Tag: Baby books

by Patricia Polacco

I instantly recognized the illustrator this time, when my toddler found this book on the library shelf. So I brought it home mostly for my own interest, as she hasn\’t been able to sit through the whole thing. We get to about letter H with her before she wants a different book. I assumed from the cover that the alphabet would be illustrated with different animals, or things on the farm, but instead the book is all about goats! It\’s awfully adorable. Uses the alphabet letters to illustrate everything from what names goats have (billy, nanny, kid etc) to what they like to eat, how they behave, their usefulness, their physical characteristics and so forth. I was wondering what Z would be for and the last few pages let me know: V is for vet, we think something\’s wrong– image showing a concerned girl hugging her very pregnant goat- W is for wait, X is for exciting– and at the very end, Z is for the names of three new baby goats just-born. If you know someone who loves or has goats, I think this book would be great, even if it is a toddler\’s alphabetical!

Rating: 4/5 …….. 32 pages, 2003

by Paul Hess

This lovely board book features animals that live in arctic regions. It has polar bears, penguins, seals, arctic fox, reindeer, walrus, arctic hare and snowy owl. Each spread has one painting featuring a single animal, and a narrow picture on the opposite margin showing the animal with others of its kind doing something typical. The penguins huddle together, the reindeer scatter to the horizon grazing, the seals turn in the water under thick ice. In addition the front and back endpages each have a double spread showing all the animals together in their respective habitats; the front spread has arctic animals and the back spread shows the ones in Antarctica (seals and penguins only). The pictures are richly painted and I love them all (except the arctic fox looks a little funny. His nose is too big). And of course my toddler\’s favorite animal is the walrus, whether it\’s the single walrus shown looming on a rock in front of the cold ocean, or the group of them all piled together resting.

Rating: 4/5 …….. 24 pages, 1998

by Eric Carle

Like My Very First Book of Motion, this board book has every page cut across horizontally, so it\’s really two sets of pages, top and bottom, that turn independently. It allows the reader to mix-and-match, in this case to pair up various animals with their homes. It\’s really cute and clever, with fantastic cut-paper collage illustrations. My daughter doesn\’t quite have the patience for this book though, and often gets frustrated when she\’s turning pages ahead, but the matching animal is on a prior page we already passed. But sometimes she\’ll sit through most of it. She recognizes most of the animals, and is beginning to learn that the nest goes with bird, barn with horse, etc. I find the empty turtle shell matching up to a naked-backed turtle rather odd and a bit disturbing. Yes, a turtle\’s home is in his shell, and I\’ve heard the saying that the turtle carries his house around with him. But you\’d never see a live turtle without his shell. I think it would die. So seeing a turtle with no shell on its back is strange to me.

The bat is really cute.
Rating: 4/5 …….. 20 pages, 1986 …….. find it at  

by Patricia Polacco

This lovely little book has all kinds of farm animals romping across the pages. Their noises are introduced, and the rabbits are often repeated with the phrase: bunnies say nothing at all. At the very end all the animals make their noises together (the bunnies again say nothing) and a mother with a baby shushes them. The pictures are so rich and lively that\’s really what makes this book. Each spread has literally swarms of ducks, cats, geese, rabbits, goats, dogs or whatever animal is featured. In quite a few pictures little bunnies are peeking out of the girls\’ pockets, a detail I didn\’t notice until my toddler pointed it out with delight. What\’s really funny is that some of the animals are running or leaping so exuberantly that their backs are bent in a u shape with the heels flung high above the head. This looks almost believable with the little bunnies and leaping squirrels, a bit silly with the dogs, and absolutely ridiculous with a cow!

I\’m fairly certain the original was published in another language; as the dogs don\’t say woof or ruff but buff buff. What\’s odd is that I can\’t find the source language of buff buff even though I looked. There are quite a few interesting lists online that show how onomatopoeias vary across many different languages, the most extensive one being on wikipedia, but I couldn\’t find this dog sound anywhere. (There\’s another interesting article about dog sounds in different languages here). I think the author is Russian; the costumes of the darling girls and other people on the pages have a definite flair with beautiful patterns and colors.

Incidentally, I saw a few books by Polacco featured on Rabbit Ears Book Blog before I wrote this, and thought the illustrations looked awfully familiar. I went and pulled this book off my daughter\’s shelf and for sure, it was the same artist. Now that I know she writes books for older kids too (and they look excellent) I\’ll be sure to look for them when mine is a bit older.

Rating: 4/5 …….. 32 pages, 2005

by Lucy Cousins

Very similar to Where Does Maisy Live? this board book also has flaps under which different characters are hiding. In this case, it simply starts out showing a picture of Maisy the mouse and inviting the child to find her throughout the pages. Then on each page there is a different kind of flap to open- the shutters of a window, the sail on a boat, a bunch of leaves on a tree, door of a closet, etc. under which you find all the animals and friends, before at last discovering Maisy behind the door of her own house. It\’s simple, cute, and entertaining for little hands. The bright colors are really appealing, too.

Rating: 4/5 …….. 14 pages, 1999