Books My Toddler Cannot Get Enough Of
I had my daughter in spring 2021. I have a lot of trauma around her birth because of what happened in my body, but I also have a lot of trauma around the fact that I did not get to go to any ultrasounds with my partner, did not get to celebrate a long-sought pregnancy after infertility, and got chided for trying to buy anything in-store while my plus-size body–one that already has limited offerings available to it–expanded out of its wardrobe. I have another boatload of feelings around the reality of the life I had postpartum that only those of us who’ve been there in 2020 or 2021 really could have: isolation, a lack of parental networks, and so on and so forth.
All of that is a preface to turn in the opposite direction.
During pregnancy and after, one of the biggest joys was building my child’s first library. She still has every book that lined the shelves when she arrived, but now, they are all over her floor, all over her bed, and all over the nightstands in my bedroom. That collection has expanded beyond board books into picture books and early readers. Among the books was one of my childhood favorites–one of the few things from my childhood that I had at all, Sue Camm’s Suky The Kitten. I found the remaining titles in that 1985 board book series a few months later and purchased them for my daughter’s first Christmas.
As my daughter has grown, so, too, has her ability to self-select books. What was once a task designated entirely to the adults around her, she now has strong opinions and thoughts about the books she consumes…even if she doesn’t entirely understand what she’s seeing or reading. It felt like such a big step for her to find picture books equally as enticing as board books. To me, that felt like her growing up way too fast, but to her, it was wanting to engage in more stories, with more pictures and pages, and in more formats.
Where once I took her to the library and she had two shelves to pick from, now she has an entire half of a room at her disposal. The same can be said about how much her options expanded in our incredible local indie bookstores, too.
A long-running joke in the parenting–and frankly librarian–world is that there are some books you will read again and again and again and again to your kids and no matter how much you love those books, you will grow sick of them. I have found this to be true not because I am sick of the story but because sometimes the books are a roundabout way of delaying bedtime (we had to put a limit on the number of pages that are allowed when reading Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever because that book could be a 12-hour event).
But none of the books my toddler loves and wants to continuously read are ones I am sick of for the story. If anything, they’ve reminded me how delightful books for her age group are and how exciting it is knowing she has a whole world of books to experience in her future.
These are some of the books my three-year-old is obsessed with. Use them if you’ve got young ones in your life or if you simply want to see what a dinosaur/skeleton/cat loving toddler in today’s world finds the epitome of literature.
The Scariest Kitten in the World by Kate Messner, illustrated by MacKenzie Haley
I took my daughter to the local indie to pick up a book for Groundhog Day. She found one, but it was not as exciting as finding this little gem that same day.* As soon as she saw it, she grabbed it, climbed into the store’s rocking chair, and shrieked “Halloween! Halloween! Halloween!” at the page that flipped open.
Messner and Haley’s picture book is a lot like the classic The Monster At The End of This Book, as it pushes through the fourth wall and speaks directly to its toddler audience. It’s a funny book about a scary thing inside a creepy haunted house. Page by page, the narrator warns the reader that they can stop at any time because once they see the monster, they will never be the same again.
I do not have a sensitive reader–again, she’s obsessed with skeletons and Halloween—but this is a humorous and not-at-all scary book about a not-haunted house and the kitten who lives inside.
Memory Garden by Zohreh Ghahremani and illustrated by Susie Ghahremani
My daughter is maybe too little still for the whole story, but this is a book she brings to me time and time again to hear and more, to pore over the imagery. It’s a lush, gorgeous story about an afternoon in grandma’s garden and how that garden is a thread to her—and the young protagonist’s—cultural heritage. This book is bright and animated and it is without a doubt that which keeps my toddler coming back. I suspect as she grows into the 4, 5, 6-year-old years, she’ll be even more taken with the story itself.
Gnome by Fred Blunt
It might be the case that this book was even MORE enjoyable to me as an adult reading it than to my deeply engaged daughter. I was searching the local libraries for any kind of gnome-themed picture book to explain to the toddler what she was going to be for Halloween and found this. Mr. Gnome is a grumpy one and loves the word “no” (parents or guardians at this point are like “oh, we know that word around here”). When Mr. Gnome is told once again to stop fishing in Miss Witch’s pond, he learns the hard way what happens when you don’t use your manners when asked.
What The Dinosaurs Did Last Night by Refe and Susan Tuma
A truth about parenthood is this: if something went viral online or was widely covered on the internet in the time before you had your own child to care for, it is very likely when you encounter it, it is Brand New to you. That’s the case with this book. I had not realized when my daughter gleefully paraded it around the library that the husband and wife team who wrote and photographed this book created an entire world in Dinovember. I don’t know if you could get more fried gold than this book for sharing with a toddler. Not only is it full of funny images of dinosaurs being silly or slightly naughty, but as an adult, it’s fun to discover new things in the photos each time you return to it.
Of course, we’re still reading and enjoying board books. One that my daughter returns to frequently—and one I almost never see talked about—is the delightful board book in translation Federico and All His Families by Mili Hernández and Gómez. It’s a story of a tuxedo cat who visits a variety of diverse families every day–the cat aspect is fun, but it is seeing such a wide range of ways a family can be (same-sex parents, single parents, grandparents raising their grandchild, and so forth).
Up next on our TBR to try out for repeat readings include the gorgeously illustrated Hello, Bugs! by Nina Chakrabarti, as board books about insects have always kept her rapt (and, well, we’re in the path of the 13-year and 17-year cicada emergence this spring, so I suspect there will be a lot of questions about nature coming soon) and Christian Robinson’s Another, packed with child-friendly, energetic art. I’ve also got Loren Long’s forthcoming The Yellow Bus on our radar because my kid could not love yellow buses any more if she tried. Even seeing the cover of this book on the screen has her making grabby hands.
I could not be more grateful to be reminded just how much joy, love, and meaning there is to find in not just children’s books but in repeat readings of those books.
And honestly, I’ll never get tired of enjoying the goofy, delightful, anthropomorphic world of Richard Scarry, even if I can only take it a couple of pages a day.
*Our family’s favorite Groundhog Day book–and if you’re not a Groundhog Day fanatic like us, you’re likely not aware there are dozens of them—is Substitute Groundhog.
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