by L Young

Created on: August 22, 2010

At what age should you start reading to your baby? The experts don't agree, with some believing reading to your baby from about 20 weeks pregnant to be beneficial, and others leaving until about 6 months of age. My personal opinion is, it can't hurt to read to a child from birth, or even before, I enjoy it, and my babies appeared to enjoy it from an early age as well. But what books to read? Many baby books are not well written but just anything thrown together with a few pictures on the assumption babies won't know the difference anyway. I feel that if I am going to read to my babies, it might as well be good books.  I suggest choosing books you like as well, as I think babies pick up on the fact that you enjoy it. Also, I love many of the board book available, especially the touch and feel ones, but I don't think parents of babies need to limit themselves to board books. There are so many ordinary books that are wonderful for young children, and babies can learn to enjoy them too.

These are some of my favourite books for babies, starting with board books.

Board Books;

 That's Not My ________.  Usborne Touchy Feely Books. There are a whole series of these books available, all with bold bright colours, simple text and a variety of textures to feel. Our Favourites are "That's Not My Train", with its squashy wheels, shiny windows, and a lovely rough metal roof, and "That's Not My Monkey" with various soft and fuzzy bits, and a monkey with very smooth skin like feet. Theses books are also brilliant for making sounds too, so we have plenty of monkey and train sounds  to add to the fun.

Mirror Me - Baby Einstein A simple book with bright illustrations, sturdy card pages and a mirror on each page for baby and parent to make faces into.

Fisher Price Rainforest Choo Choo* A very sturdy book shaped as a train with working wheels. The train chugs through the rainforest picking up pairs of mothers and babies. Each animal makes a sound as it boards the train. You can add in plenty of chugging and whoo whooo's to keep the youngest child entranced by the book.

Where's Spot - A classic book for children and babies, I think should be on every child's bookshelf. This book is available as a very sturdy board book with extra strong flaps for little fingers to lift and pull. Spot's Mom is looking for him, "Where Can he be?" Children lift the flaps to find several different animals each of whom reply "no" when asked if he is in their hiding place,

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