchi

This is just a straight-up beautiful bedtime story, one with counting sheep and everything. There’s tons of color on every page and an overall soothing and peaceful tone. Ah, serenity.

Jellycat Board Books

Jellycat Board Books ring all the appropriate bells: fun shapes, great color, texture variety, sturdy construction. Some feature beloved Jellycat characters like Una the Unicorn and Leo the Lion. Most are about a general animal, have a cute fluffy tail attachment and follow an “If I Were A <fill in favorite animal here>” format. I love If I Were A Hippo and If I Were A Monkey but there are lots of great options to choose from.

Love You books by Emma Dodd

I was first drawn to these books because of their covers—just slightly squishy with gorgeous hues of blue, green and purple. The stories are tender and heartfelt, the animals cute as buttons. I’m particularly smitten with Together and Happy—otters and owls!!!

My Awesome Book Series by Make Believe Ideas

The die-cut pages in these books are the shape of their subject: letters of the alphabet, farm animals—the usual suspects. I come back to die-cut details often because they allow wee ones to explore with their hands.

Please Mr. Panda by Steve Antony

Chubby panda rolling his eyes on the cover? I’m intrigued. Said panda is carrying a box of donuts? Tell me more. Panda provides lesson on manners by only giving donuts to animals who say please? Sold.

Pouch by David Ezra Stein

A baby kangaroo takes his first steps (well, hops) outside of his mama’s pouch—so sweet! Toddlers love this book but I think it makes a great gift for babies, and for the mamas and papas who wish they wouldn’t grow up so fast.

Touch Think Learn series by Xavier Deneux

As the name implies, these books are great for learning through touch. They each focus on one subject (vehicles, numbers, farms) and have raised shaped objects on the pages that fit into scooped cutouts on their opposite page.

Maisy Lift-the-Flap Books by Lucy Cousins

There are lots and lots of Maisy books available but I love the touch aspect of the Lift-the-flap versions. Flaps in board books are basically a bookish form of peek-a-boo, and babies love them some of that! If you and your little one enjoy the Maisy books, there is also a British-American animated TV series based on them with the most adorable accents.

Where’s the Owl by Nosy Crow, Illustrated by Ingela P. Arrhenius

One of my best friends has two boys; the older one loves to read like his Tia Vanessa and the younger’s goal since birth has been to achieve maximum destruction. I bought the little one this book, and he liked it! Babies love the felt flaps and pretty woodland creatures.

Baby’s First Words by Stella Blackstone and Sunny Scribens, illustrated by Christiane Engel

Slow clap for this one, guys. The family in the book is multiracial AND the little girl in it has two dads. The book is about first words, perfect for babies. And how fantastic to find diverse and inclusive books for kids. Heart-eyed emoji, all day.

Indestructibles series by Amy Pixton and Stephan Lomp

These *technically* aren’t board books but go with me here: they are chew and rip proof and washable. If you’ve ever had a baby or seen a baby or heard of one from a friend, you know that babies put everything in their mouths and that their tiny little hands are capable of serious damage. Well HA, little humans! You’ve met your match! Oh and the books are, like, really cute too.

What are your favorite board books for babies? 

books about babies

You Might Also Like

9 Romantic Dark Academia Books

The Ten Thousand Hour Mama

Becoming a good mom, one hour at a time

12 best children’s books about a new baby: What we’re reading

These children’s books about a new baby will help a big sister- or big brother-to-be understand what’s coming, process their emotions and feel reassured that they’ll still be special even after the baby arrives. The post contains affiliate links.

When I was pregnant with Kiwi, Peeper and I read a  lot  of books about a new baby to help her know what was happening—and why Mom’s belly suddenly took up my entire lap. She had a lot of questions, which books helped us answer in a comforting way.

Kid’s literature also gave a reference point for us to talk about what would happen when our new baby was ready to come—and after.

When the Big Day came, Peeper was more calm and comfortable with everything that happened—and I’m convinced these children’s books about a new baby were a big factor. All the changes were more familiar and less scary because she’d read about them many times.

Rereading these books with her and Kiwi now, I finish with stories about when they were born: like the very first time Peeper met Kiwi in the hospital, she came in and sang her new baby sister “Happy Birthday.” Awwww!

And although their relationship has had its rocky points , they have become the best of pals.

If you’re looking for children’s books about a new baby to explain what it means to be a big sister or big brother, start here. Add them to your cart or request them from the library: You and your child will want to read—and reread—them even after Baby arrives.

Our favorite children’s books about a new baby

I hope you and your littles enjoy these books about a new baby, whether you’re welcoming a new member of the family, if your child is gaining a new cousin, or just if they want to learn about babies.

Do you have any favorite children’s books about a new baby?

If you’re already in the midst of parenting two (or more) and you need a little encouragement, pop on over to my post that reassures you raising two kids does get easier .

books about babies

4 thoughts on “ 12 best children’s books about a new baby: What we’re reading ”

' src=

Your daughters are SO adorable together. I do definitely think that talking to the first born about the new addition is important, and these book suggestions are perfect.

' src=

Thank you Erin! Talking about the transition, through books or any other way, definitely helps everyone better understand the changes ahead!

' src=

Thank you for sharing 12 best children’s books about a new baby: What we’re reading post. A great list of baby books and lovely images of your little ones.

Does your daughter have a favorite read?

Thanks for stopping by! Both my girls love books! My younger one is obsessed with anything Paw Patrol, which isn’t my favorite. But we also love Chicken Story Time! It’s hilarious!

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  • Skip to main content
  • Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

Book News & Features

Maurice sendak delights children with new book, 12 years after his death.

Elizabeth Blair 2018 square

Elizabeth Blair

books about babies

An image of Mino from Maurice Sendak's posthumous book Ten Little Rabbits. Maurice Sendak/HarperCollins Publishers hide caption

An image of Mino from Maurice Sendak's posthumous book Ten Little Rabbits.

In Ten Little Rabbits, a new posthumous picture book by Maurice Sendak, Mino the Magician waves his wand and, poof, a rabbit appears. Another wave and out springs a second and then a third. By the forth rabbit, Mino yawns. By the sixth, he's annoyed. Ninth, he's exasperated, as the rabbits crawl all over him. So back they go, one rabbit at a time, giving readers the chance to count up and back again by the time Mino is done.

But it's the unruly rabbits and Mino's many facial expressions that kept this reader turning the page. Once again, Sendak's knack for capturing just about every kind of emotion is on full display, 12 years after his death, in this book being brought to the public for the first time.

books about babies

Look no further than 5-year-old Maurice Sendak (circa 1933) to see the model for Max, Pierre, Johnny and now Mino the Magician in Ten Little Rabbits . The Maurice Sendak Foundation hide caption

Sendak fans will immediately recognize Mino. While their names and adventures might be different, the boys in Chicken Soup With Rice, Where The Wild Things Are , One Was Johnny — Mino, Max, Pierre, Johnny — and other Sendak stories look very similar.

"Well, he's Maurice," says Lynn Caponera, executive director of The Maurice Sendak Foundation. "He" also didn't look like most of the other boys in children's books in the 1950s, says curator Jonathan Weinberg.

"Maurice really had created a kind of child that isn't...the prettiest little boy. He has a kind of...an ethnic look, Jewish, almost European look to it. And Maurice was the child of Jewish-Polish Americans," Weinberg says.

"The characters of my earlier books are really only sort of cockamamie self-portraits," Sendak told Terry Gross, host of WHYY's Fresh Air in 2003. "Unfortunately, I look like Max and the Wild Things, as children tell you in their brazen way. 'Oh, Mommy, he looks like the Moishe , the big, wild thing.' And you just want to crack them."

A whistling night owl

Sendak had no heirs when he died in 2012, but Caponera and Weinberg were like family to him. They first met Sendak when they were kids, 11 and 10 years old respectively. Weinberg says Sendak and his partner Eugene Glynn, a psychiatrist, were like "surrogate parents." Glynn "was my mother's best friend," he says.

books about babies

Ten Little Rabbits is a new, count-along picture book by Maurice Sendak, published 12 years after he died. HarperCollins Publishers hide caption

Ten Little Rabbits is a new, count-along picture book by Maurice Sendak, published 12 years after he died.

Lynn Caponera's family lived down the street from Sendak and Glynn's Ridgefield, Conn. home. Her brother took care of the property, which was built in 1790, and Sendak once called Caponera's mother "a saint."

Maurice Sendak began sketching a count-along picture book starring Little Mino the Magician around 1961, the same time he started Nutshell Library.

When Caponera was 18, she moved into an apartment on the property and helped take care of the house and the dogs. She quickly learned that Sendak was a night owl. Her apartment was right underneath his studio.

"So I would hear him like all night whistling and playing music," she recalls, "And you could hear when things were going right. He would be whistling like crazy. So like actually whistling while he worked." She adds it was "a really wonderful way to come up in the morning and see what he did."

Weinberg adds that Sendak, "could whistle entire operas from beginning to end" — a claim that is difficult to fact-check. But some of his fantasy sketches actually note on the back what song he was whistling when he was working on them.

books about babies

Artist Maurice Sendak signs prints July 26, 1990 in New York. Susan Ragan/AP hide caption

Artist Maurice Sendak signs prints July 26, 1990 in New York.

Like some of his characters, Sendak had a mischievous streak. His very first job was designing window displays for FAO Schwarz. On a recent visit to Sendak's home, Caponera points out a little toy crow from the store whose likeness shows up in Hector Protector.

Sendak got it during a contest among the workers " to see what you could steal from the store," Caponera laughs, "Maurice was very proud that he said he got a train set out once and...so besides being a great illustrator, apparently was a good thief."

Sendak's studio is as he left it

Weinberg says Sendak "was constantly learning and teaching himself" different styles and "emulating" other artists.

Throughout Sendak's home there is all kinds of art everywhere: 19th century oil paintings and photographs, Winslow Homer engravings from Harper's Weekly , mechanical toys Sendak made with his brother, a vast collection of Mickey Mouse memorabilia and much more.

books about babies

Maurice Sendak's home studio, left, remains as it was during the time he was working there, down to the sweater on the chair and the slippers on the floor. He kept an image of Lewis Carroll's Alice, right, by his desk for inspiration. Meghan Collins Sullivan/NPR hide caption

His studio is almost exactly as it was when Sendak was alive, says Caponera. Slippers on the floor, sweater draped over the chair, art supplies on his desk. "Cheap...cake paints" like the kind you'd "use in kindergarten," she notes.

Among the many photographs by Sendak's desk is one of Alice Liddell, the girl who inspired the main character in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures Under Ground. She doesn't look too happy; Sendak loved it.

"Maurice used to say that he really identified with that photo because, you know, being an illustrator is a very lonely job," Caponera says. "You're usually hours and hours doing tedious work at a drawing table by yourself. So he liked to think that Alice was sort of looking over him and that she looked so dejected because she's so tired."

Overseeing Sendak's legacy can be "daunting," Caponera says. She says she's confident he would have approved of the new edition of Ten Little Rabbits .

He initially thought the count-along picture book would be part of Nutshell Library , his 1962 collection of pocket-size books Alligators All Around , Chicken Soup with Rice , One Was Johnny , and Pierre. But "he decided to go in a different direction because the other books in Nutshell Library are much more elaborate," Weinberg says.

Eventually, in 1970, Sendak turned Ten Little Rabbits into a 3.5 x 2.5-inch pamphlet for a fundraiser for Philadelphia's Rosenbach Museum.

books about babies

Ten Little Rabbits was originally created in the style of the books that are part of the Nutshell Library. In 1970, Sendak turned it into a 3.5 x 2.5-inch booklet for a fundraiser for Philadelphia's Rosenbach Museum. Meghan Collins Sullivan/NPR hide caption

Ten Little Rabbits was originally created in the style of the books that are part of the Nutshell Library. In 1970, Sendak turned it into a 3.5 x 2.5-inch booklet for a fundraiser for Philadelphia's Rosenbach Museum.

This is the third posthumous book of Sendak's to be published, after My Brother's Book (2013) and Presto and Zesto in Limboland (2018). And in addition to the new book, Caponera and Weinberg have organized a major retrospective of Sendak's work that will head to the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles in the spring and then to the Denver Art Museum in the fall.

Caponera says Sendak's instructions for how to guide his legacy were pretty much "You'll know what to do."

It's evident he trusted her. Nine months before he died, at age 83, Sendak did a sweeping, poignant interview with Terry Gross. He reflected on his career, losing extended family in the Holocaust, depression, getting older and, as he put it "trying to understand what it means to be an artist."

Gross asked him if he had someone helping him. Sendak told her about Lynn Caponera. "She is a youngish lady who puts up with my oldness; that is, I'm fighting and struggling against," he says. "She puts up with my bad behavior and she loves me and I love her."

Meghan Collins Sullivan edited this story for radio and the web. Isabella Gomez Sarmiento produced the audio.

Correction Feb. 6, 2024

An earlier version of this story misspelled Jonathan Weinberg's last name. It has been corrected here.

  • picture books
  • children's books
  • Maurice Sendak
  • Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

Robie Harris, Often-Banned Children’s Author, Is Dead at 83

Her children’s books on matters of sex and sexuality — notably “It’s Perfectly Normal” — became fodder for the culture wars.

Robie Harris, with short gray hair and glasses, wearing a white and black patterned scarf over a black sweater and smiling.

By Adam Nossiter

Robie Harris, a children’s book author and former teacher whose writing about sexuality made her among the most banned authors in America, died on Jan. 6 in Manhattan. She was 83.

Her death, in a hospital, was confirmed by her sons David and Ben Harris.

Ms. Harris’s most well-known book, “It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, and Sexual Health” (1994), with its explicit illustrations, has been pulled from library shelves all over the country and has regularly made the American Library Association’s list of Frequently Challenged Children’s Books.

The book has been fought over from Virginia to Idaho, with detractors calling it pornography and supporters saying it is merely a frank and honest guide to sexuality for children and teenagers. It is geared for children 10 and up.

Updated several times, “It’s Perfectly Normal” has sold more than a million copies and been translated into 27 languages, according to PEN America. The writer and pediatrician Dr. Perri Klass called it a “classic” in The New York Times in 2017. Suzanne Nossel, the chief executive officer of PEN America, said in a statement that Ms. Harris’s books “were totally matter-of-fact in educating kids on these subjects.”

Those books still raise hackles. In Elkhart County, Ind., a year ago, the board of county commissioners declared at a meeting that “It’s Perfectly Normal” “depicts and describes sexual conduct in a patently offensive way.” A parent, Rhonda Miller, rose to say that Indiana’s schools and libraries “have become the distribution point for the pornography industry.”

In Provo, Utah; Clover Park, Wash.; and Chester County, Pa., religious groups fought to keep it out of libraries in 1998. In Polk County, Fla., in 2022, a parents group submitted the book to the school district for review, claiming it was one of 16 books that were “age inappropriate” and that “hypersexualize children.” There were many other such complaints.

Ms. Harris confronted the hostility without rancor. “I think that in this country there’s a range of opinions about what children should know,” she told an interviewer for LibrarySparks magazine in 2006, “and I think that many people feel that our children shouldn’t know about some of these things that have to do with sexuality, because, as adults, many of us weren’t talked to about these things.”

Even some who praised her have wondered if she had pushed too far in “It’s Perfectly Normal.”

“Is this too much? Harris wisely allows that it might be,” Jill Lepore wrote in The New Yorker in 2010, about an explicit part of the book. In Slate, Aymann Ismail wrote , “On virtually every page I stopped to examine, I was confronted with detailed drawings of genitals.”

But Ms. Harris told the interviewer: “Our kids already know about 99.9 percent of this stuff. What concerned me is that they have a lot of misinformation, no matter how much they tell us, and I wanted them to get accurate information.”

Ms. Harris wrote more than 30 children’s books, including Don’t Forget to Come Back (1978); I Hate Kisses (1981); “It’s So Amazing!: A Book About Eggs, Sperm, Birth, Babies, and Families” (1999); and “It’s NOT the Stork!: A Book About Girls, Boys, Babies, Bodies, Families, and Friends” (2006).

But it was “It’s Perfectly Normal,” with its illustrations by Michael Emberly, that drew the most attention. Ms. Harris explained to LibrarySparks that her publisher had asked for a children’s book about H.I.V. and AIDS, and that she responded by saying she would write a book on “healthy sexuality” that included both.

For her research she spoke with pediatricians and “anybody who had to do with the health and well-being of kids,” she said. She “read everything I could” and talked to dozens of people. “I wanted the book to be comprehensive,” she said, “and I wanted it to be a place where kids, preteens and teens could go and find the answer to almost every question that they might ask.”

That quality is evident in a film she made with her students in 1967 as a teacher at the Bank Street School for Children in New York City. In the film, “A Child’s Eye View,” she listens carefully to her students, questioning them gently and respectfully. “One of the things we did all the time was to observe the children, and have meetings and talk about the children’s behavior,” she told LibrarySparks.

Ms. Harris was born Robie Heilbrun on April 3, 1940, in Buffalo to Norman and Evelyn (Levy) Heilbrun. Her father was a radiologist. She graduated from Wheaton College in Massachusetts in 1962 with a bachelor’s degree in English, moved to New York City and earned a master’s in teaching in 1966 from the Bank Street College of Education. Her first book, “Before You Were Three: How You Began to Walk, Talk, Explore, and Have Feelings” (1977), was co-written with her cousin Elizabeth Levy.

In addition to her sons, Ms. Harris, who lived in Manhattan, is survived by her husband, William Harris, and four grandchildren.

Her son David recalled that for a children’s math book called “Crash! Boom!,” which is centered on toy building blocks, his mother, then in her 70s, dropped to the floor to see for herself how a castle she had built also fell apart.

“She dealt with kids’ emotions,” David said. “The thing about her was, it was always children, first.”

Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this obituary misidentified the college from which Ms. Harris graduated in 1962. It was Wheaton College in Massachusetts, not the college of the same name in Illinois. Because of another editing error, the earlier version also misstated the title that Suzanne Nossel holds with PEN America. She is the organization’s chief executive officer, not its executive director.

How we handle corrections

Adam Nossiter has been bureau chief in Kabul, Paris, West Africa and New Orleans, and is now a Domestic Correspondent on the Obituaries desk. More about Adam Nossiter

an image, when javascript is unavailable

‘You’ve Reached Sam’ Spinoff Novel From Dustin Thao Sells to Penguin’s Dutton in Seven-Figure Deal (EXCLUSIVE)

By Jennifer Maas

Jennifer Maas

TV Business Writer

  • ‘You’ve Reached Sam’ Spinoff Novel From Dustin Thao Sells to Penguin’s Dutton in Seven-Figure Deal (EXCLUSIVE) 2 days ago
  • Less Than 2% of Console Video Games Have LGBTQ Representation Despite 17% of Gamers Being Queer, GLAAD Report Says 2 days ago
  • IGN Aims to Fill E3 Gaming Event Void With In-Person Fan Convention 2 days ago

Youve-Reached-Sam-Dustin-Thao

A spinoff to Dustin Thao ‘s New York Times bestselling YA book “You’ve Reached Sam” has been set up at Penguin ‘s Dutton Children’s Books imprint in a seven-figure deal following a heated auction between multiple bidders.

A TikTok sensation, Thao’s debut novel “You’ve Reached Sam” centers on 17-year-old Julie following the death of her boyfriend Sam. When a heartbroken Julie calls Sam’s cellphone to listen to his voicemail, Sam miraculously picks up the phone and they begin an otherworldly relationship. Julie is then caught between staying connected to Sam and losing the living world around her.

Thao promises “more heartbreak and a magical twist” in “You’ve Found Oliver.”

“Oliver is a supporting character in the first book and he’s a fan-favorite and he’s also one of my favorites. And when the book was finished, and when it came out, in the back of my mind, I always knew that he deserved his own story,” Thao tells Variety . “When I sat down to work on it, and think about it, I knew that his story was just as original and heartbreaking as the first. And I knew it was something that I truly wanted to write and I knew publishers would be excited about and I knew fans would be excited, too. The story of Oliver was important because he’s the only character that didn’t get closure. He was left with a lot of questions, especially around the death of his best friend, Sam, and that was a story I really wanted to explore. So we do touch on flashbacks of Sam and their friendship and their story growing up together. And we do get a little bit of cameos from Julie, who’s the main character in the first, which I think fans would truly love to see. Oliver and Julie’s friendship was very special because it was formed out of a shared grief”

“It was so wild and different from my first deal, which happened in 2019. So it’s been a long time,” Thao said, adding: “The offer didn’t feel real when it reached up to seven figures. I thought I was dreaming.”

“You’ve Found Oliver” is targeting a fall 2025 release with Dutton’s Julie Strauss-Gabel, publisher behind beloved YA books including “The Fault in Our Stars,” “Looking for Alaska,” “If I Stay” and “Anna and the French Kiss,” working as Thao’s editor on the new project.

“It’s a meaningful experience because I believe [Strauss-Gabel] has shaped the children’s book industry and she has printed so many young adult classics, books that have stood the test of time. It means so much that she believes Oliver’s story is going to be one of them,” Thao said.

While not among the authors that have had their books adapted into TV shows or film, Thao, who is repped by CAA’s Michelle Weiner, says “there are a few secrets at the moment” regarding a potential on-screen version of “You’ve Reached Sam.”

Thao is a Vietnamese-American writer based in New York City. He graduated from Amherst College with a bachelor’s degree in political science and he is currently in a PhD program at Northwestern University. Next up, Thao has his second novel, “When Haru Was Here,” releasing from Wednesday Books in September.

More From Our Brands

‘rust’ armorer’s alleged drug use can be included at trial, luxury, eh some of the biggest names in luxury are setting up shop in vancouver, canada, nhl accused of colluding in junior hockey antitrust suit, the best mattress protectors, according to sleep experts, tvline items: brittany snow joins malin åkerman in starz thriller, outlander prequel casting and more, verify it's you, please log in.

Quantcast

IMAGES

  1. 13 Best Books for Babies' Brains

    books about babies

  2. 7 Great Books for (and About) Babies

    books about babies

  3. 20 Best Baby Books For His First Library

    books about babies

  4. 7 Best Baby Books to Read With Your Little One in 2018

    books about babies

  5. Children's Book Review : Baby, Baby!

    books about babies

  6. The Best Baby Books: 25 Must-Have Books for Your Baby's First Year

    books about babies

VIDEO

  1. BABY BEDTIME STORY! Let’s Read a Book!

  2. Book babies

  3. What Books to Read Infants? #shorts #parenting101

  4. Reading books for 1-2 year babies

  5. Books I read to my Toddler and Baby every single day! #books #kidsbooks #shorts

  6. Hello, Mommy! Read Aloud Book

COMMENTS

  1. 35 Best Baby Books 2024

    Best Baby Books "On the Night You Were Born" by Nancy Tillman $8 Learn More Amazon "Time for Bed" by Mem Fox $9 Learn More Amazon "Everywhere Babies" by Susan Meyers $10 Learn More Amazon Amazon Learn More Amazon Amazon Amazon Amazon Amazon Amazon Amazon $20 Learn More Amazon There are tons of benefits to reading with your baby.

  2. 7 Great Books for (and About) Babies

    'Where Is Baby's Belly Button?' by Karen Katz This lift-the-flap board book adds a peekaboo element to the "game" of naming all the parts of a baby. Babies love to explore their bodies, and...

  3. 40 Best Baby Books

    40 Best Baby Books for Baby's First Year Our selects include best-selling classics, new releases and even a few that can be personalized. By Marisa LaScala Updated: Mar 9, 2022 Save Article...

  4. Best Parenting Books

    Baby 411 - Paperback $14.39 Add to Babylist Buy Now Amazon$14.39 Can't decide which parenting style would work best for you and your family? From economist Emily Oster, author of Expecting Better, this research-based, data-driven book analyzes all the options and debunks myths so you can confidently make your own parenting decisions. Cribsheet

  5. Best Baby Books 2024

    Best Baby Books Overall: Moo, Baa, La La La!; Where Is Baby's Belly Button?; I Am A Baby; If Animals Kissed Goodnight; Look, Look!; Kisses, Kisses, Head To Toe! Best Classic Baby Books:...

  6. Amazon Best Sellers: Best Children's New Baby Books

    Best Sellers in Children's New Baby Books #1 The Wonderful Things You Will Be Emily Winfield Martin 29,628 Hardcover 167 offers from $1.51 #2 Ooo, Baby Baby!: A Little Book of Love Sandra Boynton 26 Board book 29 offers from $5.74 #3 I Am a Big Brother (Caroline Jayne Church) Caroline Jayne Church 16,482 Hardcover 140 offers from $0.96 #4

  7. The Best Books for Your Baby or Toddler

    Based on a survey of thousands of Pampers Parents, we've put together a list of some of the best baby books in four categories: classic books, bedtime books, development books, and interactive books. Some of the books that made the list are ideal for toddlers and preschoolers, too.

  8. Great Books to Read to Infants and Toddlers

    "My baby, my baby, what do you see? Do you see your mommy reading to you? I think you do." Global Babies, from Global Fund for Children. 2007. You have probably noticed how babies and toddlers are drawn to photographs of other babies.

  9. About Babies Books

    Showing 1-50 of 50 Trust Kids!: Stories on Youth Autonomy and Confronting Adult Supremacy (Paperback) by carla joy bergman (Editor) (shelved 1 time as about-babies) avg rating 4.20 — 192 ratings — published Want to Read Rate this book 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

  10. 11 Best Books for New Parents in 2023

    Essential Labor: Mothering as Social Change by Angela Garbes $14 at Amazon For Older Kids How to Raise Kids Who Aren't Assholes by Melinda Wenner Moyer $15 at Amazon Some offer the nitty-gritty...

  11. It's So Amazing!: A Book about Eggs, Sperm, Birth, Babies, and Families

    "IT'S SO AMAZING! is the amazingly upbear and caring book that children have been waiting for — because it answers the many quetions most children have about babies, bodies, love, sex, reproduction, and family. This book is totally child-friendly and the perfect read-aloud book for children and families.

  12. 23 Best Books for New Parents (2022)

    1. The Montessori Baby Buy on Amazon For Raising Confident and Independent Humans Montessori is another parenting philosophy that I love and use with my children daily. This book teaches you how to establish this parenting method from the infant stages.

  13. Amazon Best Sellers: Best Parenting Babies & Toddlers

    Top 100 Paid Top 100 Free. #1. Potty Training in 3 Days: The Step-by-Step Plan for a Clean Break from Dirty Diapers. Brandi Brucks. 16,598. Kindle Edition. 1 offer from $6.99. #2. Navigating Oppositional Defiant Disorder: A Compassionate Guide for Parenting ODD Children: Empowering Strategies to Foster Cooperation, Communication, ...

  14. 50+ Best Baby Books for Babies and Toddlers (2024)

    This list of over 50 best baby books for babies and toddlers includes ideas for baby shower gifts, interactive books, picture books, bedtime stories, and more. Mom Rewritten uses affiliate links which means I may earn a small commission if you purchase through the links in these posts. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

  15. The 50 Best Baby Books to Bring to a Baby Shower

    The 50 Best Baby Books to Bring to a Baby Shower By Brittany Bunzey / March 23, 2023 at 12:00 am Share There's nothing sweeter than greeting a new baby with a library of favorites that say, "We can't wait to show you how amazing this place we call home is!"

  16. Best Parenting Books 2024

    Best Parenting Books Overall: The Whole-Brain Child; Your One-Year-Old; Good Inside; The Explosive Child. Best Parenting Books For Newborns: The Happiest Baby On The Block; What To Expect The ...

  17. 26 Best Parenting Books for Every Age and Stage

    Leave a Comment. The author of 'And Now We Have Everything,' Meaghan O'Connell describes 26 parenting books you should definitely read. Including 'Like a Mother,' by Angela Garbes, 'All Joy and No Fun,' by Jennifer Senior, and 'No Bad Kids,' by Angela Lansbury.

  18. The Best Books About Bodies and Reproduction For Little Kids

    30 Books About Consent and Bodily Autonomy For Toddlers and Kids 01 bookshop.org What Makes a Baby What it's about: "Geared to readers from preschool to age eight, What Makes a Baby is a...

  19. 50 Must-Read Board Books for Babies

    A companion book titled "Boy of Mine" follows the similar journey of a little boy and his mommy. Hello Baby books by Roger Priddy. Roger Priddy's High Contrast Board Book series is designed just for babies: bold colors, high contrast, simple concepts. The books themselves are chunky and easy for little hands to grasp. Perfecto.

  20. Picture Books About Babies' Favorite Subject

    Schwartz ("A Teeny Tiny Baby") gives babies lots to stare at, and grown-ups may find themselves just as delighted by her exquisite illustrations. Her delectable babies have big heads, small ...

  21. 12 best children's books about a new baby: What we're reading

    101 Things to Do with a Baby, by Jan Ormerod. Big siblings have plenty they can do with a new baby, and this book's beautiful illustrations show a whole day's worth. From tickling Baby's tummy to watching out for hair pulling, big sisters and big brothers have, yep, 101+ ways they can play with a new baby.

  22. Best Books for Toddlers & Babies

    Books for Babies & Toddlers Shop by Favorite Characters & Authors Roger Priddy Winnie the Pooh Sandra Boynton Eric Carle Sesame Street Biscuit Roger Priddy Winnie the Pooh Sandra Boynton Eric Carle Sesame Street Biscuit 50% Off Select Kids' Books See All by Justine Korman, Jean Chandler (Illustrator) QUICK ADD

  23. Amazon.com: Baby Books: Books

    Love You Forever by Robert Munsch and Sheila McGraw 61,945 Paperback $498 List: $5.95 FREE delivery Fri, Feb 9 on $35 of items shipped by Amazon More Buying Choices $0.98 (316 used & new offers) Ages: Baby and up Other formats: Kindle , Hardcover , Board book Best Seller Indestructibles: Hello, Farm!:

  24. Children's book tells the story of Pluto's discovery

    Sunday is the 94th anniversary of Pluto's discovery. It was spotted by a young farmhand - turned - astronomer named Clyde Tombaugh, who scoured the skies night after night from Flagstaff's Lowell Observatory. His story is told in a new children's book called Needle in a Haystack. KNAU's Melissa Sevigny spoke with Sedona author Diane Phelps Budden about how she hopes Tombaugh's ...

  25. Maurice Sendak's new children's picture book 'Ten Little Rabbits ...

    Ten Little Rabbits is a new, count-along picture book by Maurice Sendak, published 12 years after he died. Lynn Caponera's family lived down the street from Sendak and Glynn's Ridgefield, Conn ...

  26. Robie Harris, Often-Banned Children's Author, Is Dead at 83

    Robie Harris, a children's book author and former teacher whose writing about sexuality made her among the most banned authors in America, died on Jan. 6 in Manhattan. She was 83. Her death, in ...

  27. 'You've Reached Sam' Spinoff From Dustin Thao Set at Penguin ...

    Courtesy Image/Wednesday Books. A sequel to Dustin Thao 's New York Times bestselling YA book "You've Reached Sam" has been set up at Penguin 's Dutton Children's Books imprint in a ...