How Do You Choose a Great Book for Your Baby?
Do you know how to choose a great book for your baby? Do you like to read to your baby? I hope you do because there are a lot of books out there for them.
Many of them are good books. But, if you’re like I was, you only have so much time with your baby and only so much money to spend on books. That means you should only read great books to your baby.
So, how do you decide which ones are great books? Books that are worthy of your time with your baby and, not to mention, your money?
Don’t Be Fooled by That Cute, Colorful Book
Many parents think that a cute and colorful book is a good one. But, often, it doesn’t turn out to be as engaging as as they thought it would be for their baby.
So, do you stand at the book rack in the store and wonder which one to buy? It’s time consuming to go through book after book like that.
However, in this post, I’m going to give you 7 tips for choosing a great book that’s just right for your baby.
Now, you can continue to just keep grabbing a book off the shelf because it’s cute. But, first of all, that’s wasting money. Second, it’s wasting your precious time with your baby.
Yes, it can take a little extra time to look through a book. But, if you use the 7 tips I’m going to share with you, you’ll soon be able to quickly decide if a book is great or not.
Tip #1 for Choosing a Great Book for Learning and Fun
The tips I’m going to share with you are the same ones that I use when I choose a book to read to the parents and their babies in my online “Your Musical Baby” Class.
“Your Musical Baby” Class meets for one hour each week. At the end of every class, I choose a book to read aloud.
I want to make sure that book has the qualities that will guide your baby to develop language and literacy skills. I also want to make sure that it’s worth our precious time.
Most often, qualities of a great book are usually pretty evident in the story. So you shouldn’t have too much of a problem deciding whether to read it or not.
As I mentioned before, cute and colorful just aren’t enough. This book must capture your baby’s attention and yours as well.
It should engage your baby’s mind and senses with interesting ideas and lessons to be learned.
Quality books offer educational concepts. But, they will also be incredibly entertaining and pleasant for you and your baby to read together.
How Do You Choose a Great Book for Yourself?
Now choosing a great book for your baby is not really difficult. Let’s think a moment about how you choose a book to read.
You probably scan the first couple of pages to see if it captures your attention IMMEDIATELY. If it does, you likely decide to read it and won’t be disappointed.
You can use that same method to choose a read aloud book for your baby. I would suggest checking the time it takes you to read through the book.
If it takes more than three to five minutes, it’s too long for infants and small babies. Save it for later when they’re toddlers.
If it keeps your attention all the way through, chances are it will keep your baby’s attention as well. You and your baby can have fun growing, reading, and learning together.
So, Tip #1 is to decide if the book is engaging enough and not more than five minutes long.
Tips #2-7 Checklist for Choosing a Great Book for Your Baby
Here is a simple checklist to help you find great books for your baby:
Tip #2-pay attention that the subject matter or the theme and the texts of the story are appropriate for your child’s age.
Tip #3-notice whether the pictures are clear, colorful, and stand out from the background of the page. Avoid those busy-looking illustrations for right now.
Tip #4-be sure the book is strong and easy for your child to handle. Board books or cloth book are perfect.
Tip #5-it’s important that the words, pictures, and overall design of the book makes sense altogether.
Tip #6-look for a text that has rhythm and/or rhyme, as well as, patterns and repetition of the words and pictures.
Finally, Tip #7-touch-and-feel sensory books are great for any age baby. But they’re especially good for newborns and infants.
“Your Musical Baby” Class Encourages Literacy
“Your Musical Baby” Class is a Suzuki Early Childhood Education program. We call it SECE for short.
I select books from the SECE Book List which were chosen based on the checklist that I just gave you.
These books were also chosen with diversity, equity, and inclusion in mind. The list keeps growing. Baby Class teachers frequently add new books to the list.
“Your Musical Baby” Class Book List
Here is the list of books that are chosen from the SECE Book List as well as my own selections:
Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown (HarperCollinsPublishers)
The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle (Scholastic Inc.)
The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle (Scholastic Inc.)
The Very Quiet Cricket by Eric Carle (Scholastic Inc.)
The Story of Martin Luther King, Jr by Johnny Ray Moore (Hachette Book Group, Inc.)
Where Is Green Sheep? by Mem Fox (Harcourt Inc.)
Orange Pear Apple Bear by Emily Gravett (Simon & Schuster)
Bunnies Near and Far by Sarah Jones (Blue Manatee Press)
Orange Triangle Fox by Sarah Jones (Blue Manatee Press)
The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss (HarperCollins Publishers)
Oh, A-Hunting We Will Go by John Langstaff (Aladdin)
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin, Jr. (Henry Holt & Company, Inc.)
Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin, Jr. (Henry Holt & Company, Inc.)
Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin and John Archambault (Simon & Schuster)
Chicka Chicka ABC by Bill Martin and John Archambault (Simon & Schuster)
The Swing by Robert Louis Stevenson & illustrated by Julie Morstad (www.simplyreadbooks.com)
The Napping House by Audrey Wood (HoughtonMifflinHarcourt)
Start Your Baby’s Library Now
You can use this book list to start your baby’s own library. There are several ways to do this. If you’re expecting, board books are always good to put on your gift registry list.
Of course, buying books online is convenient and usually less expensive than most other sources. However, I encourage you to support your local bookstore whenever you can.
The used bookstore, thrift shops, and other similar type stores are really good for getting books at bargain basement prices. Most of the time, these books are just gently used.
They should be able to survive one or two more children. Also, don’t discount what you might find in those neighborhood yard sales, either.
Regardless of how you build your baby’s library, be sure to plan a regular time every day to read to your baby. It is extremely important!
Give Your Child the Gift of One Million Words
To prove just how important it is, I want to share with you a study that was done at Ohio State University’s Crane Center for Early Childhood Research and Policy.
I’m going to leave you with this list of sobering statistics about reading to your child. In fact, it will probably make you want to run out and buy a whole shelf full of books!
So, based on certain calculations, here are how many words your child will have heard by the time they are five.
If you never read to them, then they will only hear about 4,700 words.
Read to them once or twice a week and they’ll hear almost 64,000 words.
If you read to them three to five times a week, the number nearly triples to 170,000 words.
However, if you read daily to your child, the number of words jumps to a whopping 297,000 words.
Finally, if you read five books a day to your child, they are going to hear 1,483,300 words!
Over 1.4 million words! What a gift to give to your child! It really is so easy to do, but you must plan to do it and be consistent.
Learning Together and Deep Relationships Through Music
In “Your Musical Baby” Class, the music, songs, actions, and the stories that we read contribute to your baby’s brain development and their overall growth.
The program is also designed to guide you in your daily action interactions with your child. “Your Musical Baby” Class is not just another music class for babies.
It is based on the education philosophy of violinist and teacher Dr. Shinichi Suzuki. Dr. Suzuki truly wanted to deepen the relationship between you and your child and help you to grow and learn together through music.
Begin the “Beautiful Heart Musical Journey” With Your Baby
That’s my goal for you and your baby as well. So I would like to invite you and your baby to observe an online “Your Musical Baby” Class for free on any Saturday morning.
Now I know that you’re a busy parent, so I’ve made it super easy for you. Use this link below to sign up.
Then, you’ll receive all the details you need to attend the class. This would be a great time to for you and your baby to begin your own “Beautiful Heart Musical Journey” together.
Dr Suzuki said it best when he spoke of children hearing fine music.
He said, “If children hear fine music from the day of their birth and learn to play it, they develop sensitivity, discipline, and endurance. They get a beautiful heart.”
I don’t think he would mind if I modified his quote slightly to say, “If children are read great books from the day of their birth and learn to read them, they develop sensitivity, discipline, and endurance. They get a beautiful heart.”
On the “Beautiful Heart Musical Journey” with you,
Susan
Share Your Comments
I would love to know what books you like to read to your baby. So share that with us in the Comments below. The book that each of you share may be new to someone else. We can help grow your babies’ libraries together!
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