Building Baby's Library

annabenanna · July 2016

I know there's a ton of you bookworms and literary aficionados out there.

I'd like to know what books are in your baby's library (If you've already started building it) or if you haven't started, which books are "musts" in your future baby's collection?

I loved Little House on the Prairie growing up, as well as Anne of Green Gables (oh Gilbert Blythe!) and those were the books that introduced me to the wonderful world of reading. I am hoping to find awesome books for this bebe that will hopefully start his love of books.

For his 10th birthday:

Image: https://media.giphy.com/media/ffynNaSYx2yTC/giphy.gif

maf9866 · July 2016

I'm excited to see what everyone else is going to say. For my part, I am a huge reader so I have a huge collection of books for my dd. There are way too many to name that are good, but I found that Pinterest has really good lists. I also go on Amazon and look at their lists. When she was a little younger it was a lot easier to keep her interest in books that rhymed her favorite was Pout Pout Fish and Little Blue Truck. My dh and I have those memorized. Now that she's 'older' (3) she likes little golden books with characters she know and things that are silly like Don't let the pigeon drive the bus. For the future, I have already started collecting the classics since that's what I did (and still do) enjoy reading. My favorite is the secret garden.

My 2 biggest 'tips' are:
1. For those who have Amazon prime, I add all the books I want to my saved list and then I go on every few days to see if the price has dropped. I managed to get The Book with no pictures and the day the crayons quit for $9 for both when they are usually 9-12 for each. But the price drops are really random so you have to be quick
2. For those who have kids, the Scholastic Book Club is my addiction. I sometimes can't believe how little money I pay for great books. They have special deals so they can reproduce in paperback rather then hardcover. It saves money and honestly space so it doesn't bother me. Every month they have $1 books and then groups of books that come down to $1-3 per book. I have doubled my daughters collection since I rediscovered this.

maf9866 · July 2016

Oh and Kohl's Cares! The $5 hardcover books is where we first found Pout Pout Fish. We never heard of it, but we like that program so we usually buy the books they have and that was one of them. It instantly became her favorite.

Kc0825 · July 2016

I have all my books from when I was growing up. Disney books like Peter Pan cinderella, original mickey books, Winnie the pooh ect.. that we have in his library now. But also we do 25 books of Christmas the month of December. Our son really enjoys it. We've gotten books like little blue truck, Dr. Suess books, Morris goes to school, gossie by olivier dunrea (one of my son's favorites as a baby), disney has big books with lots of different stores in them bedtime favorite, mickey and Minnie, disney Jr... God gave us you and now God gave us two are great books! But I highly suggest if you're big on books the 25 books of Christmas is a good tradition to start with your little one!

waterfall213 · July 2016

I also love the Little House and Anne of Green Gables series! My mom saved all of my books so DD already has an extensive collection, she's 4 now. We just read Charlotte's Web about s month ago, her first chapter book!

For the early years some of my favorites to read are Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, Bear Snores On, the Dr Seuss bright and early board books, anything by Sandra Boynton.

kelliott09 · July 2016

My mom was also a saver of books so I have a lot of mine and my brothers' books. Where I live, Dolly Parton funds Imagination Library where your child receives a new book in the mail from birth to 5 years. Both of my boys are signed up and we've gotten a lot of good books from that. They're usually age appropriate too so babies get board books or first word books. We've gotten classics like The Little Engine That Could, Corduroy, Goodnight Moon, things like that. Definitely worth checking out if they have something like that in your area. Also, I love Dr Suess. I signed my oldest up for a Dr Suess book club when he was little, so we have a lot of those. In fact, my youngest had the cutest Dr Suess themed first birthday party!

annabenanna · July 2016

I'm so jealous that you ladies have your books from when you were little! All of mine are at my ancestral home in the Philippines.

My two stepdaughters are Jewish, so they're subscribed to the PJ Library books and get free books every month.

This baby will be half Jewish, so he'll be getting the books too!

I just want to start buying some really good ones that I know are classics.

@maf9866 , awesome tips! I'm gonna start doing that with Amazon.
@Kc0825 , definitely adding Peter Pan to this babe's collection
@waterfall213 , would it be acceptable for a little boy to read Anne of GG? I don't think he'd get the hype as much as a girl would.

@kelliott09 , I just tried the Imagination Library.

No dice for me!

kelliott09 · July 2016

@annabenanna well shoot. I know it isn't everywhere yet but it's definitely expanding! When I signed my oldest up in 2003, it was only in a few counties in my state.

westcoastfoodie · July 2016

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom was one of my fav's!!! We have a couple from when I was little, but I'm excited because we found some classic Dr. Suess books in spanish, so that will be good since DH will be speaking only spanish to the baby. Harry Potter will be a must when he gets older because DH is a HUGE fan. Perhaps we can ready them as a family, since I have never read them!

I tried the imagination library and no luck.

annabenanna · July 2016

@Julia70286, I didn't know you guys were raising baby bilingual!

I plan on only speaking spanish to this bebe, but DH is skeptical I'll be able to do it. Hahaha. Are you doing one parent-one language?

westcoastfoodie · July 2016

@annabenanna Yep! DH is Venezuelan so we want to be sure he can speak spanish with my MIL. We're going to do the one parent, one language thing and then also DH's mom and sister will primarily speak to him in spanish. I understand more than I can speak it, so it'll help me too! It's so crazy to me how much easier it is to teach a baby to be bilingual off the bat. I have been trying to learn for YEARS! Baby brains are pretty amazing.

coffee89 · July 2016

I started with second hand (but well taken care of) board books and grew with his interests (colors, cars, etc) and some cute bedtime books that we liked. No paper ever for a long time because by the time they stop drooling and spitting up, they want to the. The pages and rip them.

One thing is that every wish list we are asked for has 5 or so books on it, but I know no one really buys books for kids (I do, I'm an exception) because toys are more "fun". We save toy money and do books for birthday and Christmas along with a special trip or activity and let grandparents deal with toys.

kmvisioli · July 2016

Favorites of DS (16mos right now) so far: Chika Chika Boom Boom, Little Blue Truck, Pout Pout Fish, Where's Spot, That's Not My Dinosaur (there are a whole bunch of "that's not my..." books), Baby Be Kind, Planes (Usborne lift-the-flap), Goodnight Gorilla, Goodnight Goodnight Construction Site, Freight Train, and Hello World (by Disney It's a Small World). He loves anything lift the flap right now, and really loves little books that fit his hands (like Richard Scarry's A-Z cars and trucks). His first favorites were touch and feel books, as well as the Indestructible books which are super for in the diaper bag. We also love the All Aboard books from BabyLit.

coffee89 · July 2016

Usborne is a direct sales for books and they have an awesome selection for all ages of kids plus a great replacement policy.

annabenanna · July 2016

@Julia70286, I feel like we had this conversation before but back in first tri...and now my brain cannot recall anything that happened before last week.

I grew up in Venezuela! So cool that DH is gonna take on that responsibility. I'm hoping really hoping I get to pull it off. I know it mainly depends on me. So, the pressure is on!

westcoastfoodie · July 2016

@annabenanna I feel ya, the baby brain is no joke! Yeah I remember talking about Venezuela with you and the food... Arepas!!! Taquenos! Now I'm hungry. I'm sure you'll be fine! It'll be an adjustment, I'm sure, but you can do it!

annabenanna · July 2016

Julia70286 said:

@annabenanna I feel ya, the baby brain is no joke! Yeah I remember talking about Venezuela with you and the food... Arepas!!! Taquenos! Now I'm hungry. I'm sure you'll be fine! It'll be an adjustment, I'm sure, but you can do it!

Ahhhh, I totally remember now! The Arepas were the key to unlocking that memory! lol.

kmvisioli · July 2016

@coffee89 have you tried the Indestructibles? They are paper-like, but baby can chew and drool and tear at them all they want! They are seriously impressive. I also love that they have classic nursery rhymes but in international settings (Mary Had a Little Lamb is in Africa, or Old MacDonald is in Bolivia).

Also wanted to add that we are on our second copy of Ten Little Ladybugs because it has been so well loved.

freckledlemonade · July 2016

Tons of board books! Some of dd's favorites were: Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, Moo Baa La La La (and pretty much all books by Sandra Boynton), The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See?, Where Is Baby's Belly Button?, You Are My Sunshine, Are You My Mother?, etc etc. I could go on and on, but Amazon has a really great selection of fairly cheap board books.

At my baby shower the hosts included a card requesting a book signed with a note from the gift giver in lieu of cards. I've heard mixed feelings on this tradition on The Bump, but it was a surprise to me that they were doing it, and honestly I loved all the books I received. My daughter has been "reading" books to herself since she was very young, and now retells familiar books to herself. I'm a former K teacher, so early reading and literacy is huge in our house, and reading is already one of our daughter's favorite activities. (Proud mama!

)

Also, I recommend checking out Hello magazine, which is the baby version of Highlights. The pages are plastic covered so baby can chew on them, and they are short little interactive poems and stories.

freckledlemonade · July 2016

Also, not a board book but Mr. Tiger Goes Wild has always been one of dd's favorite books. It's such a cute story!

annabenanna · July 2016

@sidecarsareforbishes, i'm currently on the Hello website, and LOVE IT! I didn't even know this existed! Thanks for the recommendation. I just signed up to try out "Which Way USA" for free, for my 8 year old stepdaughter. Hope she loves it! I'm gonna set a google reminder to try out the magazine when baby is born.... or better yet, i'm going to add this to my registry!

ignoscemihi · July 2016

@Kc0825 We love the Gossie book series, too! So cute. Have you read any of the Duck and Goose books? My favorite is Goose Needs a Hug.

@annabenanna I loved the Anne of Green Gables books! I just reread the first last year and it totally held up. I think boys might like it, but I'm not sure they'd be into it to the same extent as girls.

Our toddler has two bookcases of books, so he'll probably end up sharing with the new little one. We got a lot of books from the library book sales (held twice a year) and Betterworldbooks.com (a B-corp that sells mostly used books and donates a percentage of profits to literacy programs). Many of our favorites have been mentioned (the Sandra Boynton books, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, the Gossie books by Olivier Dunrea). My son also loves One Fish, Two Fish (he can recite the first few pages), Old Bear and His Cub (another Olivier Dunrea series), and the Mo Willems books - both the pigeon books and the Gerald and Piggie books.

One word of warning about the Bright and Early Board Books - we thought these were just board book versions of the books, but they're actually shorter, edited versions of the stories. That was fine for Hand, Hand, Fingers Thumb, but not so great for Fox in Sox (in our opinion).

annabenanna · July 2016

@ignoscemihi, aaah, you're a bosom friend then.

I once wanted an Anne of GG themed birthday party (for my 30th bday, hahahaha), but then decided against it because only like 2 of my friends knew WTF I was talking about. "and we can serve Raspberry Cordial!".... I did get an Anne of GG cookbook for my 30th birthday though.

I'm going to check out Better World Books right now!

mothernorth · July 2016

Any and all things Seuss is a MUST. And Roald Dahl!

Kc0825 · July 2016

@ignoscemihi I have not. Honestly I didn't know there was a gossie book series. We found gossie at a second hand store when our DS was just born. But I'm definitely gonna look into that now! Thanks!

ignoscemihi · July 2016

@annabenanna Do you remember the miniseries they showed on PBS? I was obsessed.

NoraAurora · July 2016

Love the suggestions. There are so many great children's books that it makes it tough to focus on the ones they will like during the first 2-3 years. As a 1.5 year old, DS always wants to know what everything is called - so we have a lot of board books that literally just have a picture of a thing with it's name underneath. For example:

annabenanna · July 2016

ignoscemihi said:

@annabenanna Do you remember the miniseries they showed on PBS? I was obsessed.

Confession: My said 2 girlfriends who are Anne fans, and I have yearly gatherings where we just watch the mini series. LOL. Actually when I went through my divorce, I watched the mini series during all the lonely sad long nights. It gave me comfort. Hahaha.

gatorMom2014 · July 2016

I second Pout Pout Fish and Little blue truck. Our guy loved LBT so much that we had a LBT first birthday party. Also, all of the Matthew Van Fleet pull the tab books are great for little guys. The Farm one was his favorite for a long time. And he loved staring at 10 Little lady Bugs even at 2-3 months.

For when he is older, I already have the box set of all the Rahl Dahl books that I am very excited to read with them (I have tried but no interest yet, ha).

von1976 · July 2016

Since we're team green and we don't know if we're having a boy or a girl, we won't try to build up a library for the child when they are older until after they are born. But I imagine books will come and go on their own, I probably won't work too hard at it. In fact, we will probably be using the public library a lot, and then buying any that our child really loves. To get started with board books and such, I was going to visit the Salvation Army thrift store and see what they had.

If anyone has suggestions for starting up a music library, though... I'm all ears. Lullabies and kids songs and what not? I'll probably visit the public library for some CDs, too.

gatorMom2014 · July 2016

Must have CDs: Kenny Loggins Return to Pooh Corner, Okie Dokie Brothers (Through the Woods CD), Favorite Nursery Rhymes (with little kids singing--they love that for some reason), Motzart for Bedtime.

ignoscemihi · July 2016

@von1976 Caspar Babypants! It's Chris Ballew, lead singer of The Presidents of the United States of America. He does kids music as Caspar Babypants and the songs are really catchy. I sometimes listen to them when I'm by myself. His most recent album is a cover of Beatles songs (meh), but the two before that (Night Night and Rise and Shine) are both fantastic.

BarrysBride05 · July 2016

We are going on baby #2, so we have had some experience in this area. Almost anything by Sandra Boynton is and was a huge hit at our house (Small board books that we even memorized and recited to soothe a fussy baby girl while driving solo in the dark or at appts.) Eric Carle has lots of board books.
The Laura Ingalls Wilder books are available in abridged versions on Amazon. My daughter (now 3 1/2) adores the one we have and I plan to expand her collection. It makes me so happy for her to be interested in books I love in a format that can hold her attention at this age.
Highlights Hello are wonderful! It's a monthly subscription of little magazine-style books that can take being chewed, licked and getting sticky then wiped off.
We have a decent sized library. For souvenirs we buy age-appropriate books, for her birthdays she receives a stack in an ever increasing sized back pack (and this last year switched to a matching suitcase from Skip Hop).
Don't forget your public library (she got her card at 6 months. I almost waited to make a big deal out of it when she's older, but I went ahead and don't regret it). We have purchased several books that we checked out several times (Click, Clack, Peep is one).
Some other overall favorites:
Click, Clack, Moo Cows That Type
Little Blue Truck
I'll Love You Forever
Chicka Chicka Boom Boom
Say What
Guess How Much I Love You
Charles Fuge's Wonderful Wildlife 123
Happy Hippo Angry Duck, Snuggle Puppy, Little Pookie, But Not the Hippopotamus (all by Sandra Boynton)
Splish, Splash, Splosh
Giraffes Can't Dance
The Pigeon Series by Mo Willems (my husband loves them, too)
Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See (with slide)
The Little Girl Who Lost Her Name (for her 3rd birthday) It is personalized and she LOVES that is it about her

The above is just a sampling from Amazon orders if that gives any indication.

We re-read the same books over and over some days so there are times when the full library is not being accessed, but we make our way back around.

She has also been gifted Disney Princess books, Frozen, etc as she becomes interested in other things.

ETA: Books A Million has a list of 50 Books to Read Before You Are Five and I have been known to just post among my friends on Facebook and have received great recommendations that way.

BarrysBride05 · July 2016

Second Bear Snores On...there are other Bear books. My daughter is loving Bear Wants More from the Public Library. We love that Chick-Fil-A does books in kid's meals because we pick up a few here and there that way...That's how we got Bear Snores On.

BarrysBride05 · July 2016

We are all about Raffi at our house. My daughter is 3 1/2 and her sister is due October 4. He is fun, has great rhymes and isn't too campy. We have her listening to Pearl Jam and Aretha Franklin, so we kind of tend steer away from a lot of kids music, but we all LOVE Raffi (we just stream on YouTube).

ignoscemihi · July 2016

@von1976 Also, if you like the Sandra Boynton books, she's put out a few albums (with various artists singing the songs). Our favorite is the Philadelphia Chickens album.

mothernorth · July 2016

Kenny Loggins The Last Unicorn.

NicholeL16 · July 2016

We had a shower yesterday and when my stepmom sent out the invites she requested books with notes written in them instead of cards. We received a stack of great books and they all have sweet notes from our loved ones.

NoraAurora · July 2016

von1976 said:

Since we're team green and we don't know if we're having a boy or a girl, we won't try to build up a library for the child when they are older until after they are born. But I imagine books will come and go on their own, I probably won't work too hard at it. In fact, we will probably be using the public library a lot, and then buying any that our child really loves. To get started with board books and such, I was going to visit the Salvation Army thrift store and see what they had.

If anyone has suggestions for starting up a music library, though... I'm all ears. Lullabies and kids songs and what not? I'll probably visit the public library for some CDs, too.

https://www.rockabyebabymusic.com/

the above link has pretty much everything we listened to when DS was tiny. It has something for everyone, and is pleasant for naps. Plus you can find it on Pandora and listen to a whole variety (bonus if you do the paid-for pandora subscription).

annabenanna · July 2016

@NoraAurora, i just checked the link and saw "lullaby renditions of beatles songs" and now you're my hero.

maf9866 · July 2016

@annabenanna I just saw this list on Facebook. A lot of the ones we all talked about are on here and there are a few I'll be checking out too!

https://www.amothershipdown.com/2015/05/26/the-50-best-books-for-toddlers/

P.s. I don't know about anyone else but I actually really dislike The Giving Tree. Yes it's nicely written and poignant but the kid is a jerk and I can't bring myself to read it to my dd.

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