As a book junkie, there is no stronger, joy-inducing drug than children’s literature. My now eight year old and I have read thousands of books together, some of them over 100 times each. A lot of parents ask me for book recommendations. I’m always happy to share our favorites. But in my opinion, the process of searching for children’s books is more helpful than any list. Each kid reaches interests at different stages, so our books may not be the best books for you. Here’s what I’ve learned at various ages:
Infants
My baby’s first “book” was the Wittgenstein biography: The Duty of Genius. A sweet 800+ densely packed pages, coincidentally, the last book of that size I’ve finished end to end since then. I legitimately read it out loud to her, looking at her and making different voice intonations. It was both a bonding experience and allowed me some time to read something intellectual. It doesn’t help with language acquisition, but I personally feel it helps them to hear the flow of language and sentence structures. Folktales are especially fun because the sentence structure and expressions of various characters are so different from normal speech. I read a collection of tales from South Africa to her when she was a few months old and I could see her reacting to different intonations she was hearing for the first time.
Six to twelve months
Rhyming books were great at this stage — both children’s books and adult poetry. My focus was the sound and tone of language, not word acquisition. The best way to achieve word acquisition at this age is in person, through the physical environment and lots of variety of experiences.
Toddlers
So many parents tell me their children won’t sit down to read at this age. I had a super active kid with ants in her pants — and she sat down for books, even as a toddler. My belief is that kids love stories. Most parents are still reading board books at this age, trying to get their kids to learn words. I highly recommend picture story books so kids get used to the structure of a story. We started early and could read complex storylines as early as 2.5.
Preschoolers
By this stage, kids have so many different interests that I recommend specific searches based on those interests rather than reading a great book someone recommended that’s not relevant to their current obsession. I do a weekly online search through my local library system and pick up 20–35 books in person once a week. Things I look for:
- My first criteria is female leads and/or people of color leads. There is a rich trove of books that satisfies both, and most of the new books with amazing writing include intersectionality.
- It has to be a good story. Kids this age love danger and something being off. Go ahead and read about complex characters and difficult adventures — they love a good struggle.
- I love to get 1–2 adult books for each topic my daughter is reading. It makes our conversations more lively. When she went through a Moana stage, I read about Polynesian voyages and navigation. The joint interest led to a whole run of books about ships and sea discovery across cultures.
- If you’re still stuck: some of our favorite topics are insects/bugs, ships/pirates, space, environment, ocean life, artist biographies, wolves, gardening, and cooking/recipe books.
- Both you and your kid have to enjoy a book. If you don’t like it, put it aside. The kid will feed on your energy. There are too many amazing children’s books to be stuck reading a boring one.
I’m putting together a similar guide for early elementary. Stay tuned and come back for more!