children's books

[Triffid]

Hi there everyone!
Our boy Jess will be one year old at the end of this month and I'm just wondering if anyone can recommend good books for this age? Not that he doesn't have heaps already, but we're a family of booklovers so he can never have too many!
I know there was a thread about veg-oriented books and I've checked those out, but are there any other favourite books (not necessarily veg-themed) anyone's kids have?

[xmysticprincessx]

dd is 15 months. she tears up regular paper books, and actually does a pretty good job of destroying the thick cardboard books.
some of her favorites are pop up books, books with little tabs (to see something underneath), and books with the buttons that make noise. (she has a clifford book that barks. she absolutely loves doggies, so i think that's why she likes that one so much.)
haha, and another one of her favorites to carry around is "examining the scriptures daily" which is a paperback book that's 4x6 that's a jehovah's witness book that MIL gave me. for some reason, she just likes playing with it. there's no pictures, and its not very colorful.
dd had some cardboard books with foam cut outs on the cover. i would not recommend those for this age because she would bite pieces of the foam off and i was afraid she would eat them.

[feline01]

My 2-year old twins still rip up paper books so we tend to stick with the cardboard types. They love the Boynton books and now point to the animals. Goodnight Moon is one of our favorites and an absolute classic. We recently were given a great book called, "I Know My Mommy Loves Me" and then I bought the other book for my husband, "I know My Daddy Loves Me." These books have wonderful drawings and sentiment.

[Christa]

I'm sure that the author didn't mean it to be veggie themed, but I really liked the book, I love you as much when dds were little. It is a board book and has beautiful illustrations of mama animals with their babies and I thought that it was nice for kids to see mother animals loving their babies.

The words on each page say something like, 'said the mother whale to her baby, I love you as much as the deep blue sea...said that mother cow to her baby, I love you as much as....' and so on.

Here it is: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0688159788/sr=8-1/qid=1150122670/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-3291500-4824712?%5Fencoding=UTF8

[celtic-womble]

DS (9 months) is a huge fan of the Pigeon series by Mo Willems; he likes most of his work actually. I know the pigeon finds a hot dog but it doesn't actually say that it's not a tofu pup ;)

He's got a baby einstein book with mirrors in it that he loves too, he's very vain. His photo album is a big favorite too, it's squishy and filled with pictures of family and he loves looking through it trying to say peoples names.

We've discussed respecting books many times and he's pretty good about it. He knows that he has some board books that he can flap around and chew and he has grown up paper books that he needs to treat with respect. He can turn paper pages by himself already and he almost always remember not to eat them!

[kjmckenzie]

We love the Sandra Boynton books too! I also have I Love You As Much, Good Night Moon, and the Pigeon book, lol. My son also likes the Spot books with the flaps to open.

[In Fair Verona]

Those Sandra Boynton books really are fun to read (and pretty sturdy too). My older daughter is now two years old and has several of the Boynton books memorized, so she now "reads" them to our two month old! They are very colorful and filled with expressive animals that lead to lots of conversations about things like - "Which one is wearing red? How many mice are skittering?" etc. "Barnyard Dance" and "A to Z" are two of my favorites.

Another book that I really like is "You are special, Little one" by Nancy Tafuri. It is a sturdy board book filled with a variety of animals and their babies. Each baby animal asks its parents how it is special, and the parents reply with thoughtful answers about what makes that particular animal unique. I particularly like the human parents' answer to their child at the very end of the story. They say something like "Dear little one with your warm caring heart and your bright curious mind, you are so special and we will love you forever and ever and always." The book has a subtle message about celebrating diversity, a very gentle tone about families caring for their young, and a nice message about the value of a caring heart and curious mind.

[Triffid]

Thanks everyone for the ideas!
He got his first lift-the-flap book for his birthday from an uncle, and he loves it (Bedtime Bear by the Gruffalo authors) so we read that every night. We're looking for some more good flap books but he's very story-oriented so simple books with one sentence on each page just don't hold his attention for long (unless the pictures are amazing). I haven't come across any books with buttons in them though - sounds interesting!
We have Moo Baa La La La by Sandra Boynton, it was his favourite for quite a while. We planned to get a couple more of hers so Barnyard Dance might have to be next.
Goodnight Moon is indeed a favourite with both child and parents - it's lovely and he can now point to the red balloon and the kittens.
The pigeon books sound great so we'll have to get them soon.
And I love books that are about how much a child's parents love him/her or how special the child is - that sort of message can't be reinforced enough! Especially with two shy, unconfident parents, although so far Jess is way more outgoing than us!
I also recommend any books by the Gruffalo authors (Julia Donaldson & Axel Scheffler) - they're all so good.

There are too many good children's books out there and just not enough money to buy them all - it's torture!