Children's Books: Board Books

One of the hundreds of reasons that I'm more of a "toddler/kid" person than a "baby" person is that I love to read to children.  Watch You've Got Mail when Meg Ryan goes to Fox books and ends up telling some other customer what book she's looking for......this has happened to me numerous times. Probably because I'm just LOOKING for someone to half-whisper to themselves, "What to get for a 12 year old girl?" or "I wonder what my 3 year old nephew would like?" and I'm ALL OVER IT.

I should have been a children's librarian or a bookstore owner or something. But instead I'm a Mom, which allows me to pour all my love of books into my children. And let's just say that children's books are coming out of our ears.

We made these shelves for Ransom's room and I'm starting to think we should have made more. So not only does Tabitha have books in her room ( mostly of the board book variety) but Ransom has a book case plus the super cool rain-gutter shelves...

That being said, I think I'm going to do a little book series on my blog of my favorite books/Ransom's favorite books. And I suppose its best for me to start with Board Books for the under a year lot since it makes sense to go sequentially.

Many people don't think its important to read to your children when they are very young, but take it from me...its SO important. Ransom was probably about 8 months old when he first laughed at a book....and I think it teaches them so much, even if its just to sit still in your lap for a few minutes.

Here are our favorites. By the way, minor little rabbit trail rant, I HATE IT when publishers will publish a book that is for a WAY older audience in board book form just because they can! Then people end up getting a book for a child that is way over their head and they don't enjoy it and the just end up giving up....noooo gooooood! Board books should be for the tikes who still have the propensity to stick a book in their mouths or tear pages...We've got quite a few so called board books that I'm JUST NOW pulling out for Ransom because they weren't age appropriate till now. This fact confuses me.....Annnnnnnyway, there are SO many perfectly wonderful and age appropriate board books out there and after compiling my list, I realized that almost ALL these books were given to us as gifts! Thanks friends for sharing your awesome books with us, because this was definitely a category that I knew nothing about until I had a kid of my own!)

First tip: Buy ANYTHING by Sandra Boynton. I discovered her during Ransom's first year and I'm addicted. I pretty much have a girl crush on this woman because anyone who's ever had to read to a baby knows that repetition is the name of the game, and if I have to read something over and over it better be clever and extra points if its down right funny, and that is exactly what her books are!
( Follow her on twitter @SandyBoynton , she's hilarous) 
 So if I had to pick favorites of her books ( which is hard) I'd probably go with :

( you can click on any of the book's pictures to take you straight to where they can be purchased)

I'd also have to say that this one is also great (Thanks Tabitha for giving us this book) :

This one I found long after Ransom had pretty much outgrown board books but its so beautifully designed and its got such a funny surprise ending that I bought it anyway, besides the obvious reason that everybody, boy or girl, must read Austen from a young age: 

Here's another classic. Bonus: Ransom is not afraid of thunder because in the book it says, "Boom Boom Boom, Mr Brown is a wonder, Boom Boom Boom, Mr. Brown makes thunder." And so that is what Ransom says when he hears it outside. ( Thanks Miranda for giving us this book!)

The next book is part of a whole series that is fantastic in the "touch and feel" category...which babies loooooove, here's one of our favorites ( Thanks Anna for giving us this book) but there is also a train one and a monkey one, a bunny, a dinosaur...pretty much anything your kid is in to:

This next book is cool because its pretty little and is perfect for slipping into your bag for an outing at the doctors or at a restaurant. And what kid doesn't like opening little flaps to see different animals?!  ( Thank you Amber for this book!) 

And last but not least, this book has taken residence in Tabitha's room because its a board book-but Ransom will continually get it out while I'm feeding his sister and have me read it to him. He's a fan. So am I ( Thanks Leila for this book!)  : 

Obviously there are MANY wonderful board books out there! So share with me some of your favorites! I'd love to broaden my horizons with Tabitha ( the thought of having to read some of them another hundred thousand times to her definitely gives me pause! hahaha!)