The books you and your child pick to read are very important. There is no point in choosing books that are too hard to read or not interesting to your child.

Books for baby

When choosing books for your baby to read and explore either on their own or together with you they need to be books that can be chewed, slobbered on, pull and pushed about.

Choose books that are –

• boardbooks with sturdy covers and thick pages,
• cloth books that are soft and washable,
• touch-and-feel books that encourage babies to explore,
• lift-flap books that have wonderful surprises lurking for baby.

Choose picture books with –

• big, simple and colourful pictures,
• pictures of everyday things baby is likely to recognise around them
• with one or two words

Expect that your baby will only want to chew and throw books at first but be patient, as soon as he or she realises there’s a world of new things to be learned from what’s inside they’ll want to do more with them.

Useful Websites

www.readingrockets.org/books

Reading Rockets is a U.S.A. website which includes a whole Books section of recommended (and award winning) books (indexed by theme) for kids.