A love of books is important even before your kids can read. I hope to bring to you each month some new releases for the smallest ones in your family to enjoy.
eebees adventures: clean-up time. a play and put things away adventure
Sterling Publishing
board book (6 months – 4 years)
This sturdy lift the flap book is full of colorful photographs of babies and toddlers at play with things they would use at home: pots and pans from the kitchen, towels from the clean clothes basket, shoes of different sizes). After looking at the kids playing, lift the flap and eebee reminds kids to tidy up what they were playing and even shows a photo of the items all put away or the kids tidying up. This is great when talking to kids about play and then tidying up together; it’s just part of the play. Let’s not forget to thank everyone for all their help keeping things tidy, which eebee does on the last page of the book. The flaps themselves are part of the page versus a piece of paper glued on to the page; I find this makes the pages sturdier for little hands to turn.
Raincoast Books
board book (1 – 4 years)
Most bedtime routines include a nighttime story (I still read bedtime stories to all my kids, including my 9-year old). The Night Night Book is a great story to help kids wind down from a busy day into a quiet night. The book starts with the child in bed, remembering and saying good night to all the things the child encountered during the day: night night sandbox and shiny slide. Night wagon and bumpy ride! Reading the book is also a great way to talk about your child’s day and things they would like to say night to also. The paper mosaic images used throughout the book also have a child-like quality to them versus realistic illustrations, like art a child might do to illustrate their special moments in a day. I found the rhythm to this story very calming too, just what you want for a bedtime book.
Sterling Publishing
board book (1 – 4 years)
This simple counting concept book is lovely to look at. Each page consists of a large, colourful numeric number, along with the number simply written out too. That is the only text that appears on each page, making the focus quite clear. Along with the numbers there are whimsical illustrations of animals, depicting the number on the page. An alligator in a colourful shirt and a turtle in a scarf adorn the page for number two. The background colours for each page varies too, adding to the fun. Kids will love counting the numbers as they appear on each page. Counting the animals, the numerical and written form of each number all work to help reinforce counting skills from one to ten.
DK Publishing
board book (1-4 years)
Take your kids on a walk through a farm with this fun animal board book. Each spread consists of a farm animal photo placed into a fun farm illustration with the opposite page asking what animal it is (in the form of a animal sound question: Who goes oink, oink?) Kids lift the flap to find the answer (or confirm their suspicions). Also included in part of the flap is a second animal sound question surrounded by 4 different farm images with words. The correct answer is bolded. Kids will love revealing the answer to the animal question. And the inner animal questions are treated like games, for kids to pick which of the four images makes the sound. Great for encouraging animal recognition and associated animal noises (plus everyone, mom included, will have fun recreating the animal noises). Having the words of the various items visible also helps with expanding vocabulary within the farm theme.
picture book (3-5 years)
If you like Dr Suess’ ABC book, then you’ll enjoy this. Each page calls out the letter and then offers an animal type starting with the same letter. I love the use of alliteration, giving descriptions of the animals using the same letter the animals starts with: C, cosy cobra curled up in a comfy chair. Use of descriptive words not only provides other examples of words starting with that letter but also increases a child’s vocabulary by providing other words beyond the basics to help describe something (adjectives and adverbs galore). Unlike Dr. Suess, all the animals in this story are real, except for Z (but I’ll leave that to you to discover). A fun read for kids to help reinforce the letters of the alphabet as well as letter sounds (repeating words that make the same sound).
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I want to thank Chris at DK Canada, Katie at Sterling Kids and Crystal at Raincoast books for my review copies.
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Carrie Anne is a contributing writer on No Time For Flash Cards , she is a mom of 3 , Managing editor of EverythingMom.com and an avid reader. You can catch up with her on her blog Another Day. Another Though…Or Two
Liz says
That counting book looks really cute, I love gyo fujikawa
Jen says
i think my son would love the night night book. He says night, night to me each night- it’s soo cute.