Reading to your baby is one the best things you can do to develop their language and literacy skills. Reading also boosts social-emotional development, visual and spatial reasoning, cognitive development, and math skills. Plus, it boosts empathy and cultural awareness!
There are excellent books for babies, so if you’re unsure how to pick one for your baby, we’re here to help!
Books make excellent gifts for parents-to-be, baby shower gifts, birthdays, holidays, or just becuase! There’s never a wrong time to give a child a book!
Babies love bright colors, simple, bold patterns, textures, and pictures of faces. Soft cloth books or board books are ideal for babies because they can hold and mouth them without damaging the book or hurting themselves! And don’t be afraid to read a book to your baby or toddler with words they won’t understand because that’s how they learn!
Books are bonding tools, and older siblings can use them to help care for their new baby brother or sister. This will give you a few free moments and build your older child’s sense of responsibility and independence!
Based on reviews, ratings, and personal experience, we’ve created a list of ten of the Best Books for Babies and Toddlers for 2024!
*Book descriptions are taken from Amazon.com and Bookshop.org, which may be modified slightly from the original.
1. That’s Not My Unicorn… by Fiona Watt & Rachel Wells
Babies love touchy-feely books, and this book delivers on sensory input! Colorful illustrations and many touch-and-feel textures will delight your baby as you read.
Description: This sparkly, touchy-feely book features a magical unicorn to talk about and a little white mouse to spot on every page. Babies and toddlers will love turning the pages and touching the textured patches as they try to find their unicorn.
Click here to purchase!
2. Vegetables in Pajamas by Jared Chapman
We all love pajamas, and this book celebrates the joy of picking out your PJs for bedtime!
Book Description: What’s the best part of getting ready for bed? It’s picking out pajamas, of course! There are pajamas for when it’s cold, pajamas for when it’s hot, and pajamas that are mixed and matched. Pajamas for sleeping over and pajamas for sleeping in. No matter what kind of pajamas you choose, they’ll help you sleep tight.
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3. Garden Sounds by Sam Taplin
This colorful, interactive book teaches your baby about the outdoors and its many sounds! With so many things to look at, you’ll discover something new each time you read.
Description: Colourful pages show the garden and pond in the sun, rain, and at night. With simple text, holes to peep through, and finger trails to explore, this is a lovely first book about nature and the outdoors.
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4. More More More, Said the Baby by Vera B. Williams
A classic book and a Caldecott Honor Award Winner, this adorable tribute to babies everywhere makes a great addition to your child’s bookshelf!
Description: For lap time, classroom reading, or anytime, and for parents, teachers, grandparents, and anyone who enjoys chanting along “more more more” with babies. A good gift for a preschool library at home or school and baby showers.
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5. The Honeybee by Kristen Hall
This beautifully illustrated book for babies by award-winning illustrator Isabelle Arsenault will have you buzzing for joy!
Book Description: Buzz from flower to flower with a sweet honeybee in this gorgeous Classic Board Book from critically acclaimed author Kirsten Hall.
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6. Eric Loves Animals (Just Like You!) by Eric Carle
Eric Carle is the beloved author and illustrator of The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?
Book Description: Explore the animal kingdom through the eyes of bestselling author and illustrator Eric Carle with this alphabetized treasury of animal illustrations featuring beloved classic characters and exclusive, never-before-seen art.
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7. Opposites by Xavier Deneux
There are many opposite books, but none as unique as this touch-and-feel book from Touch, Think, Learn.
Description: Combining scooped-out die-cuts with raised, shaped elements, this book is designed to offer the youngest learners an irresistible opportunity to explore their universe in a hands-on, multisensory way. Seeing the image, tracing its shape, and saying its name—these modes of perception combine dynamically to stimulate understanding of essential concepts.
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8. You’re My Little Bookworm by Natalie Marshall
Rhyming books are the perfect literacy tool. They teach sounds, alliteration, and blends, and they’re fun to read! You’re My Little Bookworm is an adorable book for babies and book lovers!
Book Description: You’re My Little Bookworm is a cute rhyming story that celebrates the love between a parent and child. Each colorful spread features a sweet sentiment—a smart cookie, a gold star, and more—paired with a die-cut shape that provides a tactile reading experience.
Want more nursery rhyme fun? Then check out our videos with fun songs and fingerplays like The Itsy Bitsy Spider or The Ants Go Marching.
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9. Daddy’s Beard by Pete Hinckley
Babies love interactive sensory books, and this adorable new book has multiple textures for your baby to explore!
Book Description: Soft or scratchy, thick or patchy, babies love Daddy’s beard! In this adorable touch-and-feel board book, little hands can feel beards, mustaches, and more of all types and colors on their favorite person in the world: Daddy!
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10. Moo, Baa, La, La, La by Sandra Boyton
I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I read this book between my two sons! This classic rhyming tale with adorable illustrations is a book for babies that has stood the test of time!
Book Description: Sandra Boynton’s wildly popular Moo, Baa, La La La! features her lively and spirited text that introduces readers to animals and the noises they make. A final spread begs the little ones and their caregivers to OINK!, SNORT!, QUACK!, and MEOW! in a noisy animal ending. It’s BIG fun from Sandra Boynton in this favorite board book!
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11. Busy Penguins by John Schindel
This photographic book for babies features beautiful photographs of real penguins by photographer Jonathan Chester. It will entertain and delight your little one!
Description: These busy penguins are dashing, splashing, jumping, bumping, and going about their busy penguin lives. Young children will love to imitate the many actions the penguins are doing, while the vivid, full-color photographs will keep them engaged time after time.
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12. I Am A Baby: A Book Featuring Pictures of Real Babies by Katherine Madeline Allen
Babies love faces, especially other babies, so what could be better than an entire book of baby faces?
Book Description: Photos by Rebecca Gizicki of happy babies and words that encourage make this an irresistible read-aloud for every child and family. A delightful approach to visual learning comes from the author of the critically acclaimed A Kiss Means I Love You and Show Me Happy.
Click here to purchase or to learn more!
13. Look Look! by Peter Linethal
Bold black and white illustrations are ideal for younger infants and will engage their interest and develop eyesight.
Book Description: Look, look! Children run, fish swim, and stars shine, all for the baby’s eyes to see. This sturdy board book, complete with high-contrast black-and-white cut-paper art perfect for staring at, is just the thing for the eyes of the youngest babies. Striking and stylish, Look Look! is the ideal first board book for babies just beginning to look and learn.
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14. Close Your Eyes by Kate Banks
Add this adorable book for babies to your bedtime routine to help your little one relax and prepare for bed!
Description: A little tiger takes an imaginative journey in Close Your Eyes, a New York Times Book Review Best Illustrated Book of the Year and a Bank Street – Best Children’s Book of the Year. Alternating between real-life scenes with the baby tiger and his mother and enchanted dream scenes of sleep’s possibilities, Kate Banks’s simple, comforting text and Georg Hallensleben’s bright, colorful illustrations make this a charming bedtime story for small children.
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15. Baby Touch and Feek Trucks by DK Books
DK Books is a premier children’s book publisher with hundreds of excellent titles for babies and kids. We chose this touch-and-feel book because it provides sensory input and something all little kids love – trucks!
Book Description: Baby Touch and Feel: Trucks is an interactive and fun way to help your child learn words, shapes, and textures. Bold, bright pictures and colorful truck-inspired illustrations will be more than enough to keep your baby’s attention. This adorable picture book is a perfect first book for toddlers and an ideal baby gift.
Click here to purchase!
16. Nursey Novel Soft Cloth Book
This is not your traditional storytime book. This unique 8-panel cloth book boosts your baby’s imagination and sensory exploration and is perfect for playtime and tummy time!
Description: Professional research has shown that newborns are more attracted to high-contrast patterns than to color or brightness alone. The Wimmer-Ferguson Nursery Novel Soft Cloth Book was designed to encourage babies to learn pattern recognition.
Click here to purchase!
17. Taco Tuesday by Brick Puffinton
Taco Tuesday has become so popular there is now a children’s finger puppet book to celebrate!
Description: Follow along with a happy little taco as they try to convince you that something else is for dinner. Just don’t tell them what day it is! This silly rhyming story features a fun finger puppet toy built into the book, encouraging interactive play, hand-eye coordination, and language development in children.
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18. Everywhere Babies: A Book About Everyday Baby Life by Susan Meyers
This delightful rhyming book features adorable illustrations of babies doing everyday things—it’s the perfect book for babies!
Book Description: With an irresistible rhyming text and delightfully endearing illustrations, here is an exuberant celebration of playing, sleeping, crawling, and, of course, very noisy babies doing all the wonderful things babies do best. Every day, everywhere, babies are born. They’re kissed, dressed, rocked, fed, and completely adored by the families who love them.
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19. If Animals Kissed Goodnight by Ann Whitford Paul
This loving board book is an instant bedtime classic, perfect for saying goodnight to your baby!
Description: Featuring playful rhymes and adorable art, little ones can see how creatures, great and small, show affection. Families will giggle along as they imagine the critters that inhabit places near and far. With 3 million copies in print, this is a beautiful gift for baby showers, birthdays, new parents, or any occasion!
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20. Alphablock by Christopher Franceschelli
Bold primary colors that appeal to kids and fun pop-outs make learning the ABCs fun in this unique letter-learning book for babies!
Description: With thick pages cut into the shape of each letter, children and parents will enjoy this peek-through guessing game around the letterform itself. Sprinkles, hot fudge, and cherries hint at I’s ice cream sundae, while aquarium accessories hint at F’s fish. As readers interact with the pages, they will familiarize themselves with the 26 letters and associated words and each letter’s physicality—angles, holes, and curves, both front and back.
Click here to purchase!
Updated August 16, 2024, by L. Elizabeth Forry
